GREAT CAMPS STYLE OF ARCHITECTURE
Sail past many of the Great Camps built by William West Durant and other entrepreneurs who later sold to such luminaries as Collis P. Huntington, Governor Phinneas Lounsbury of Connecticut, the Robert Collier publishing family and the Carnegie family. Captain Dean Pohl's narration helps bring the history of the Gilded Age alive.
What is the Great Camps style of architecture?
Great Camps are compounds of buildings meant as a self-contained (often self-sustaining) seasonal retreat for a wealthy family, mimicking a tiny rural village. Great camp architecture reached its peak around the dawn of 20th Century, as the industrial magnates of the Gilded Age were spending their fortunes on ways to escape the crowded and polluted cites of the Northeast. Each building served a separate purpose, with dining halls, libraries, game rooms, blacksmith shops, boathouses, carriage houses, barns, farms, guest quarters, servants’ quarters and lounges.
Many great camps fell into disrepair as the wealthy owners passed away or lost their fortunes in the Great Depression. Some were later purchased by scout groups and other institutions that had the means to keep them in order.
Perhaps the two most important features of Durant's great camps are his use of the landscape to conceal the buildings from view until you are right next to them, and his use of whole logs, rock and bark to create a rustic look that matched the landscape but also provided great comfort within. It was a combination of the American log cabin and the opulent European ski chalet. The style has been widely emulated, serving as the prototype for nearly every major lodge and administrative structure built by the National Park Service, including Yellowstone Lodge in Montana.
- By John Warren, Adirondack Almanack
Below are pictures of other Great Camps you will cruise by and hear about aboard the WW Durant.
Durant’s Three Great Camps on or near Raquette Lake
Pine Knot (Collis P Huntington's place). First Great Camp built, but second to be declared.
Camp Pine Knot, also known as Huntington Memorial Camp, on Raquette Lake was built by William West Durant. Begun in 1877, it was the first of the "Adirondack Great Camps" and epitomizes the "Great Camp" architectural style. Elements of that style include log and native stonework construction, decorative rustic items of branches and twigs, and layout as a compound of separated structures. It is located on the southwest tip of Long Point, a two mile long point extending into Raquette Lake. The camp consists of some two dozen buildings, including a seven-room "Swiss Cottage", four "Log Cottages" of one to three rooms, two frame cottages of three and five rooms, a "Glass Dining Room", and a five-stall horse barn and wagon shed. Covered walkways connect many of the buildings. There was also the Barque, a 20 by 60 foot four-room bark cabin built on a log raft, used to escape from the dreaded black fly in the spring. It was fully equipped, with a kitchen, bath, and running water.
Pine Knot was started by Durant's father, railroad developer Thomas C. Durant, as a showplace to draw investors to Durant's holdings, but it was William West Durant who would develop it into the remarkable model for Adirondack Great Camps to follow. In 1895 West sold the camp to wealthy industrialist, Collis P. Huntington.
The camp went unused from the start of the 20th century until 1947, when it was sold to the State University of New York at Cortland for 1 dollar, for use as their Outdoor Education center. Due to the soundness of its construction, despite its long disuse, the buildings required little repair. The Barque has been rebuilt.
The camp was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2004. For more information and photos go to
http://www.sthubertsisle.com/page169.html
Uncas (JP Morgan's place). Second Great Camp built, but last to be declared.
Camp Uncas, begun in 1890, was the second Adirondack Great Camp built by William West Durant for his own use, after Camp Pine Knot, which he sold to industrialist Collis P. Huntington, due to financial difficulties. It was built on the shore of 110-acre Lake Mohegan, near Sagamore Camp. Uncas was completed in two years.
The camp was built of logs felled on the property, and all iron hardware was forged on site. In the main lodge and dining hall, the log construction was unusual in that the logs were not interlocked, as in conventional log buildings, but rather were pinned together at beveled corners. The scale is massive: the dining hall is 24 by 36 feet, the walls 12 feet high at the eves with a cathedral ceiling 20 feet high at the ridge, with a huge fireplace at one end. Floors, walls and ceilings were all of polished planks and peeled and polished natural logs.
Durant sold Uncas to J. Pierpont Morgan in 1896, with 1,100 acres. After Morgan's death in 1913, the camp stayed in the Morgan family until 1947, when it was sold to the widow of Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, who also owned Sagamore. General and Mrs. George Marshall, as guests of Mrs. Vanderbilt, entertained Madame Chang Kai-shek at Uncas in 1949. Mrs. Vanderbilt left Uncas to a foundation, which sold it. Eventually it was bought by the Rockland County Boy Scouts who used it as a Camp, the scouts sleeping in tents while the leaders reveled in the camp's luxuries. In 1975, it was returned to private use. Uncas is not open to the public.
The camp was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2008. For great photos and more information go to http://www.galenfrysinger.com/new_york_camp_uncas.htm
Sagamore (Alfred Vanderbilt's place). Last Great Camp built, but first to be declared a National Historic Landmark.
Sagamore Camp was constructed by William West Durant on Sagamore Lake between 1895-1897. Durant was the son of Thomas C. Durant (1820–1885), a railroad tycoon and financial manipulator who briefly gained control of the Union Pacific Railroad during the 1860s, and whose machinations resulted in the 1872 Crédit Mobilier scandal. By the 1870s Thomas Durant had become the largest private landowner in the Adirondacks, and he had delegated his son to develop portions of his holdings for future sale to the moneyed elite. Prior to Sagamore, William Durant had constructed Camp Pine Knot (purchased by Collis P. Huntington) and Camp Uncas (once owned by J. P. Morgan). All three camps are still in use today.
The camp is arranged in two complexes a half-mile apart, the Upper, or worker's complex, and the Lower, or guest complex. The guests would not have frequented the workers’ complex, as the buildings here are much more utilitarian than those in the Guest complex, and without the embellishment of the buildings designed for entertaining. Sagamore served as a sylvan setting in which the richest families in America could relax, party, and get a feeling of returning to nature. All of this, however, was accomplished without leaving the comforts of civilization behind.
In 1901 Durant was forced to sell Sagamore because a lawsuit by his sister over his mismanagement of their mother's estate had pushed him to the edge of bankruptcy. It was purchased by Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, who expanded and improved the property to include flush toilets, a sewer system and hot and cold running water. He later added a hydroelectric plant and an outdoor bowling alley with an ingenious system for retrieving the balls. Other amenities included a tennis court, a croquet lawn, a 100,000 gallon reservoir, and a working farm. Vanderbilt died in 1915, a victim of the Lusitania sinking, leaving Sagamore to his widow Margaret Emerson, an avid sportswoman who continued to occupy the camp for many years.
Mrs. Emerson transferred the property to Syracuse University, which operated a conference center here until the State of New York offered to buy it. Acquisition by the State as part of the Forest Preserve would have required demolition of the historic buildings, because of the "Forever Wild" provision of the New York State Constitution. To avert this, the Preservation League of New York arranged with the State to take title, transferring the property with deed restrictions to a not-for-profit institution that would provide suitable occupancy. The camp was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2000. The historic camp is now run by Sagamore Institute of the Adirondacks, Inc.
Great Camp Sagamore (so designated to distinguish it from The Sagamore Hotel on Lake George) has continued to function as a conference center from May through October and is the only Great Camp open to the public for daily tours. For fabulous photos go to Sagamore’s website www.greatcampsagamore.org or visit http://www.galenfrysinger.com/new_york_sagamore_camp.htm
Bluff Point, Collier's Estate
Echo, Gov Lounsbury's Camp
St. Williams on Long Point
