Echo Camp is an

Adirondack Great Camp __NOTOC__ The Great Camps of the Adirondack Mountains are often grandiose family compounds of cabins that were built in the latter half of the nineteenth century on lakes in the Adirondacks. The camps were summer homes for the wealthy, sites ...

on the tip of Long Point adjacent to

Camp Pine Knot Camp Pine Knot, also known as Huntington Memorial Camp, on Raquette Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, was built by William West Durant. Begun in 1877, it was the first of the "Adirondack Great Camps" and epitomizes the "Great Cam ...

Raquette Lake Raquette Lake is the Source (river or stream), source of the Raquette River in the Adirondack Mountains of New York (state), New York U.S. state, State. It is near the community of Raquette Lake, New York. The lake has of shoreline with pines ...

. It was used as a private girls' camp from the mid-1940s to the mid-1980s. It was sold in 1986, and is now a privately owned summer residence. Built for Connecticut governor Phineas C. Lounsbury in 1883, its design bears the influence of

William West Durant William West Durant (1850–1934) was a designer and developer of camps in the Adirondack Architecture, Adirondack Great Camp style, including Camp Uncas, Camp Pine Knot and Great Camp Sagamore which are National Historic Landmarks. He was t ...

. Its main buildings were nearly identical with those of two other nearby camps built in 1880, Camp Fairview, built on Osprey Island by cousin C. W Durant Jr., and The Cedars, built by cousin Frederick Durant on nearby Forked Lake. Neither is still standing, though they are preserved in photographs by

Seneca Ray Stoddard Seneca Ray Stoddard (1844–1917) was an American landscape photography, landscape photographer known for his photographs of New York (state), New York's Adirondack Mountains. He was also a naturalist, a writer, a poet, an artist, and a Cartogra ...

and

Edward Bierstadt Edward Bierstadt (September 11, 1824 – June 15, 1906) was a photographer of portraits and landscapes as well as an engraver and a pioneer of color photography in the United States. Early life Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Rhine Province, K ...

(elder brother of

Albert Bierstadt Albert Bierstadt (January 7, 1830 – February 18, 1902) was a German American painter best known for his lavish, sweeping landscapes of the American West. He joined several journeys of the Westward Expansion to paint the scenes. He was no ...

). Like other Durant camps, Echo Camp is built of locally felled logs, with separate buildings for each function. The main lodge consists of a one-floor log hall flanked by twin two-story log towers, giving a villa-like appearance. Interiors are sheathed in polished planks and narrow wainscoting, rooms are lightened by large, half-round clerestory windows, and

twig work A twig is a thin, often short, branch of a tree or Bush (plant), bush. The buds on the twig are an important diagnostic characteristic, as are the abscission scars where the leaves have fallen away. The color, texture, and patterning of the t ...

decorates verandas and eves. Some buildings have applied cedar bark sheathing, still remarkably intact. The camp was included in a multiple property submission for listing on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

and was listed in 1986.

References

Sources

* Gilborn, Craig. ''Adirondack Camps: Homes Away from Home, 1850–1950''. Blue Mountain Lake, NY: Adirondack Museum; Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000. * Kaiser, Harvey. ''Great Camps of the Adirondacks.'' Boston: David R. Godine, 1982. Adirondack Great Camps Residential buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Buildings and structures in Hamilton County, New York National Register of Historic Places in Hamilton County, New York {{HamiltonCountyNY-NRHP-stub