Historic Lodges & Great Camps of the Adirondacks
No mountain region in the Northeast has a more specific historic lodging tradition than the Adirondacks. The Great Camps — multi-building compounds built by New York and Philadelphia industrialists from the 1880s through the 1920s — are an architectural category unique to this region. The names read like a Gilded Age guest list: Morgan, Vanderbilt, Durant, Rockefeller, Coolidge. Several of these camps have been preserved and are accessible as lodging, conference centers, or public historic sites.
7 Properties
The Hedges on Blue Mountain Lake
Blue Mountain Lake · Resort
A Great Camp on Blue Mountain Lake that started in 1880 as the private summer retreat of Civil War colonel Hiram Duryea, was bought at auction by the Collins family, and opened as a resort in 1921. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009 and one of the very few historic Adirondack Great Camps still operating as a functioning resort. Weathered cottages along the shoreline, a main dining lodge, and a lake that has changed very little in a century. The Adirondack Experience museum is at the southern end of Blue Mountain Lake.
Great Camp Sagamore
Raquette Lake · Lodge
Built by William West Durant in 1897 and sold to Alfred Vanderbilt in 1901, Great Camp Sagamore is a National Historic Landmark on a private road off Route 28 in the central Adirondacks. All 27 original camp buildings remain standing — the main lodge, boathouse, recreation hall, staff quarters, and outbuildings — making it one of the most intact Gilded Age great camps in existence. Now operated by the Sagamore Institute for cultural programming: history tours, guided paddles, summer concert series, and multi-day overnight stays with family-style meals. Reservations required; this is not a drive-by.
Hotel & Camp Saranac
Saranac Lake · Hotel
A 1927 hotel restored and reopened in 2019 as Hotel & Camp Saranac, with 92 rooms across the historic building and an expanded annex. The two-story lobby — high ceilings, dark wood, a sense of civic weight — is the social center of downtown Saranac Lake. Camp Saranac, the rooftop bar, has views over the treetops and the surrounding mountains. The only full-service hotel with a restaurant and bar in downtown Saranac Lake. The Wild Center and the Saranac Lake Islands are both within a short drive.
Adirondack Hotel
Long Lake · Hotel
The only hotel from the 19th-century Adirondack era still operating in the Park. The original Kellog's Lake House on this site burned in 1898; the current four-story building was rebuilt by 1899 and expanded with a formal dining room and additional rooms in 1914. Twenty renovated rooms across the upper floors; restaurant, taproom, and sitting room below. Located across from the Long Lake town beach, with Helm's seaplane rides at the dock. Carol Young has owned and operated the property since 1990.
The Sagamore Resort
Bolton Landing · Resort
A resort on its own island — Green Island in Lake George — operating since 1883. A private bridge connects the island to the mainland at Bolton Landing. The property includes the grand main hotel, lakeside cottages, a Donald Ross-designed golf course, a full-service spa, and water sports on Lake George. Multiple restaurants, including the formal Sagamore Dining Room. The most established full-service resort complex on the lake, now part of the Opal Collection.
The Bark Eater Inn
Keene · Inn
A working farm and inn in Keene that began as a stagecoach stop on the route between Lake Champlain and Lake Placid in the early 1800s. Joe-Pete Wilson, a former U.S. Olympic cross-country ski team member, took over the family operation in the 1970s, expanded the trails, and named it the Bark Eater. Six rooms in the historic main farmhouse and two secluded cabins in the woods. Farm-fresh breakfast included. Horse paddocks and a network of groomed cross-country ski loops on the property.
The Waldheim
Saranac Lake · Cottages
Seventeen housekeeping cottages on the shore of Big Moose Lake in the central Adirondacks, continuously operated since 1904 and owned by the Bowes family since 1951. Cottages range from one to five bedrooms, each with a living room, wood-burning fireplace or stove, and a porch overlooking the lake. No phones, televisions, clocks, or radios in any cottage. A wood boy starts a fire in each cottage early every morning and keeps the porch stocked with wood. Seasonal: May through October.
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Browse Now →What Makes It
- •White Pine Camp in Paul Smith's served as Calvin Coolidge's Summer White House in 1926 and has been preserved and restored as a National Historic Landmark. Guests can stay in the same cottages that housed the presidential party — a level of historic specificity that's rare in American lodging.
- •The Sagamore Great Camp on Raquette Lake was the estate of William West Durant — the man who essentially invented the Great Camp form — and later owned by Alfred Vanderbilt. It operates as an education and retreat center with lodging access.
- •Lake Placid's built environment includes several early-20th-century properties that predate its transformation into an Olympic village — the legacy of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics is layered on top of a pre-existing resort culture with its own interesting hotel stock.
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