Press Releases
Return often to find important news articles, exciting happenings and special offers from the Adirondack Lakes Region press room.MALONE, NY - The painted ladies of Malone are not what you think.
"When I first walked around Malone, maybe 20 years ago, I was struck by these fabulous Victorian-era homes," Steven Englehart recalled. "They are as exuberant as you would see anywhere in the country."
Englehart, as executive director of Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH), a preservation organization based in Keeseville , has seen his share of outstanding architecture.
Painted ladies is a term originally coined in the 1970's. It describes Queen Anne-style homes painted with three or more different colors to highlight elaborate exterior decorative details. Distinctively painted gothic revival, Italianate and French Second Empire-style homes of the same period also count as painted ladies.
"What makes Malone unusual is the number of homes in good condition and concentrated in a small area," Englehart explained. The homes are located on Elm, Constable and Upper Park Streets near the Franklin County House of History on Milwaukee St., itself an Italianate mansion
In the 19th century, Malone was a hub for surrounding successful farms as well as a railroad center. Located on the Salmon River, it also supported water-powered manufacturing, including woolen, grist and paper mills, according to Anne Smallman, director of the Franklin County Historical Society. Since Malone is on the northern boundary of the Adirondack Mountains, logging contributed its share to general prosperity, allowing proud residents to construct homes whose ornate details could never be duplicated today.
For architecture enthusiasts, the Adirondack Lakes Region offers other pockets of exceptional public and residential buildings, including cure cottage architecture, which originated in the Village of Saranac Lake and is not found in such concentration anywhere else. More than 60 cure cottages remain, although some have been extensively renovated.
Cure cottages evolved to fit the specific purpose of providing outdoor bed rest to people who suffered with the plague of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the lung disease tuberculosis. By 1900, the "fresh air cure" proscribed that patients sleep in the fresh air, all-year ‘round.
Saranac Lake became a pioneer health resort because of it was removed from urban pollution, but also because of the work of Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau. A medical doctor with tuberculosis who regained his health in the Adirondacks, he established a medical practice in Saranac Lake in 1876. In 1885 he opened a sanatorium and later, a research laboratory that is now open to the public.
Since tuberculosis was epidemic and hope of cure so rare, Saranac Lake attracted more patients than the sanatorium could handle. This inspired the rise of private facilities - a cure "cottage industry."
"Cure architecture started with the Victorian architecture of the time," according Historic Saranac Lake Architectural Historian Mary Hotaling. "The houses had broad verandas and patients sat on the porches."
As time passed, existing homes were adapted by adding porches, and new cure cottages were built from the ground up.
"The cottages were often ordinary wood frame buildings encrusted with enclosed and open porches," Englehart said.
The enclosed porches generally had sliding panels of multi-pane windows. This was because the cure regimen required cross ventilation, Hotaling explained.
Since winter temperatures in the Adirondacks often drop below zero, patients found ingenious ways to stay warm in their beds on unheated porches. Crumpled newspapers stuffed between layers of clothing as insulation was one method.
A photographic inventory of existing cure cottages in Saranac Lake is available on the Historic Saranac Lake Wiki. A short walk in any direction in the village often has visitors pointing and remarking, "There's one!"
During the same era, Adirondack Great Camps, log mansions boasting bark and twig-decorated two-and-half story porches, proliferated on the Upper and Lower Saranac Lakes as well as Upper St. Regis Lake in Paul Smiths. These camps were generally within a compound that included service buildings such as guest cabins, boat houses, billiard rooms and separate kitchens (to prevent fires).
The surviving 19th and early 20th century camps are privately owned and are best glimpsed from a boat or canoe. Built by bankers, cereal heiresses and railroad magnates, the camps offered not-so-rustic comfort in rustic settings.
A great camp that you can visit was once the summer White House during the presidency of Calvin Coolidge.
White Pine Camp in Paul Smiths was the epicenter of the free world from July 7th through September 18th, 1926. Newsmen from all over the country stayed at Paul Smiths Hotel or in Saranac Lake lodging and filed their stories by telegraph when "Silent Cal" Coolidge deigned to speak.
The building of White Pine Camp began in the summer of 1907, but was not completed until 1913. According to Englehart, the camp's master builder, Ben Muncil, originated brainstorm siding, wavy-edged planking that reflected the shape of the tree from which it was sawn. One of its earliest uses was on White Pine Camp.
Most of the materials used in the building of the camp came from the site or surrounding area. In some cases, living trees were integrated into the structures.
The camp features a spare, modern feeling that was unique at the time. The asymmetrical shed roofs of the complex of buildings were to become a feature of later, modernist architectural design. Yet the massive stone fireplaces and visible wood beams still mark the camps as "rustic."
You can sleep where the president slept - or Mrs. Coolidge (she had a separate cabin). The camp's 13 sleeping cabins may be reserved. Some accommodate up to 8 people. Several are open year ‘round while others are available only seasonally. There are public tours on Saturdays in July and August.
"I love the setting, along a glacial esker that looks down on Osgood Pond," Englehart said.
Loon Lake is a gingerbread cottage colony, frozen in time. The centerpiece of the community, the Loon Lake House, burned in the 1950's. In its heyday, it served 800 guests, including three presidents. The cottages that grew up around the hotel share a feeling of Victorian leisure as well as an elaborate porch rail design.
Loon Lake is isolated. Located northwest of Vermontville on State Highway 99, also known as the Port Kent-Hopkinton Turnpike, don't let the words "highway" or "turnpike" fool you. It is a road, and sometimes a rough one.
There is no public access to the lake itself, but a drive through the community is like stepping back 100 years. Bring sandwiches, there are no amenities as of this writing.
AARCH schedules tours of unique and historic homes, including some that are not open to the public. Usually conducted during the summer and fall, the tours fill quickly.
Whether you join a guided tour or explore on your own, you'll find the built environment is as remarkable as the natural one.
GLOSSARY:
Queen Anne - architectural style favored at the height of the Victorian era (late 19th century) characterized by ornate exterior decoration, the use of multiple textures such as brick, shingles and clapboard, and towers or turrets.
Gothic revival - architectural style characterized by pointed arches, often above windows
Italianate - architectural style that is most easily recognized by the presence of large wooden brackets beneath the eaves.
French Second Empire - architectural style that features a mansard roof - flat on top, flaring below
###
