Adirondacks' Great Camp Santanoni

The Adirondack's grandest and earliest Great Camp

Story by Jenni McEwen
Photos by Stef Noble

Being a member of one of New York's oldest and most esteemed Dutch families, Robert C. Pruyn of Albany, NY, was used to living a lavish and successful lifestyle.  His personal accomplishments ranged from inventing toys to  being a Governor's aide. 

In 1892 Pruyn, and wife Anna, acquired a tract of land in the town of Newcomb, NY totaling roughly 13,000 acres.  With this land they hired Robert H. Robertson, a distinguished architect, to construct a summer residential complex, a complex that would later be regarded as one of the Adirondack's grandest Great Camps.  Theodore Roosevelt has even been recorded as a regular visitor of the camp. According to Steven Engelhart, the President of Adirondack Architectural Heritage(AARCH), the Pruyns had two ideas in mind when they created Santanoni, "He (Robert) wanted a working gentleman's farm while she (Anna) wanted a place in the wilderness."  With those ideas in mind and the desire for a home away from home, Camp Santanoni was born.

Camp Santanoni, also known as the Santanoni Preserve, which is named for the Santanoni Mountains, has three main groups of buildings.  The Gate Lodge grouping which holds a lodge with a large stone archway, six bedrooms for staff, a caretakers home, and various barns and sheds. The second grouping, The Farm Complex, contains many barns, three farmhouses and workers' cottages, a stone creamery, chicken house, kennels, workshop,  smoke house, and root cellar.  Dairy surpluses from this complex were sold in Newcomb.   The third grouping, known as the Main Camp, contains a central lodge which was a grouping of six separate buildings connected by a common roof and porch; a main living and dining lodge, four sleeping cabins with a total of seven bedrooms; a kitchen and service building with seven staff bedrooms.  Approximately 1,500 spruce trees were used in construction of the central lodge.  The Main Camp also houses a boathouse, artist's studio, and several other barns and staff residences. " (Santanoni) is an extraordinary place that embodies this period when people were coming to the Adirondacks," Engelhart says.

Camp Santanoni is notable not only for its size but also for the amount of detail in the design. It shows impressive use of log construction and contains striking birch bark wall coverings, log grill eaves, hand-hewn beams, half-log decorative patterns and massive fireplaces. The design is believed to be of Japanese influence.  Elizabeth Salmon, a Clinton County resident, describes Camp Santanoni as, "..absolutely stunning.  The Main Camp was large, but you could tell it was accommodating for the people there and the farm area was very impressive."

"Santanoni is an extraordinary place that embodies this period when people were coming to the Adirondacks"

In 1953 the camp was sold to the Melvin family out of Syracuse, NY.  It was sold simply because "the Pruyn children didn't have the same level of attachment as their parents and were far spread, the commitment just wasn't the same," according to Engelhart. The Melvins got good use out of the establishment but after the mysterious disappearance of one of their grandchildren in 1971, they decided to sell to the Adirondack Conservancy Committee who then sold it to New York state for use in the State Forest Preserve and it is now part of the Adirondack Forest Preserve.

Over the years the buildings began to fall into disarray after being poorly maintained by the state.  According to Town of Newcomb's supervisor George Canon, "the state initially had no interest in the rehabilitation, they were just going to let it fall down or tear it down." Eventually the state agreed to retain most of the historic buildings of the Santanoni Preserve. Since 1993 the Camp has undergone renovations and is in the process of being restored thanks to help from the town of Newcomb, the NYSDEC and AARCH.  It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2000. Canon says that it is very much a "joint effort between the AARCH, Newcomb, NY State and also 'Friends of Camp Santanoni', who have donated funds." Such work has also been funded by grants from the Save America's Treasures program as well as the New York State Environmental Protection Fund.

"The state initially had no interest in the rehabilitation, they were just going to let it fall down or tear it down."

Engelhart calls Santanoni, in its entirety, "one of the best, if not the best example" of an Adirondack camp.  He and others believe this because it meets the five criteria of a Great Camp; "One; it has a rustic design and use of natural materials, two; the size of acreage, three; it is made up of multiple buildings, four; it has self sufficiency, and five; it has a lake side setting."

The camp is open year round.  In the summer, visitors can walk, bike or take a wagon into the preserve and during the winter months can enjoy a flat 10-mile roundtrip ski.   Many of the buildings are open seasonally and can be accessed via a tour by the staff. 

Have you been to Camp Santanoni?