Address: 17 Main Street
Old Address: 10 Main Street
Other names: Pliny Miller House
Year built: 1848-'49
Other information: Pliny Miller sold his mill on the Saranac River at Main Street in 1848 and built a small hotel nearby that he leased to William F. Martin in 1849 and 1850 and to Virgil C. Bartlett from 1850 to 1852.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, February 8, 1992
First village hotel built
By KATHLEEN SCOTT VAUGHN
SARANAC LAKE — In 1849, the first hotel was built in the village by early settler Capt Pliny Miller.
The hotel was built at the site of the current village offices on Main Street. It was always owned by Miller, although he never ran it. It was leased and operated at two different times by two men, according to Frederick J. Seaver in his book, Historical Sketches of Franklin County.
In 1849 it was leased to William F. Martin, who was from Westville. Martin ran it until he built his own hotel in 1851 or 1852, according to Seaver. That hotel was located on Lower Saranac Lake and was known as "Martin's," and later as the "Saranac Lake House."
Virgil C. Bartlett succeeded Martin in leasing and running the first hotel. Information telling how long Bartlett operated the hotel was not available. However, in 1855 he, too, built his own hotel at Bartlett's Carry on Upper Saranac Lake, Seaver wrote.
The first hotel burned in 1856. Three years later Miller, who had long been a powerful man in the area, moved from what would later become Saranac Lake to Wilmington where he later died at the age of 85. He had served as supervisor of the Town of Harrietstown and also owned the first sawmill, which was located where the village power plant is now.
After the first hotel burned, Miller's son, John Jay Miller, bought the piece of land and followed in the family tradition. The son built a tavern, which, like his father, he leased out.
