THE

ADIRONDACK
ARCHITECTURE
GUIDE

The first and definitive architectural guide to the Adirondack Park.

The Adirondack Architecture Guide enables readers to find buildings and sites, to learn something about them, and to understand them in the context of Adirondack history and culture. The Guide is being produced as three books covering the Southern-Central, Eastern, and Northern Regions. Read More

By Janet A. Null

Eastern Region Tours

Southern-Central Region Tours | Eastern Region Tours

From the southern boundary of the Park in Queensbury to the northern boundary at Valcour, the Eastern Region encompasses the historic military, commercial, and settlement corridor of Lake George and Lake Champlain, including the primary agricultural and mining areas of the Adirondacks, many architecturally distinguished communities, and the earliest and most dense tourism-related development in the Park.

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Southern-Central Region Tours

Southern-Central Region Tours | Eastern Region Tours

From the southern boundary of the Adirondack Park to the High Peaks, and from the western boundary to the Adirondack Northway (I-87), the Southern-Central Region includes early Adirondack gateway communities built on the lumbering and tanning industries, as well as capturing the growth of tourism in the interior from private camps on lakes such as Raquette, Big Moose, and Piseco to tourism-based centers such as Old Forge, Speculator and Long Lake.

1click map to enlarge

News & Updates

New tours for The Adirondack Architecture Guide - Eastern Region have just been posted. Download now and enjoy both the Village of Lake George and the Hamlet of Essex.

Also posted are the essays “Settlement in the Adirondacks” and "Rocks and Trees: Adirondack Building Materials".

Book Review by Wes Haynes

“… the guide succeeds as exemplary in presenting a difficult region’s built diversity accurately and with substance and authority.” See the full review by Wes Haynes from the APT International Bulletin here.

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Visit the Facebook page for the latest news, conversation and Featured Buildings from The Adirondack Architecture Guide. Janet Null on Facebook

Preview the Eastern Region

Preview the upcoming Eastern Region of the Guide by clicking on the key map or Eastern Region Tours, and in the Preview Photos.

Download a Tour

Download selected, unabridged Tours to enjoy immediately. Continue to monitor this space for periodic posting of new and different Tours to download.

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Tour B-1: Village of Lake George

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Best known for being touristy, the Village of Lake George reveals a deep, nationally important, often surprising, historical and architectural heritage when one looks beyond the T-shirt shops and mini-golf —even when one looks closely at the mini-golf.

Tour B-1: Village of Lake George

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Tour D-1: Hamlet of Essex

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Essex was a powerhouse Lake Champlain port in the 1800s, a hub of both commercial shipping and ship building, which retains important maritime structures and is home to the oldest continuously operating ferry service on the lake (started c.1791). The hamlet is recognized now as one of the most intact concentrations of Federal and Greek Revival period architecture in the nation, with 90% of its pre-Civil War buildings still standing, thanks in large part to vigorous and persistent local preservation efforts.

Tour D-1: Hamlet of Essex

Download an Essay

Providing architectural-historical context for the Guide Tours, essays by invited authors discuss architects and designers, Adirondack building types, and cultural or geographic developments that shaped the settlement and architecture of the Adirondack Park. Monitor this space for new and different essays.

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Settlement in the Adirondacks

Author: Janet A. Null

Geography is destiny in the Adirondacks. Get an overall understanding of the geography and settlement patterns in this essay—where and why people settled, and the industries that drove the formation of Adirondack communities.

Settlement in the Adirondacks

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Rocks and Trees: Adirondack Building Materials

Author: Janet A. Null

Historically, Adirondack designers and builders relied on native materials. Learn about the typical local materials and their use for both practical and aesthetic reasons—including the stone, logs, branches, and bark that were integral to the Adirondack Rustic Style.

Rocks and Trees: Adirondack Building Materials

Preview Photos

The Adirondack Architecture Guide, Southern-Central Region has more than 700 sites, 14 tours with detailed maps, and 11 companion essays. "This is a must-have source to guide your travels in one of the most beautiful and historic parts of New York, the Adirondack Park.” — Jay A. DiLorenzo, President, Preservation League of New York State

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Sleek and elegant, with an innovative open-classroom layout in circular form, the 1968 Ticonderoga Elementary School is an iconic Midcentury Modern design. (Easter Region Tour A-1)

Most elaborate of Lake Champlain's lighthouses, the Crown Point Lighthouse has the original 1858 brick tower inside the granite structure designed for the tercentenary of Champlain's 1609 discovery of the lake, which includes a monumental bronze sculpture honoring the "discoverers" as well as a delicate bas relief by Auguste Rodin. (Eastern Region Tour C)

One of the largest assembly spaces ever built in the Adirondacks, the 1909 Silver Bay Auditorium (Eastern Region Tour B) is also a tour de force system of wood roof trusses spanning the space that originally accommodated 1,000 people. It is still in active use by the Silver Bay Association YMCA.

Among the rural one-room Adirondack schoolhouses—many still standing—the Boquet Schoolhouse (Eastern Region Tour D) is an early example (c.1827), one of the few built in stone, and unique in its octagonal form.

Mining was an economic mainstay of the Eastern Adirondacks for 150 years and Mineville, ultimately the largest iron mining operation and the largest company town, with most of the employee housing and community buildings constructed—in a variety of designs—out of concrete blocks containing mine tailings made in the company's own block-making plant. (Eastern Region Tour F)

So-called "Millionaires' Row" constituted a stretch of Lake George waterfront mansions built by wealthy seasonal residents in the early 1900s, in a variety of styles, such as the 1912 Tudor Revival Peabody Mansion "Evelley". These were the Adirondack equivalent of Newport, Rhode Island's waterfront "cottages". (Eastern Region Tour B)

The architectural depth, breadth and stylistic variety of Adirondack churches is remarkable. Putnam United Presbyterian (1857, Eastern Region Tour A) is one of the best examples of a Greek Revival church, in its setting no less than its architecture.

Nearly all the large historic Adirondack hotels burned to the ground — some more than once — but a few medium size hotels, such as the restored Hess Camp/Woods Inn in Inlet, still offer visitors an authentic historic hotel experience. (Southern-Central Region Tour C)

Collis Huntington, with his lodge at Pine Knot, and many others, continued to develop the Adirondack Rustic Style initiated by William West Durant (Southern-Central Region Tour C-3)

Adirondack tourist cabins come in two sizes – small and tiny. Many tourist cabin colonies from the 1920s to the 1960s are still operating, like this group of everyman’s Swiss-style cabins at Lake Vanare. (Southern-Central Region Tour G)

Now stabilized and protected by its transparent roof, the most complete and best preserved mid-19th century hot blast stove in the U.S. sits atop the 1854 blast furnace at Tahawus. (Southern-Central Region Tour B)

Historic barns are disappearing all across America, but many survive both in and outside of Adirondack hamlets. Nevertheless, the carriage barns associated with the lost Bonnie Brae villa in Warrensburg (Southern-Central Region Tour A-1) are now at risk.

Victorian era styles are prevalent in Adirondack communities for commercial buildings, houses, and cottages in resort communities like Sacandaga Park. (Southern-Central Region Tour E)

Off the beaten path is the place to find historic bridges that have not been replaced or upgraded for increasing traffic loads, like the c.1900 iron bridge over the scenic Moose River. (Southern-Central Region Tour C)

Historic float plane hangers on Adirondack lakes and private aviation airfields are almost all now defunct. The pre-1945 Plateau Sky Ranch airfield is still in operation, though the control tower is not. (Southern-Central Region Tour F)

William West Durant, developer of the first Great Camps, also designed an elegant rustic bridge as a memorial to his father. (Southern-Central Region Tour C)

Local stone is a fundamental Adirondack building material, used in varied and innovative ways – for one example the 1920s Gate House to Cedarlands Park. (Southern-Central Region Tour B-2).

A ubiquitous and iconic Adirondack building type, boathouses vary widely in scale, form and architectural style. Growth and change in a camp may also be reflected in the boathouse, as in this pair on Big Moose Lake. (Southern-Central Region Tour C-2)

Having a facility like a bowling alley at camp was a luxury afforded by very few, such as the Vanderbilts at Camp Sagamore. (Southern-Central Region Tour C) (Photo by Alec Lindman)

Participate in the Guide

Join the experts on Adirondack culture and heritage, Town and County Historians, local residents, volunteer reviewers and others who are participating in developing an inclusive, accurate, and engaging guide to the diverse architecture of the Adirondack Park. Share your feedback, knowledge and suggestions by clicking the closest subject heading for your message.

Notable Links

Visit Janet Null on Facebook

The Adirondack Architecture Guide was featured in an article by Leigh Hornbeck in the Albany Times Union on December 6, 2015. You can read Architectural field guide highlights man-made wonders of the Adirondacks by Leigh Hornbeck on Timesunion.com.

Seneca Ray Stoddard historic photographs collection at the Chapman Historical Museum

THE

ADIRONDACK
ARCHITECTURE
GUIDE

Eastern Region Tours

Southern-Central Region Tours