Lake Buel - Private Cottages

Private Cottages

The first private cabin on Lake Buel was built in 1881 by Dr. Willard Rice, a Great Barrington dentist. In 1894, the lease was transferred for $1 to Charles Booth and John England who renovated the building, raising height of the roof, adding a kitchen, and enlarging the porch around a birch tree. It became the Mahaiwe Club, for men only. In the early 1900s Great Barrington's Sedgwick School, a boy's private school, built a cottage north of Turner's for its students' recreation.

In 1904 there were 21 buildings on Lake Buel, 8 in Monterey and 13 in New Marlborough. Pre-1920s private cottage names included: Camp Tee-Hee, Wildwood, Dewdrop Inn, Brookmede, Woodycrest, Sunset View, Lake Breeze, High Lawn, The Maples, Kamp Kozy, Highwood Hall, Bay View, Camp Runamuck, Merry Wood, Sunnybank and Kamp Kontent.

In the 1930s, New Marlborough had no zoning laws on the books for lot size requirements along the Lake. Between 1933 and 1941 Gibson sold over a dozen lots of varying sizes and shapes in the Lakeside community, and seven more by 1947. The last lot was sold in 1959.

In 1971 the Hebert family purchased neighboring wetlands and began filling it with gravel. Cottages were built on the landfill and eventually sold. The area was known as Cavity Cove and Cavity Row.