This compact program highlights three gilded age architectural treasures: Camps Pine Knot, Uncas, and Sagamore. With a guide, you’ll explore the buildings and grounds of each historic site. This is the only experience of its kind welcoming visitors to these three camps on one occasion.
As we visit each camp, we’ll learn the story of their visionary, William West Durant. He dreamed that by building lakefront luxury estates, he’d attract ultra rich buyers to the Adirondack wilderness. These 1890s compounds were designed with bark-clad siding, native stone, and robust beams of locally harvested timber, but spared no new technology. Equipped with running water, electric light, and other innovations, Durant’s buildings still appear to have risen up out of the earth. They blend perfectly with the rocky lakeshores of the central Adirondacks. This program allows you to learn, sleep, and dine among these idyllic examples of rustic architecture.
While visiting each property, we’ll learn about the colorful ensemble of historic characters who once lived there. The lives of Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan, and Collis P. Huntington intersected in the piney woods of Raquette Lake, where they all purchased Durant’s properties. We’ll delve into the story of Margaret Emerson, Alfred Vanderbilt’s second wife, as well as the stories of those who worked at these opulent camps, such as Richard Collins, Sagamore’s first superintendent. These stories intertwine as we discuss the camps’ rich histories.
On top of the guided tours, this experience includes an introduction to the great camps, a lunch cruise aboard the W.W. Durant steamboat, a sunrise paddle, evening campfire, and all the amenities and opportunities of a stay at Great Camp Sagamore.
If you have any questions please call (315) 354-5311.
