Vacation Anyone?

Much retreat architecture seems to be about making structures that engage with the outdoors. These are buildings with wide verandas that expand interior space and create spaces for people to sit protected in fresh air, balconies and towers that provide dramatic vistas to the surrounding landscape, and interior halls and features that create ample space for social gatherings. Architecture for retreat and vacation wasn’t born in nineteenth century America but during that century, there was a melding of site, style, and craftsmanship that made for some dramatic structures.

At the end of Silsbee’s career, he designed the structures at Vermjo Park Ranch in northern New Mexico. A friend called a “king’s palace” and Silsbee considered the project his “architectural monument of triumph”. This mountain retreat, for close friend and grain merchant, William Bartlett, had all of the elements of great vacation architecture: an ample multi-room lodge for guests, adjacent mansions for entertaining, and a myriad of structures including a kennel, fish hatchery, powerhouse, staff offices and homes, and cottages that created self-sufficient vacation community scattered around the foot of a mountain and fronted with elaborate and expansive terraces, patios, and gardens.

Archery on the lawn at Vermejo Park Ranch from the Huntington Library.

Silsbee’s own appraisal of his work at Vermejo is cause enough to give the project special attention. Also, to best understand that project and why it might be seen is a culmination of his years of work, it is also important to look specifically at projects that he worked on that led up to its design and construction. Specifically, one should look at projects that were designed with a vacation or retreat function. There are many that fall into this category: hotels, hunting and social clubs, summer homes, and of course his exposition and park structures. If you consider his work through this lens, you could argue that this type of work made up a large, if not majority, of his practice. 

Bartlett family and friends at Vermejo Park Ranch in 1909. Bartlett's architect, Joseph Silsbee, is in the shadows, furthest back on the right. 

Hopefully, I’ll eventually dig into the rest of those projects but for now, I wanted to take a closer look at what is most likely Silsbee’s first and possibly only realized hotel design. That would be the hotel that he designed for the Methodist meeting camp at Round Lake, New York.

Round Lake became the permanent site for camp meetings of the Troy Methodist Conference in 1867. Camp meetings were intended to bring together people from rural areas at a central congregating point, in nature, to listen to preachers. The notion of a fixed community at Round Lake was inspired by Oak Bluffs, on Martha’s Vineyard. By the time Joseph Hillman, one of the founders of Round Lake, visited the camp at Martha’s Vineyard, temporary camp tents had given way to small wooden cottages and preaching still occurred in the open air at Wesleyan Grove, at the center of the community.

Cottages on Clinton Ave, Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard.

Round Lake developed in a similar manner, with larger cottages being constructed for prominent preachers and lay members of the Methodist Conference and smaller cottages and boarding houses of other members and visitors. Hillman constructed the first nine cottages at Round Lake in  the late 1860's, most of which still stand on Wesley Avenue, across from the Auditorium.

In Western New York, a similar rural meeting movement was taking place at Chautauqua. Chautauqua began in 1874 and was also started by a Methodist minister, John Vincent. Vincent, along with inventor Lewis Miller.

A distinctive feature of Chautauqua was that it was built on the idea of an educational summer camp that was not specific to one religion and would also have secular offerings. Chautauqua would become immensely popular and eventually develop a commune of buildings for a variety of religious institutions built around an auditorium in lieu of a tabernacle. The transformation of Chautauqua from camp seems to occur in the mid 1880’s with the construction of a substantial college building for permanent indoor classrooms. Incidentally, the architecture of this 1880’s transformation would be overseen by Silsbee employee and partner Ellis Hall. I wrote about that work HERE.

Chautauqua College Building, Ellis G. Hall, architect (1886).

The developments at Chautauqua inspired the founders of Round Lake and they would follow suit, constructing a substantial auditorium and other institutional structures. This more substantial growth started in the summer of 1876, when local newspapers announced that a hotel designed by Troy architect Marcus Cummings was to be built at Round Lake.

Cummings was a prominent architect and was well known in New York’s capital region and beyond. He published multiple pattern books on architecture and completed cottage designs for many of the early members of Round Lake. He also went on to design many, if not all, of the more significant buildings there as the camp developed into a larger community.     

Cottage design by Marcus Cummings from his treatise, Modern American Architecture from 1868.

By spring of 1877, it was announced that the hotel project was abandoned but by October it was back on and excavation had begun. In the spring, Syracuse, Albany and Saratoga newspapers announced that Joseph Silsbee of Syracuse was now the architect of the new hotel currently under construction.

It is likely that conservative financial decisions guided the final hotel construction. Though originally planned as a symmetrical structure with a 5-story central tower and two four-story wings, only half the central tower and south wing were ever completed. In descriptions of the project, a point was made to explain that frame construction was used to make the structure less ostentatious and in harmony with the surrounding community and not like the grand hotels of Saratoga.

Image of the Round Lake Hotel as constructed. J. L. Silsbee architect (1877-78).

The hotel, eventually called Hotel Wentworth, was Stick Style and very much in line with the kinds of residential structures Silsbee was known for in Syracuse.  Simple planar surfaces of “novelty siding” or clapboards was broken up by geometrical patterns of trim, generated from the outlines of window and door openings and floor locations. The gables were typically accented with bracketed overhanging eaves sometimes with truss-work or enclosed gable panels.   

Image of the Stick Style home of SU professor Charles Bennett, Syracuse. J. L. Silsbee, architect (1877).

The hotel was built near the railroad tracks and station in the northwest quadrant of Round Lake, several blocks from the center of the community. It was situated on a carefully manicured park named after Joseph Hillman. Early Lithographs clearly illustrate the grand nature of the structure and how it was initially imagined, not how it was actually built.

Image of hotel on Hillman Park from History of Saratoga County, 1878.

In addition to the obvious omission of the north wing, the illustrations also indicate many subtle changes that occurred during construction. Some of the banding on the body of the structure was simplified as were lightning rods and roof cresting. Rounded arches at the central tower were removed, as were several panels of decorative molding. The overall expression of the belfry or observation tower is also heavier than intended. Even with these changes, much was done in the design to create a picturesque structure that related to its function and surroundings. In addition to the trim work, planar surfaces are also broken up with bays. A wide veranda stretches across the entire front of the structure and the center of this feature is marked with an open porch accessible from the second floor. At the fourth floor of the tower is another elaborately detailed open balcony and at the top of the tower was an observation deck, providing ample views to Round Lake and the surrounding area.

Round Lake Hotel, original design by J. L. Silsbee (1878).

Round Lake meetings continued for decades and the main auditorium and many historic structures are still in use today. Due to the frame construction and seasonal nature of their intended use, many of the structures were vulnerable to weather and fire and were lost over the years. The Hotel Wentworth was demolished by fire in 1933.

Lithograph of Round Lake Hotel as built from History of Round Lake N. Y. (1878)

It is still unclear why Silsbee became involved in the Round Lake Hotel project but it is one of the few hotel projects that we have good design information about. His other hotel projects at Coronado in San Diego, Quincy, Illinois, and Skaneateles, New York were either not built or not built to his plans so this hotel remains as the best illustration of his vision for resort hotel construction.