Trudeau Sanatorium Historic District, Reference Number 15
Year built: 1914-15
Architect:
Other names: American Management Association's Distribution Services Building #2
The laundry is a substantial one-story building encompassing 4,800 square feet. The foundation is poured concrete. The walls are built of molded concrete block textured to simulate stone; they were described as fireproof at the time of construction. 1 Windows are eight-over-eight panes in groups of four. Upper gable ends have board and batten siding. The Japanese-influenced, hipped roof is sheathed in asphalt shingles. Roof finials similar to one on the rear of the Saranac Laboratory were removed during re-roofing in the early 1990s.
Samuel Inslee was a benefactor to whom Trudeau could turn for support of the unseen but essential infrastructure that made the sanatorium a healthy and up-to-date facility. A successful businessman, Inslee gave $1,000 for the first laundry, built in 1894. Wrote Trudeau: "Now, after 21 years, we are building another, a cement, steel and slate building, which, with all the needed modern machinery, will cost nearly twice as many thousands as our first little wooden laundry did hundreds." 2
This large private laundry is the best extant example in the community of a service structure once in great demand to provide sanitary linens to the health industry.
Sources:
- Mary B. Hotaling, Draft nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, January 1993.
- National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Comments
Footnotes
1. E. L. Trudeau, 172.
2. E. L. Trudeau, 263-64.
