Detail of a 1912 map of Upper Saranac Lake showing Bull Point CampAddress: 525 Bull Point Road, Bull Point, Upper Saranac Lake
Year built: 1901
Bull Point Camp was located on Bull Point on Upper Saranac Lake. It built in 1901 by Otto Kahn, internationally known banker, and owned for many years by Henry Goldman; it later became the site of a motel owned and operated by Guy Lake. 1
In the Goldman years, guests included Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Queen Marie of Romania, Fritz Kreisler 2
New York Evening Post, July 14, 1900
CAMP BUILDING IN THE ADIRONDACKS
Great Activity This Season—Some Big Camps Described.
[The beginning of this article can be found on the Lower Saranac Lake page]
Another magnificent camp on the Upper Saranac Lake is that of O. H. Kahn of New York city. It is located on Bull Point and was formerly the Kissell camp. The cottages are built on a bluff, fifty feet above the water, facing the southeast. It has one of the most beautiful views in the mountains. The buildings, which are of two stories, are entirely different from the ordinary camps, approaching in a measure the fine villas of Newport. The first story is of logs with the bark on, while the second is of half timber. The one main building, containing the living room and bedrooms, is connected by a glassed-in passage with the dining-room, seventy-five feet away. Directly in front of the dining-room, on the shore of the lake, is the boat-house, built entirely of slabs from spruce logs. The main building contains one large living room, 30 feet square and 19 feet high, with a stone fireplace 11 feet high. A gallery –surrounds three sides of this room, and all is done in spruce and birch poles with the bark on. The side -walls, are covered with red burlap. In the gentlemen’s smoking- room the side walls are covered with red burlap, while the woodwork is of moss-covered fence-rails. One of the principal bedrooms is finished in silver birch logs with the bark on. The bedrooms on the second floor are plastered—a very uncommon treatment of walls in camps. Every bedroom has a stone fireplace; the entire camp is wired for electric lights. The windows of the dining-room are arranged to shove down into the floor, so that the room can be open to the air. The piazzas of the main building are twenty feet wide…
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 8, 1900
…Mr. Walters is building a new boat house at Bull Point...
Malone Farmer May 21, 1902
… Another camp that has cost a mint of money is that of O. H. Kuhn, [sic] of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., of New York. It is located on Bull Point in the Upper Saranac Lake, and is what was formerly known as Kissel camp. It is on a bluff 50 feet above the water, and faces the southeast. It has one of the most beautiful views in the Adirondacks.
New Era illustrated Magazine, June 1904
One of the finest camps [on the lake] is that of Otto H. Kahn, at Bull Point. The main camp is after the style of a Swiss chalet, and with the background of mountains and a sparkling lake before it, it is very much in keeping with its surroundings.
Tupper Lake Herald, August 28, 1914
BULL POINT CAMP BOAT HOUSE RUINED
Harry Goldman, the Owner, Thinks It May Have Started From a Cigarette Stub—Campers Work Hard and Save Adjoining Property
The magnificent boat house of Bull Point Camp, Upper Saranac Lake, the most unique and elaborate rustic structure devoted to its use in the Adirondacks burned to the water's edge on Sunday morning. Henry Goldman of New York, of the firm of Goldman & Sacks, the owner, says that the origin of the fire cannot be accounted for unless it came from a cigarette stub. The flame started in the launch room, and in ten minutes had spread from end to end of the structure. The rapidity with which the flames worked and the fortunate direction of the wind was all that saved the main buildings of Bull Point Camp which were connected by rustic passageways with the boat house.
Edmund Walter of New York first discovered the flames from his camp on the point below. He sounded an alarm by telephone. Mr. Goldman, who was seated in the living room of the main cabin reading, soon became aware of the flames, and aroused the camp. Fred Reeves, the caretaker of the property, was on his way to Saranac Inn Station to get a truck for a member of the house party. He was advised of the fire, and returned in an automobile.
Campers from all parts of the Upper Saranac Lake responded at once to the cry of fire, and they hurried to the scene in speed boats and automobiles. Harrington Mills, the manager, and Willard Boyce, the superintendent of Saranac Inn, sent a crew of fire fighters on board the steamer Loon.
Mrs. Eugene Fuller and sons, Duncan and Richard, of New York, who are at Deer Island; Mr. Hellman; Mr. Jractski, Mrs. Robert Bentley, James H. Reardon, of Bartletts, E. P. Swenson and other campers, together with their guides, got to the scene with all possible dispatch, and did what they could to check the flames from spreading through the forest and to stop flying embers from igniting the roofs of the main buildings.
William Dean from the camp of Mrs. W. S. Johnson rendered specially efficient service. With the speed boat Oscaleta he saved the famous boat The Babette from the flames. It cost about $18,000. Mr. Dean also assisted in saving the electric launch Bull Point, but was unable to get the racing boat Betsy from her stall in time to keep the flames from getting her. The Betsy burned in the door of the launch house, and her keel sank.
The Betsy was the fastest boat afloat on the Upper Saranac except for The Eagle. In a race on Friday she ran ten miles in 25 min., 34 1/2 secs., but was disqualified because she exceeded 3 per cent of her time upon which her handicap was based. It is thought that the fire started in the stall in front of the Betsy, and contributed the final chapter to the unfortunate experiences which have befallen The Betsy since she was launched.
In a collision with The Babette, for which The Betsy was responsible last summer, the lives of several members of Mr. Goldman's family and guests were endangered.
The boat house was built from plans by the late W. L. Coulter of the firm of Coulter & Westhoff, architects, for Otto H. Kahn, and was a model of rustic exterior and interior finish in detail. It was placed on the shore directly in front of the dining room, and was built mainly of logs with the bark on. The lower floor was the launch room, and the second floor was the gentlemen's smoking room, side walls of this room were covered with red burlap, while the wood work was of moss covered with fence boards and rails, brought with much care from a long distance. The room also had many rare mounted heads and trophies of the hunt secured in distant countries.
The fire caused damage of approximately $50,000.
Mr. Goldman expressed great satisfaction that not a person was injured in the fire, and he personally thanked each individual for his or her efforts. He expects to rebuild the boat house without delay. —Saranac Lake Enterprise
New York Times, July 27, 1913
UPPER SARANAC LAKE.
...Goldman's Babette Launched.
...Will Henry Goldman's Babette develop speed enough to defeat Henry Graves's Eagle, the queen of Adirondack motor boats, in the much-talked-of championship races in August? This is the question that is troubling every engine man, camper, and visitor to the Saranac lakes.
The Babette was launched on Wednesday, and., the launching was witnessed by more than one thousand persons. The Babette is the largest pleasure craft ever launched by an individual in the Adirondacks. There are passenger steamers of greater length and more beam, but the Babette is the largest and handsomest private boat afloat in the Adirondacks.
It is larger than the Eagle, which has won the Adirondack championship twice in succession. It is 34 feet in length, 7 feet beam, and draws 3 feet of water.
The motive power consists of one six-cylinder 200 horse power motor of the latest design, with cylinders of eight-inch bore by eight-inch stroke. She has a guaranteed speed of 23 miles an hour.
In spite of its power and speed there are friends of Mr. Graves's Eagle who say that the Babette cannot win against her. The Eagle is said to have about 240 horse power and less beam. The launching of the Babette was attended without an accident and was a very interesting undertaking. The boat arrived on two flat cars, and was put into the water at the steamboat wharf in the bay.
Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the State Department of Health of New York, Volume II, Report of the Sanitary Engineering Division, J.B. Lyon Company, Albany, 1916, p. 160
Plans for sewage disposal for the property of Mr. Henry Goldman at Bull Point on Upper Saranac lake in the town of Santa Clara, Franklin county, were submitted to this Department for approval by the designing engineers on behalf of the property owner on December 30, 1913.
The property is a summer camp located on the peninsula projecting into Upper Saranac lake and comprises a small cottage, dining-hall, main cottage, guide house, annex and boathouse. According to the report of the designing engineers the summer population will be about twenty, with a winter population of four. The water supply which is taken from Saranac lake on the opposite side of the peninsula from the sewage disposal plant and about 1,900 feet from the point of discharge of the same, is estimated at 4,000 gallons per day during the summer, and 800 gallons per day during the winter, equal to a daily per capita rate of 200 gallons.
Tupper Lake Herald, October 20, 1938
WRECKERS WILL DEMOLISH BULL POINT CAMP
FRANK K. SEIGEL HANDLED SALE OF CAMP EQUIPMENT, FURNISHINGS — WAS LONG SHOWPLACE ON UPPER SARANAC
Bull Point Camp, one of the showplaces of beautiful Upper Saranac Lake since back near the turn of the century, will soon be only a memory, wrecking crews being scheduled to tear down the buildings this week.
Already practically all of the camp's luxurious furnishings have been sold piece-meal, and the lumber, logs and other building materials salvaged by the wreckers will be disposed of.
Bull Point Camp was erected some 30 years ago by Otto Kahn, internationally known financier. It was sold to the late Henry Goldman of New York City about a quarter-century ago and until his death was one of the popular and widely-known camps of the Upper Saranac colony. It is located about eight miles from this village.
In August Bull Point Camp was sold by Mrs. Goldman to H. J. Gaisman of Hartsdale, N.Y. Mr. Gaisman had acquired the Walters camp property which adjoins Bull Point several years ago and had remodeled the old Walters camp extensively. His Bull Point holdings now give him a combined shoreline property covering about a mile on Upper Saranac. Mr. Gaisman decided to raze Bull Point camp, and the job was turned over to Frank R. Seigel of B. Seigel & Son, Inc., pioneer Tupper Lake plumbing and heating contractors.
Literally hundreds of pieces of furniture, including the furnishing of the camp's 17 bedrooms, were quickly disposed of. Almost everything of use has been sold, even to the camp's 52-foot motor cruiser, two launches and a dozen guide boats and canoes. Mr. Seigel disposed of the buildings to Leo LaPorte of Lake Placid. Mr. LaPorte's crew will start at once to take down the [illegible lines] what disposition will be made of the campsite when the last building has been cleared away is not known at present.
Tupper Lake Free Press and Herald, March 24, 1976
From the Files, March 20-27, 1941
PROBABLY THE ONLY CRAFT which could qualify as a "cruiser" in Adirondack Waters was sold that week. It was the "Babette," a gas-powered boat measuring 55 feet in length and displacing 17 tons, which had plied the waters of Upper Saranac Lake for many years. The boat cost Henry Goldman $18,000 and operated out of his Bull Point camp. Its 400-HP motor reportedly used 40 gallons of gas on the round trip of a few miles down the lake to Saranac Inn, and "towered over the average Adirondack launch like a whale over a minnow". After the sale of Bull Point Camp to T. J. Gaisman, its luxury fittings were disposed of by Frank R. Seigel of Tupper Lake, and the "Babette" was the last to go, —sold to Charles Ruderman of Gouverneur. It had been gathering dust in the Bull Point Camp boathouse for several years, and the Free Press reported that it would probably "be more in its element on the broad St. Lawrence than it was on the narrow reaches of Upper Saranac Lake".
Comments
Footnotes
1. Tupper Lake Free Press and Herald, May 11, 1967
2. June Breton Fisher, When Money Was In Fashion, Henry Goldman, Goldman Sachs, And The Founding Of Wall Street, St. Martin's Press
