Great Camps of the Adirondacks

by Harvey H. Kaiser, Steven Engelhart (Foreword by)

Overview

The greatest rustic homes ever built, inside and out, by the lakes and in the forests of the Adirondacks. Includes the social and architectural history behind each camp and the highlights of design (the windows, verandas, fireplaces, doors, beds, staircases and much more) that makes each one unique.

From the mid-1870s to the late-1930s, Americans including the very wealthiest New Yorkers, sought out the wilderness. The camps they built as private seasonal retreats are distinguished as architectural responses to the Adirondack environment, of buildings blended into the forest and the natural contours of the mountains and lakes—homes built to serve as beautiful complements to the land itself. This was a cohesive approach to building that author Harvey H. Kaiser named Adirondack Rustic Style. It is style that continues to inspire new builders and homeowners today.

The camps, many National Historic Landmarks, include:

— the multi-building Camp Katia with its boathouse and pier
— the gable screen of spruce columns of Lady Tree Lodge
— the architecturally creative, Camp Uncas including a dining hall with massive windows and fireplace
— Camp Wild Air, only accessible by water on Upper St. Regis Lake
— the grandest of them all, Camp Sagamore, a self-sufficient family camp in a 1,500-acre preserve

In 1982, Kaiser wrote the first edition of Great Camps of the Adirondacks and helped launch a campaign for the preservation of these architectural treasures. Now, in this new, enlarged edition, preservationists will find a success story. Homeowners and builders will discover page after page of inspiration. All readers will see the history of a region unfold as urban Americans discovered what it meant to leave the city and live with nature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781567926422
Publisher:	David R. Godine, Publisher
Publication date:	06/09/2020
Series:	Great Camps of the Adirondacks , #2
Pages:	293
Sales rank:	299,434
Product dimensions:	9.50(w) x 12.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Harvey H. Kaiser served as the Senior Vice President for Facilities Administration and UniversityArchitect at Syracuse Universitybetween 1972 and 1995. His 1982 book Great Camps of the Adirondacks popularized the term "Great Camps" to refer to the grand summer residences that wealthy families built in the Adirondack Mountains in the nineteenth century, and revitalized interest in these sites. Several studies on western national park architecture culminated in his 2008 book The National Park Architecture Sourcebook.

Steven Engelhart is the executive director of Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH) located in Keeseville, New York. AARCH is a private, nonprofit. historic preservation organization for New York State's Adirondack Park, whose mission is to promote better public understanding, appreciation, and stewardship of the region's architecture, communities, and historic sites.

Read an Excerpt

From Chapter One: The Adirondack Rustic Style

The camps in the Adirondacks, built as private seasonal retreats by and for people of means, are designed in the distinctive Adirondack Rustic Style, which is defined by its responsiveness to the Adirondack environment. This is seen in its relationship to site, use of multi-building complexes, and reflection of a rustic aesthetic in structure and applied ornamentation. The design and siting respond to the Adirondack wilderness by fitting the structures non-intrusively into the forest and in a sense becoming a part of it. Materials and coloring reflected the forest as well-many use earth tones for the exteriors, for instance.

This book codifies these into four characteristics:

1. Responding to the Adirondack Environment: using indigenous materials such as log and stone for both structure and decoration, reflecting the forest and the wilderness. The Adirondack Rustic Style is designed to fit in to the environment.

2. Integration of buildings with a site by non-intrusive site planning and design: blending the buildings of the camp into the forest and the natural contours of the mountain and lake setting. Camps built in remote locations, often in the midst of thousands of acres of undeveloped forested lands, were sensitively integrated into the untamed landscapes.

3. Rustic aesthetic: use of a picturesque concept and details in methods of construction, building materials, and ornamentation. Rustic furnishings, granite cut-stone fireplaces, and twig-and-branch decoration reinforced the ensemble's aesthetic. A surging interest in naturalistic forms and the Picturesque movement as advocated by Andrew Jackson Downing in the 1840s and 1850s was adapted to an Adirondack design ethic.

4. Multi-building complexes: use of separate buildings for separate functions informally arranged in a distinctive compound plan, so that the plan encompasses existing natural site features-allowing the camp to merge with the natural landscape rather than dominating it. Perhaps originally inspired by logging camps with separate buildings devoted to separate functions, more sophisticated designs gradually merged clusters of small rustic buildings into a larger camp.

Fifty to sixty great camps possessing these traits were constructed in the period spanning the mid-1870s to late-1930s. These were later supplemented by between ten and twenty new camps, and they provide ample support for the premise of a unique architectural style. These were building complexes designed to provide comfort while conveying a rustic appearance and providing a wilderness experience.

Editorial Reviews

Great Camps of the Adirondacks is worth its weight in gold, an Adirondack classic that, like its subject, has undergone a renaissance. The beautifully executed book tackles its subject from every angle.”—Adirondack Explorer

From the Publisher