Because the rich rarely remained that way, most of the wealthy family lakeside cabins were sold to the state, fell into disrepair from lack of funds, or destroyed because of something known as the Forever Wild clause in the New York State constitution. Some have been demo'd so the rich could build newer places.
Thirty-five “Great Camps,” still remain.
There is only one publicly owned Adirondack Great Camp whose buildings are open to all. Camp Santanoni on Newcomb Lake.
for over 20 years there has been a horse drawn wagon service into Santanoni’s main lodge for thousands of individuals who could not bicycle or walk the 4.8-mile dirt road.
Santanoni’s first owner was a prominent Albany banker and businessman. Amassing some 12,500 acres in the Town of Newcomb, just south of the Adirondack High Peaks, Pruyn employed a distinguished architect to design his Adirondack camp. Most of Santanoni was completed between 1892-93
A number of architectural features of Santanoni’s main lodge have been described as Japanese in their influence. This was no coincidence. Robert C. Pruyn had served as secretary to his father, Robert H. Pruyn, when the latter was appointed by President Lincoln in 1861 as minister to Japan.
The Pruyns were well connected in the business, political, and social life of the Empire State. Among many other involvements, Robert C. Pruyn was aide to Governor Dix, President of National Commercial Bank (now Key Bank), and a Regent of the University of the State of New York.
Theodore Roosevelt and James Fenimore Cooper, Jr. were among the many distinguished visitors who regularly visited the Pruyns at their Adirondack camp.
In 1883 one of the first families on Upper St. Regis Lake, that of the wealthy merchant Anson Phelps Stokes, would arrive in a "special parlour horse car direct from 42nd street to Ausable for $100."
One party consisted of ten family members and an equal number of servants, "three horses, two dogs, one carriage, five large boxes of tents, three cases of wine, two packages of stovepipe, two stoves, one bale of china, one iron pot, four washstands, one barrel of hardware, four bundles of poles, seventeen cots and seventeen mattresses, four canvas packages, one buckboard, [...], twenty-five trunks, thirteen small boxes, one boat, one hamper", all of which was then transferred to wagons for the 36 mile ride to Paul Smiths, and thence by boat to their island campsite
Built in 1908 by prominent banker Archibald S. White on 35 acres overlooking Lake Osgood, White Pine Camp is known for a few unique factors. It was President Calvin Coolidge’s home for 11 weeks in the summer of 1926
Some camps had ice houses, and harvested from the nearby lake. Some of the lakeside mansions were built with bowling alleys, some were similar to small towns, with blacksmith shops, carpenters, carriage houses, and had 300 acre farms to provide for the employees, horses, pantries.
Eagle Island, Saranac Lake was built in 1903 by Harrison's Vice President, Levi P. Morton, he was instrumental in creating Greater New York City, merging New York City and Brooklyn.
Morton was the 22nd vice president, and he also served as the US ambassador to France, as a U.S. representative from New York, and as the thirty-first governor of New York.
Eagle Island is literally an island with a mile circumference, that’s home to the Great Camp’s buildings and Adirondack woods.
It was sold to Henry Graves, Jr., a wealthy banker and industrialist from Orange, New Jersey, purchased the property from the Mortons. Graves is known for competing with auto manufacturer James Packard for ownership of the world’s most complicated watch.
Graves eventually beat Packard by commissioning the Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication watch in 1933. In 2014, the Supercomplication set a new record price for a timepiece sold at auction.
In 1938 the owners gifted the camp to the Girl Scouts.
Lake Kora is one of the most intact and well-preserved Great Camps in the region and sits on a thousand private acres, designed by William West Durant in 1898, and was owned by the Vanderbilt family
Robert Schroeder was from a German immigrant family, son of a brewery owner who prospered in America. He began buying land around Debar Pond sometime during the 1880s for raising hops, a major agricultural product in Franklin County during the 19th century.
In time, Schroeder was able to amass around 2,100 acres. He planted at least 300 of those acres in hops, sending them on to breweries in Utica and New York City after harvesting. At one time, he employed more than 100 people.
He was married to the daughter of another brewery owner, their home was a 60 room mansion featuring niceties like a mahogany staircase, a ballroom for entertaining, and imported stained glass.
Things didn’t work out. He lost his fortune (and that of his wife), and had to give up his business and his Adirondack mansion in favor of much more humble lodgings in Brooklyn. As if the couple hadn’t been debased enough, they had to deal with an impetuous daughter who eloped with a member of Hungarian royalty.
Except the man turned out to be a fraud. The most royal thing he did was work as a salesman at a cigar store. The stress of losing her fortune, and then “losing” her daughter, devastated Schroeder’s wife.
She committed suicide by gas asphyxiation.
Not long afterward, her husband also killed himself that way.
Interestingly, the fake Hungarian royal eventually did the same thing.
https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/community-news/history-culture/commentary-historic-debar-pond-lodge-deserves-preservation/
Two good sources for learning more about Debar Lodge are Harvey Kaiser’s recently updated “Great Camps of the Adirondacks,” and “A Guide to Architecture in the Adirondacks,” by Richard Longstreth.