Great Camps Of The Adirondacks

The author does a thorough job in explaining the beginnings of rustic architecture and why it has a permanent place in the culture. The mix of social background and the history of the early Adirondack camps provides a designers guidebook.

The complete guide to the historic great camps and Adirondack Rustic Style architecture.

A comprehensive social and architectural history of camps in the Adirondacks, from primitive bark shanties and cabins of trappers, loggers and guides to the great camps where the rich played at roughing it in the company of servants and personal guides.

This is the definitive book on the style, architecture, design, and natural beauty of the Adirondack Great Camps. The Adirondack Great Camps as well as their furnishings are some of the most iconic of American architecture and design. Harkening back to nineteenth-century tycoons and continuing today, this style is driven by the call to a simpler life in harmony with these mountains. Approximately forty of these camps both historic and contemporary and their glorious environments represent this celebration of one of America's true regional treasures. An afterword by a curator of The Adirondack Museum highlights the craft tradition of the Great Camps. The wild beauty and serenity of the Adirondacks have always attracted those who sought a simpler life and a connection to nature. This is a land of spectacular beauty, with iconic elements such as the sugar maple and white birch; bobcat, beaver, and moose; majestic loon and great blue heron. It should come as no surprise then, that the robber barons and business tycoons of the 1800s turned to this leafy haven to escape the urban jungle. They constructed compounds in and around Raquette Lake as rustic getaways, and these grand structures became known as the Great Camps of the Adirondacks. Each Great Camp was more beautiful than the next. The rough-hewn, timber exteriors contrasted the elegant interiors, which included complex stonework and hand-carved furniture. Natural elements such as tree roots, fungi, twigs, and bark, often played an integral part in the décor--the simple yet elegant Adirondack chair has become an international symbol of leisure. Today, approximately 40 Great Camps have survived, including 10 that are National Historic Landmarks. Some are open to the public as landmarks and lodges, while others remain in private hands. These structures echo the greatness of their past and enhance the natural beauty of the region, while providing us with a link to our nation's rich history of environmental preservation balanced with economic growth. Just the list of camp names reads like a history of the Adirondacks: Sagamore, Hedges, Pine Knot, Waldheim, The Point, Santanoni, Top Ridge, White Pine, Clear Lake, Prospect Point, Northbrook, Whiteface Lodge, Carolina, Regis/Applejack, Gull Rock, Huntington, Pritz, Three Star, Wononah, Wellscroft, Birch Point, Pinebrook, Hemlock Ledge, North Point, Bluff Point at Raquette Lake, Lake Placid Lodge, Moss Ledge, Wildair, Winnetaska, Boulder Isle, Sekon, Kildare, Uplands, Minnowbrook, Uncas, Covewood, Big Moose Chapel, Potluck, Albedor, and Paownyc.

An Elegant Wilderness: Great Camps and Grand Lodges of the Adirondacks, 1855 - 1935 by Gladys Montgomery, recounts the story of the private retreats of the Gilded age industrial rich who traveled north from New York City to experience wilderness. Light