Adirondack Great Camps - Preservation

Preservation

The term "great camp" was used as early as 1916, although it was not until the late twentieth century, when preservation of these historic properties became a widely shared concern, that the term was given academic currency. By 1921, in A History of the Adirondacks, Alfred Lee Donaldson was writing that "Among Adirondack terms calling for exact definition is the word 'camp.'... If you chance to know a millionaire, you may be housed in a cobblestone castle, tread on Persian rugs, bathe in a marble tub, and retire by electric light--and still your host may call his mountain home a 'camp.'"

The realization that the camps were vulnerable came when, in 1975, Syracuse University announced plans to sell Sagamore Camp, which had been a gift to the university from Margaret Emerson. As Craig Gilborn, Director of the Adirondack Museum put it "If a college or university, regarded as the best societal steward of cultural properties, could now treat them as part of an investment portfolio, then the camps were in real jeopardy." Particularly worrisome was the fact that, under the Forever Wild provision of the New York State Constitution, if the camp were acquired by the state as part of the Forest Preserve, the buildings would have to be destroyed.

Sagamore was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. In the early 1980s staff of the Adirondack Museum recognized the Great Camps as a historic resource of the region and undertook some documentation. Gilborn, on learning that Sagamore Camp was threatened with demolition, contacted Paul Malo at Syracuse University, knowing the professor to be an architectural historian interested in regional landmarks. Professor Malo induced the Preservation League of New York State to become active in saving Camp Sagamore. Professor Malo represented the organization in negotiating with the State of New York to spare the Sagamore buildings. As president of the organization he subsequently led the Preservation League's campaign to amend the New York State Constitution in order to save the service complex buildings at Camp Sagamore, adding them to the landmark complex. The Preservation League also conducted an extensive survey of the region, identifying more than thirty properties that might be considered "Great Camps of the Adirondacks."

At the same time, Harvey Kaiser, a vice-president of Syracuse University, interviewed owners and others familiar with these historic properties, photographing the buildings in their settings. He wrote and illustrated an important 1982 book, "Great Camps of the Adirondacks," which popularized the term, stimulating wider public concern for preservation of these landmark buildings.

Shortly after demolition of the historic buildings at Sagamore Camp was averted, nearby Camp Uncas was similarly threatened. The same couple who saved Sagamore Camp, Howard Kirschenbaum and Barbara Glaser, negotiated with the State of New York, acquiring these buildings to save them.

Howard Kirschenbaum then founded Adirondack Architectural Heritage, a regional preservation organization that undertook a long, eventually successful campaign to save the historic buildings of the Santanoni Preserve.

In July 1986, a multiple property submission for registration of 10 great camps on the National Register was completed. It was certified in September 1986 by the State Historic Preservation Officer. The 10 camps covered were:

• Camp Eagle Island
• Camp Pine Knot
• Camp Topridge
• Camp Uncas
• Camp Wild Air
• Echo Camp
• Moss Ledge
• Prospect Point Camp
• Sagamore Lodge (a boundary increase to the Sagamore Camp), and
• Santanoni Preserve

These were subsequently added to the National Register in 1986 and 1987. Flat Rock Camp was added in 2006.

Both Sagamore Camp and Santanoni Preserve have since become National Historic Landmarks, in 2000, as have Camp Pine Knot at Raquette Lake and Girl Scout Camp Eagle Island on Upper Saranac Lake, in 2004.

Since the early preservation crises, appreciation of the Great Camps of the Adirondacks has increased, so that fewer seem to be jeopardy at this time (2006), though the properties are large and costly to maintain.