Santanoni Preserve

The Santanoni Preserve, once a private estate of some 13,000 acres, now is the property of the State of New York, at Newcomb, New York. "Camp Santanoni," as it is commonly known, was a residential complex of some forty-five buildings within the Santanoni Preserve. Now a National Historic Landmark, this is one of the earliest examples of some thirty-five "Great Camps of the Adirondacks." At the time of completion, Camp Santanoni was regarded at as the grandest of all such Adirondack camps.

Santanoni Preserve was established by Robert C. Pruyn (1847-1934), a prominent Albany banker and businessman. Acquiring about 12,900 acres in the Town of Newcomb, just south of the Adirondack High Peaks, Pruyn employed the distinguished architect Robert H. Robertson (1849-1914) to design a summer residential complex. The main buildings were built in 1892-93. The farm buildings were designed around 1902 by Edward Burnett, the leading farm designer of the time. The Gate Lodge was designed in 1905 by William Delano of the New York City architectural firm of Delano and Aldrich.

Camp Santanoni has three main groupings of buildings. The Gate Lodge complex, situated at the edge of the hamlet of Newcomb, included an impressive gate Lodge with a monumental, stone, gateway arch and six staff bedrooms, a caretakers home, and assorted barns, wagon sheds and other buildings.

A mile farther into the estate, the farm complex included a massive set of barns, three farmhouses and workers' cottages, a stone creamery, workshop, chicken house, kennels, smoke house, root cellar and other service buildings. With imported and domestic breeds of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and poultry, Santanoni had probably the largest farm operation ever associated with a family estate in the Adirondacks. It supplied the camp with its meat and produce, while surplus dairy products were sold in Newcomb and sent to Albany for the Pruyns and their friends. Many Newcomb residents today still own milk bottles with "Santanoni" embossed on them in raised letters.

The Main Camp was situated 4.7 miles from the Gate Lodge complex, farther into the estate on the shore of Newcomb Lake, with an excellent view toward the Adirondack High Peaks. The central lodge was actually a grouping of six separate buildings--the main living and dining lodge with two bedrooms upstairs; four sleeping cabins with a total of seven bedrooms; and a kitchen and service building with seven staff bedrooms- all connected by a common roof and porch system. 1500 spruce trees were used in the log construction. With its log grill work on the eaves, birch-bark wall covering and hand hewn beams in the two-story high ceiling of the main living area, half-log decorative patterns on many walls and doors, impressive fieldstone fireplaces, and other structural and decorative features, Santanoni is an outstanding example of Adirondack rustic architecture and the craft of log construction.

Flanking the central lodge on the lake shore were a boathouse and an artist's studio, built for Pruyn’s artistic son, Edward Lansing Pruyn. In the woods behind the main lodge were another caretaker's home, workshop, ice house, and assorted service buildings. A little farther away, on the road from the farm, were two more staff domiciles and another horse and carriage barn.

Authors of a book (below) about the Santanoni Preserve have noted an influence of Japanese architecture evident in Robertson's design. Most apparent of these is a single roof and continuous porch that connects five of the six buildings. The dominant roof is stepped in the Japanese fashion and resembles a bird-in-flight, the symbolic phoenix, when seen from the air. The authors observe that owner 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. He was the second such ambassador since Commodore Perry's voyage had opened trade with this hitherto unknown realm. 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.

Robert C. Pruyn's heirs in 1953 sold the Santanoni Preserve to the Melvin family, leaders in the business and professional community of Syracuse, New York. The Melvin family continued to enjoy the camp for almost twenty more years, although maintaining it on a simpler scale. In 1971, one of the Melvins' grandchildren, eight-year-old Douglas Legg, disappeared in the forest at Santanoni and was never seen again. The family, not caring to return to the scene of this tragedy, quickly contracted with the newly formed Adirondack Conservancy Committee of the Nature Conservancy to purchase the entire Santanoni Preserve. The furnishings were removed, and the Conservancy then resold the property to the state of New York for incorporation into the State Forest Preserve.

For two decades Camp Santanoni buildings were inadequately maintained by the state, since the intent, as required by the Article Fourteen of the New York State Constitution (providing for retention of Adirondack wilderness) was to remove improvements in order to return the Santanoni Preserve to a "forever wild' condition. After two years' efforts of a regional preservation organization, Adirondack Architectural Heritage, the state agreed in principle to retain most of the historic buildings of the Santanoni Preserve. Since 1993, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Adirondack Architectural Heritage and the Town of Newcomb, assisted by grants from the Getty Foundation and others, have been restoring and reconstructing major buildings at Camp Santanoni.

Santanoni Preserve is open to the public seasonally.