The old hotels of the town of Keene: Adirondack House

MARTHA ALLEN, News Correspondent
MARTHA ALLEN

News Correspondent

KEENE VALLEY — This year, 2008, is the bicentennial of the town of Keene, which comprises the hamlets of Keene and Keene Valley. St. Huberts, now part of Keene Valley, used to be a hamlet unto itself.

From its early days, the town has hosted summer visitors. A symbiotic relationship between the “locals” and the “summer people” became a way of life, with year-round residents “doing for” the folks who arrived by stage coach at the beginning of the season, bringing trunks and valises, and remained until the end of August. That changed when the automobile became popular, allowing vacationers to travel from one spot to another with greater ease.

According to former Keene town historian James Bailey, “The summer boarding business grew rapidly from about 1860 until the arrival of the auto in the early 1900s. Thus the big hotels were doomed by the 1920s.”

While the town continues to do a thriving boarding business, it is generally for much shorter stays. Modern bed & breakfasts, hostels and hotel establishments, however well-appointed, are generally rustic or homey in style. Gone are the days of grand ball rooms and dining halls. Most of the great hotels are burned or torn down, replaced by homes or woodlands. Excavations for wells and buildings unearth all kinds of cast-off relics from buried trash dumps of the old hotels. Some people go to the sites to dig for bottles and other memorabilia.

Keene Valley’s Adirondack House, owned by Monroe Holt from 1888 to 1928, is one example of the way the hotel business has changed. Today, it is difficult to look at the meadow on Adirondack Street where the great hotel, capable of accommodating 200 guests, once stood and imagine the huge wooden structure, the hustle and bustle of horse-drawn carriages and of guides, cooks, gardeners, cleaning staff and other workers.

A look into the life of the town’s great hotels is provided by a promotional booklet for the establishment circa 1900:

“Keene Valley is one of the most picturesque and enticing localities in the Adirondacks, and the wealth of charming views makes it a favorite resort for celebrated artists who visit it every

summer...the combination of river, mountain and meadow scenery here presented is unlike any other section of the Adirondacks. The entire

horizon is grandly serrated with mountains and the valley is hemmed in and overlooked by Camel’s Hump, Haystack, Giant of the Valley, Indian Face, Colvin, Hopkins, Baxter’s and Dix’s Peaks,and there are numerous cascades, chasms and babbling brooks, easy of access, that are positively exquisite, while on every hand are some of the rarest scenes to be found.” The booklet advertises “a stage to Ausable Lakes twice daily,” and suggests various “lovely drives over good roads,” including Roaring Brook Falls, Chapel Pond, Styles Falls, Cascade Lakes and East Hill, and “delightful walks,” such as Mossy Cascade, Washbond’s Flume, Hull’s Falls and Hull’s Flume. Fishing and hunting in season are vaunted, and “reliable guides” are recommended for camping.

Also described are a “commodious dancing room,” “beds provided with the best woven-wire springs and hair mattresses,” and “an abundance of pure mountain spring water...supplied by a pipeline which has its intake half-a-mile above any possible source of contamination...The sewage is carried a long distance through a special tile drain having free outlet.”

A small black and white engraving of two couples riding in an open horse-drawn buggy illustrates directions for “How to reach Keene Valley from New York City: “Take the 9:30 a.m. train from the Grand Central station, via New York Central and Delaware & Hudson Railroads, arriving at Westport 5:40 p.m., or take the 6:25 sleeping car arriving at Westport at 4 a.m. Take the Albany (or Troy) boat...arriving at Albany in time for an early breakfast; by the 7 a.m. train reaching Westport at 11; or by the 8:30 a.m. train, reaching Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain at noon, and thence by steamer (dinner on board), arriving at Westport, 3 p.m... “DO NOT BUY TICKETS FURTHER THAN WESTPORT. Guests coming to this house will be met at Westport, N.Y., with our private carriages, on receipt of a telegram or letter twenty-four hours before arrival. State number of persons and quantity of baggage.”

While the relationship between the summer residents and their local servers was generally harmonious, or at least— of necessity—workable, the booklet drops a hint of the underlying malaise between the two groups:

“The table is equal to any hotel in the Adirondacks. There is a farm of 300 acres run in connection with the house, and, having our own dairy, the butter, cream and milk are always fresh and delicious. There is a special dining room for nurses and children, and also a dining room for guides and drivers. The house has two offices, one for the general guests, and a separate one for guides and drivers, thereby eliminating a feature of Adirondack Hotel Life that is repugnant to many people.”

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With thanks to Adirondack Realty for its Web site “History of the Town of Keene, New York,” and to the Keene Valley Library Archives staff.



Next week:

More Keene hotels, including some

AuSable Club history