Customer Reviews

Great Camps of the Adirondacks

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From the 'opening' of the Adirondacks in the 18th Century to the present, Harvey Kaiser delivers a premier photographic history of the Great Camps of the Adirondacks. Exploring the architectural history from an owner's whinsey to the details of a porch railing, Kaiser guides the reader through a history of gorgeous excess and an age of bountiful richness that few knew. Camp Uncas (owner J.P. Morgan), Topridge (Marjorie Merriweather Post) and Nehasane (Dr. William Seward Webb) are just a few of the detailed highlights showcased in this volume. Many of the larger hotels and lesser known camps (and castles) are photographed and discussed here at length. This book is not just for the architect, builder or historian. It is a display of architectural beauty build into a unique and mysterious landscape. It is a history never to be repeated and never to be forgotten.

The discovery of this book made me set aside all the others on rustic architecture. The author does a marvelous job in explaining the beginnings of rustic architecture and why it has a permanent place in our culture. The mix of social background and the history of the early Adirondack camps with superb photographs provides a designers guidebook. The arguments for historic preservation are skillfully written and should be read by anyone in the field.

Brings you the history and images of the Great Camps that help make the Adirondacks the Adirondacks. Well illustrated and well written, relating more history than a coffee table book and so more likely to hold your interest and provide insight. The history is social as well as architectural/formal, and puts the region and its unbelievable heyday in perspective. A good gift, or would be fun as a guide or trip planning tool for a visit to the region to get the most out of what there still is to see.

My wife and I just returned from a unique Winter weekend at the Point, the former Wm. Rockefeller camp on Upper Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. The trip there when the camp was constructed in the early 1930's was apparently quite daunting, but our Cape Air flights to and from out of Logan were smooth and not too small plane intimadating.

This facility is described in Professor Kaiser's beautiful coffee table book on pages 164-5. The book contains beautiful pictures of a bygone era when the rich and famous Summered and even Wintered in this unique area of little mountains and stunning lakes at elevations of over 1500 feet, so the temperatures in Summer were cool and refreshing compared to their city homes in the coastal cities.

The Point camp comprises a collection of handsome log structures, featuring the main lodge where the food service and living room area reside along with several of the total of 10 guest rooms.

The other buildings include a pub with bar and pool table downstairs and two guest rooms upstairs, while the lake front lodge where their three small boats are berthed has only one bedroom, but a magnificent porch on the lake. Our two unit lodge room which we were told was the room where Mr. Rockefeller stayed, contained a copy of Kaiser's book. So it was in great comfort in front of a roaring fireplace that we learned about this chain of camps, now mostly relegated to other than tourist uses, except for the Point.

If one wants to vicariously experience the era Kaiser describes, buying this book will do the job at a fraction of the cost of staying even for a weekend at the Point. However, the service and food and the Winter scene at Saranac Lake made my wife and me feel that we had gotten our money's worth.

I'm giving this the best review - but, I admit, I am the son of one of the owners of a house mentioned in the book! The house is Kildare Club. However, I'm unbiast! (SORT OF)
Anyway, I think it is an interesting book that is certainly worth reading and it revealed alot to me that I hadn't discovered about the Great Camps of the Adirondacks. (NOTE HOW I CLEVERLY INSERTED THE TITLE IN ORDER TO DELIVER A SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE. HEHE!