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| Home | Articles | Historic Hotel: The Sagamore, Bolton Landing, New York |
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by Christine Temin
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Arial view of The Sagamore.
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Adirondack chairs; chandeliers made of antlers; walls lined with birchbark: All give a sense of where you are when you step inside The Sagamore. Set on an island just off the shores of Lake George at the base of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, the hotel dates back to the late1880s when Americans were increasingly attracted to the recreational lures of the region. First made famous as the site of important battles of the French and Indian War and then the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson (visiting the area in the last year of the Revolution) later wrote that the lake was "the most beautiful water I ever saw."
The 1826 publication of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, also set around Lake George, inspired painter Thomas Cole (1801-1848) -- one of many notable artists attracted to the area -- to create Landscape Scene from the Last of the Mohicans (The Death of Cora), a dramatic view of towering rocks and brooding clouds, with pale, ethereal mountains in the distance. The same views are still there today, enticing Sagamore guests to boat on the tranquil waters or hike in the nearby hills.
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Afternoon tea is still served on the Sagamore's veranda
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Golf is played on the same course constructed in 1928 by the legendary Donald Ross.
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Tourism in the area was at first a macho affair, with men coming to fish and hunt. Myron O. Brown changed all that. In 1881, Brown, then the manager of the Mohican House, one of the earliest hotels in the region, persuaded several wealthy businessmen to form the Green Island Improvement Company. One of the "improvements" was The Sagamore (a word for Indian chief). A bridge was built to connect the seventy-two acre island with the mainland. Docks were erected early on for visitors arriving by steamboat.
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On July 2, 1883, the hotel opened. Designed by the Philadelphia firm of Wilson Brothers, it was in the Queen Anne shingle style, with turrets, balconies, and gables, and could accommodate 400 guests. Among the amenities was a hydraulic elevator, a telegraph office, and even, in some rooms, private bathrooms -- not a given in every good hotel of the era.
The Sagamore burned down not once, but twice over the next three decades. Despite the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression, the third Sagamore, the one still standing, opened in 1930 and actually turned a profit that year. The building, with its four wings spreading out from a lobby topped by a signature tower, remains essentially unchanged. Among memorable events the hotel has hosted was the 1954 Governors Conference, with then Vice President Richard M. Nixon in attendance. (A photograph of Nixon taken at the conference shows him swinging a golf club and wearing his trademark scowl.)
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The Sagamore now has 350 rooms situated either in the main hotel, the seven rustic lakeside lodges, condominiums dotted around the property and, most impressively, a Tudor-style "castle" that can accommodate twelve people. The conference and fitness facilities are state-of-the-art; the spa offers such site-specific treatments as a Sacred Earth Healing Ritual based on Native Americans' use of medicinal herbs combined with aromatic steam and massage. Boating options include a high caliber sailing school or lunch or dinner cruises on The Morgan, a replica of a nineteenth-century touring vessel that weaves among the lake’s islands, still largely unpopulated. Golf is played on the same course constructed in 1928 by the legendary Donald Ross. For those who want to venture off the property, a 45-minute drive will take you to Saratoga Springs, home to the famous race course and the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, summer home of the New York City Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Afternoon tea is still served on the Sagamore's veranda, with its wicker chairs and rag rugs. Décor in the lodges includes twig furniture. Lining the hotel's walls are old photographs of ladies in long coats and immense hats watching men in knickers playing golf, and a framed copy of a dinner menu from 1897 features seven courses accompanied by five wines. Updated though The Sagamore may be, it takes every opportunity to remind today’s guests of its past.
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Christine Temin is the former art critic of The Boston Globe and now writes for various international publications
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The Sagamore is located at 110 Sagamore Road, Bolton Landing, New York 12814.
Telephone 518.644.9400; www.thesagamore.com.
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