Camp name: Rockledge
Other names: Guggenheim Camp; Guggenheim Center
Lake: Lower Saranac Lake
Town: Harrietstown
When built:
Owner when built: Edmond Guggenheim
Architect:
Builder or contractor:
The camp named Rock Ledge was located on the shore of Lower Saranac Lake and owned by the Limberg family. The property was later purchased by Edmond Guggenheim and — along with the former Morgenthau camp Idle Point — became the Guggenheim Camp.
Plattsburgh Sentinel, June 6, 1890
—Mrs. Lemburger [sic], of New York, has rented the Ehrich cottage and will bring with her a party of twelve or fifteen. 1
Unidentified newspaper clipping, dated June 16, no year, from a scrapbook in the Adirondack Collection of the Saranac Lake Free Library
The Season in the Adirondacks
Hotel Improvements--Cottage Tenants--A Choice of Routes
. . . Mr. Richard Limburgher [sic] is erecting a $12,000 cottage on a point in the Lower Saranac Lake, directly above the summer residence of the Ehrichs of New York. The building is to be heated by steam, and will be for winter as well as for summer use. . . .
From “Summering: Memoirs of Mabel Limburg Rossbach” in Adirondack Life, Summer 1971:
In 1898 Mrs. Rossbach’s father, Richard Limburg, a stock broker and governor of the New York Exchange, built his camp, “Rock Ledge,” on the North-East shore of Lower Saranac Lake.
. . . Except for the three summers we spent abroad, we occupied it regularly until 1918. . . . At Rock Ledge we had a herd of cows and a vegetable garden.
Lake Placid News, August 17, 1917 – The two Limburg camps on Lower Saranac Lake, Rock Ledge and Idle Point, will pass into the possession of Edmond Guggenheim shortly. Mr. Guggenheim, who occupied them last summer with his father, Daniel Guggenheim, leased the Floyd Jones camp this year, while the Limburg camps have been occupied by their owner, Mrs. Richard Limburg.
[“Guggenheim Family” on Wikipedia says that Edmond’s father was Murry; Daniel was his uncle and one of the six original owners of Knollwood.]
From “Camp Rockledge,” an undated typescript by Edmond A. Guggenheim:
I acquired the Rockledge property, which included the Idlepoint property on Fish Creek, in the year 1917. It was acquired from Mrs. Clara Limberg [sic] who had lived there many years with her husband and raised her children there during the summer seasons.
The property originally was owned by a William J. Ehrich who not only owned the Rockledge properties but also the entire Pinehurst property adjacent on the east.
What blood relationship there was between Mr. Ehrich and the Limbergs I do not know, but eventually the Limbergs bought the Rockledge Camp proper and some close relatives of theirs by the name of Morgenthau acquired the Idlepoint property and built a rather attractive camp there. Incidentally, Henry Morgenthau, Jr. a former Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, spent many years there during the summer as a youngster.
The original camp that I acquired from Clara Limberg was a very large structure, built in rustic style with many bedrooms and baths and fireplaces. It was a three-story affair and eventually, after about nine years, started to show sufficient signs of wear to warrant my tearing it down and building a new camp. About that same time I tore down the former Morgenthau camp at Idelpoint which was also becoming dilapidated. This also included the tearing down of many other buildings of smaller size, such as bathing cabins, guest houses, etc. The present Rockledge Camp was also a larger camp which I reduced in size to its present status.
. . . The very attractive stone wall which fronts a large part of the Rockledge property was built by the Limbergs prior to the locks being put in at Round Lake which caused the lake water to rise some three to four feet.
A random list of some of the help at Knollwood, Rockledge and Idlepoint, from labels on glass plate negatives in Owen D. Young Library, St. Lawrence University:
In 1914: Annie; Cora; Alice Hastings; Mary Hastings; Nellie Dunn
In 1915: Mr. Hanchett
In 1916: Edith Saunders; Harry Maning; Alf Felt; Elizabeth Scott
Sources:
