History in towns '

Saratoga Springs, New York,

the queen of American resorts
BY MOSETTE GLASER BRODERICK
SARATOGASPRI NGS, NE\'... YORK, had a distinctly femi
nine aura in the nineteenth century, when it was in
deed the queen of American resorts. Fashionable,
fast, fancy, fatuous , and forgiving, the town was the
most American of nineteenth-century resorts, the
summertime goal of those eager not only to escape
the heat but also to at least mingle with "society" if
not actually improve their social position by so
journing in the right place at the right time. I
MOSETTE GLASER BRODERICK teaches ar c hit ectural history
at New York Univer sit y in New York City. She is cur r ently at
work on a book a bout McKim, Mead and White.
PI. L Entrance portico of the Batcheller
mansion. See also Fig. 6. PholOgraph by Pe
ter Maussl EslO.
The architecture of the town reflects its history,
particularl y the excitement , opulence, and original.
ity that was Saratoga Springs in its heyday. Virtually
every trend in nineteenth-century American ar.
chitecture is represented, from the sedate Greek reo
vival houses of the 1830's (see Fig. 2) to the pictur.
esque Gothic revival cottages (see Fig. 3) and
Italianate buildings of mid-century (see Fig. 4), to
the flamboyant, eclectic confections of the end of
Fi g. I. View of Broadway, the main stree t of Sa ratoga Springs,
New York, in a photograph taken in 1907 from the sidewalk in
front of the United States Hotel (see Fig. 10). Except as noted,
black-and-white pholOgraphs are by courtes), of George S. Bolster.
Fig. 2. Greek revival houses
on Franklin Street, bUilt c
1835. The first elegant h o u ~
in the town were built in the
1830's and 1840's, when the
Greek revival style held SWay
in the AmerIcan Northeast.
The domestic . style favored by
prominent cItizens III most up.
state New York towns was a
rural, wooden version of a
Greek temple. In Saratoga, the
Greek revival style was also
used for the pavilions covering
the individual springs. Photo
graph by 10/111 Hall.
Fig. 3. Charles Brackett
house, Excelsior Avenue, built
1830-1840. This is a perfect
example of the modest Gothic
revival houses built in Sara
toga based on plates in pattern
books of the period. Hall pho
tograph.
the century. Most of the buildings were designed by
local architect-builders, the majority of whom are
still unidentified. Although they relied on pattern
books produced in major artistic centers to dissemi
nate the newest styles throughout the country, these
architects adapted the designs to local tastes, infus
ing them \\lith a vigor seldom found in the original
plates.
Often known simply as Saratoga, Saratoga Springs
is located in the foothills of the Adirondack Moun
tains, some rhjrty miles north of Albany and twelve
miles west of the Hudson River. According to leg
end, the Iroquois Indians were the first to make the
area a resort, attracted by its more than one hun
dred bubbling mineral-water springs. The name Sar
atoga is believed to be derived from the Indian place
name. European settlers began to farm the rich land
along the Hudson above Albany early in the eight
eenth century, and they gradually moved inland to
Stillwater and Saratoga Springs. The area around
Saratoga was the site of the climactic battles in the
American victory over the forces of General John
Burgoyne and General Sir William Howe, who Sur
rendered near Saratoga Springs on October 17, 1777.
ANTIQUES
PI. I!. Parlor of the Milligan
house (see Fi g. 4) as installed
in the Brooklyn Museum.
Many of the furnishings are
original to the room, including
the set of chairs and a sofa
made by Elijah Galusha (J 804
187!) of Troy, New York. The
mantel was supplied by
Murphey and Di mond of New
York City Photograph by cour
tesy of tilt Brooklyn Museum.
Fig. 4. View of the Milliga/1
Housp. artist unknown, c. 1860.
Oil on canvas, 19 Vi by 25 Vi
inches. The house was de
si gned and built for Colonel
Roher! J. Milligan (J 799 - 1867)
by Hiram Owen (1819-1904)
in 1853. Brooklyn Museum;
photograph by courtesy of Ihe
museum.
Shortly thereafter the springs began to attract atten excesses of urban life and indulgence in rich food
tion for their therapeutic properties, and even and drink were purportedly neutralized by a cure
George Washington was induced to visit them. that involved drinking the mineral waters and taking
This was the era of spas in Europe-Baden-Baden modest walks. The springs at Saratoga were not the
UI the Black Forest in Germany, and Bath, Chelten only ones in the United States to become fashionable
ham, and Saint Leonard's in England-where the at this time. Poland Spring in Maine, White Sulphur
99 JULY 1985
98
PI. III. Entrance to the original Club House, built c. 1867 for
John Morrissey (I 831 -1878) in Congress Spring Park. The
rounded windows show the influence of the Rundbogenstil, or
round-arch style, brought to America by such German-born ar
chitects as Detlef Lienau (1818-1887). Excepl as noted, color pho
lographs are by John Hall.
Springs in West Virginia, and nearby Ballston
Springs in Ballston Spa, New York, also began to at
tract visitors.
In 1811 Gideon Putnam (1763-1812) began to
build the first grand hote] on the main street of Sar
atoga. Called the Congress Hall, it was situated at the
site of the principal spring, and by 1820 it had been
joined by the Union Hall, Pavilion, and United States
hotels. These commodious wooden structures were
frequented by both Europeans (in 1837 Louis Napo
leon was a guest at the spa) and Americans with Eu
ropean pretensions, especially Southerners eager to
escape the summer heat. Following the lead of
Southern plantation houses, many of Saratoga's ho
tels had large wooden porticoes and long verandas
PI. IV. Addition to the Club House, built for Morrissev, 1871
1873. The round-arch windows of the earlier building h ~ v e been
replaced by rectangular Renaissance-inspired frames. Not visible
in the photograph is the extension in the rear designed by Clar
ence S. Luce (1852 - 1924) of New York City and built in 1903.
fronting on the street. These offered shade from the
sun "" hile providing the vital link bet\.veen the hotels
and the life of the street that made Saratoga such an
excitmg place to stay. On the large verandas one
could see and be seen, copy the manners of those
who had lived abroad, and gaily seek fiirtations wi th
members of the opposite sex.
Most visitors reached Saratoga by stagecoach in
the early nineteenth century, principally from Bos
ton and New York City. Some made the journey
from New York to Albany in relative comfort
aboard the steamers that plied the Hudson River,
transferring to the jostling, jolting coaches only for
the trip inland. In 1833 railroad connections r e
placed the stage from Albany, making the ride con
Siderably more comfortable and greatly increasing
the number of vacationers visiting the town.
The dai ly regime at the spa consisted of a morning
carriage r ide from the hotel to the spring, where vis
itors drank a cup of the waters fished up in a com
munal tin cup by a young boy. After riding back to
the hotel, the guests took breakfast and rested_Fol
lOwing luncheon, visitors might promenade up and
down Broadway on foot , eyeing and greeting others
equally well dressed and, perhaps, snubbing a few
Who did not appear to fit the fashionable mold. Al
ternati vel y, they might take a carriage ride in the
early afternoon. Carriages were carefully painted
and maintained by livery-stable owner s in Saratoga,
alt hough a few visit ors had their own coaches.
The big Saratoga hotels offered ample but boring
food, elaborately served by courteous black waiters
on tables laden with li nens, silverware, and exten-
PI. V. 458- H2 Broadway, built in 1871. The similarity between
this block and the original Club House building (PI. IIi) suggests
that they were designed by the same architect.
Fig. 5. Parade to the post at Saratoga Race Track, 1919. Opened
in 1863, the track, much expanded, is still in use.
Fig. 6. view of the George S. Batcheller (1837-1908) mansi on,
PI. VI. House at 695 Nonh Broadway, built 1865 - 1870.
sive porcelain services. Variety could be had by rid
ing out to Cary Moon's Lake House, which was
noted for its fine fish and volatile chef, George
Crum (1828-1914), who is credited with the inven
tion of the potato chip.
In the years before the Civil War di stractions for
men were added to the resort 's activities. Trotting
horse races were improvised outside the village,
much to the delight of Commodore Cornelius Van
derbilt (1794 -1877), who was a frequent summer
visitor to Saratoga. Card games and other forms of
gambling were condoned in vi sitors' rooms and co
vertly in hotel parlors. Such diversions increased
duri ng the war years as taking the waters faded
from fashion. The old rich, who had come to Sara
toga for a cure, began to desert the hotels of Broad
way, but there were plenty of new rich eager to re
place them. For them only the newest thing
mattered-new hotels, new customs, new delicacies,
PI. VII. House at 38 Ci rcular Street, built 1870 - 1875. The in
cised neo-Grec design under the eave and in the pedimenr proba
bl y dat es the house to the early 1870's.
ANTIQUES
20 Circular Street, c. 187 J. Wat ercolor on paper. The house \Vas
designed by Nic hol s and Haleol! of Albany, New York, and built
1871 - 1873. The wimer garden at the right no longer exists. See
also cover and PI. I.
ne,\> clothes, new pastimes. Indeed, it was the very
aspects of Saratoga that attracted the new people
that the older, more sophisticated ones found unap
pealing. Henry James visited the resort in 1870 and
was horrifi ed by its "monster" hotels. He felt the re
son was too openly commercial, too harsh, too ur
ban, too worldly, with no sense of community.]
ohn Morrissey, whose checkered past included
prize fighting, gambling, womanizing, and politics,
saw great potential in this money-spending, tolerant
spa. He came to Saratoga in 1861, and together with
William R. Travers (1819-1887) and Leonard W. Je
rome (181 7-1891) of New York, horse lovers both,
opened a turf club at Saratoga on August 3, 1863.
Despite the war, the days of horse racing were now
under way. Morrissey built a race track whose
steeply pitched pavilion roofs became something of
a fea ture of several local buildings (Figs. 5, 11) .
Buoyed by the success of the track, about 1867
Mornssey opened his own gambling house, known
as the Club House (PI. 1II), a primarily Italianate
bUi ldi ng of red brick with brownstone trim at the
edge of Congress Spring Park. Saratoga would never
JULY 1985
be the same again. The July and August steamboats
to Albanv were no longer filled with Southern fam
ilies but -with race goers and city gamblers on their
way to Morrissey's "gilt-edged hel!.")
After the war there was a flurry of building in
Saratoga. Morrissey expanded his gambling club by
building a three-story brick addition next door to
house a restaurant and other rooms (PI. IV). Whole
business blocks of Broadway were rebuilt, including
458 - 472 Broadway (P!. V), which is an expression
of the German Rundbogenslil, or round-arch style,
recently arrived from Europe.
Congress Spring Park was relaid out in 1876. Fred
erick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) prepared the plans
and work was begun to carry them out, but evi
dently the need to have the park ready for the sea
son resulted in a number of compromises, which
greatly displeased the landscape architect. He wrote
in July 1876 to C. C. Dawson, "It is much as if a man
having a carriage built by the best carriage makers
when they have put it together, all of the best wood
& metal and with admirable workmanship in the
constructive parts has it hastily finished by a com
mon cartwright and house painter.'"
The original Greek revival pavilion enclosing the
main spring in Congress Spring Park was replaced
by a remarkable, richly colored structure (Figs. 7, 8)
that seems to have been modeled on the work of the
103
102
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Figs. 7, 8. Congress Spring Pavilion. Congress Spring Park, built
c. 1875. now demolished, in photographs taken c. 1900. The en
chanting pavilion was painted in shades of green, offset by pan
els of colored glass. The interior bracing seems to have been in
spi red by the designs of Charles Locke Eastlake (J 836 - 1906).
English-born architect Jacob Wrey Mould (1825
1886). Mould, who had assisted Owen Jones (1809
1874) in devising the color scheme for the interior of
London's Crystal Palace in 1851, sailed to America
two years later, and worked with Calvert Vaux
(1824 -1895) on the permanent structures in New
York City's Central Park, among them the Dairy,
which this pavilion resembles. The tower and
wooden tracery with punched, wheel-like designs
also closely resemble elements of Glen Chalet, the
house Mould designed about 1866 for Thomas W.
Kennard in Glen Cove, New York.'
Among the private houses erected in the decade
after the Civil War are those illustrated in Plates VI
and VII,. both in the bracket style derived from pat
tern books of the day and probably designed by lo
cal architects. The house in Plate VI is similar to the
elegant brick mansion built in 1853 for Colonel Rob
ert J. Milligan, a prosperous lumber merchant in
Saratoga (Fig. 4). It was designed by Hiram Owen,
who was born in Berne, New York, and settled in
Saratoga at the age of nineteen in 1838. Trained as a
carpenter, he went into business on his own as a
builder-contractor in 1849, retiring to become su
perintendent of the Grand Union Hotel in 1873.
6
The
Milligan house still stands, but the parlor (PI. II) and
library were given to the Brooklyn Museum in 1940,
along with many of the original furnishings.
The George S. Batcheller mansion of 1871-1873
(cover, PI. I, and Fig. 6) was designed by the Albany
architects Nichols and Halcott. This very busy and
showy house combines a bracketed porch and Ital
ianate lower floors with French-inspired, shell-in
cised window heads on the dormers, a sharply
pitched mansard roof, and a conical tower topped
by a medieval turret, similar to the towers of the ca
thedral in Marseille, well under way at this time.
These picturesque elements were a bit awkwardly
handled by men who may never have directly ob
served the sources of their inspiration, the chateaux
of the Loire River valley; but by choosing such a
source in 1871, the Albany architects were ahead of
their New York City contemporaries, who did not
introduce the chateau style until later in the decade.
The Congress Hall Hotel burned in 1866, to be re
placed two years later by the new Congress Hall,
which had a piazza along its entire frontage on
Broadway. The United States Hotel burned in 1865,
and was rebuilt in 1874 to the designs of the major
architects of the region at the time, John D. Stevens
and Frelin G. Vaughan. The hoteL with its steep
mansard roof, continued the Saratoga tradition of
placing a three-story portico on the Broadway front
(Fig. 10). Slender cast-iron double colonettes, much
in the manner promoted by Eugene Emmanuel Viol
let-Ie-Due (1814 -1879), replace the earlier wooden
classical columns. Both the cast-iron portico and the
mansard roof appeared on other Saratoga hotels in
the late 1860's and early 1870's, among them the
Grand Union, which was probably also designed by
Stevens and Vaughan (Fig. 9).
In 1872 Alexander Turney Stewart (1803-1876), a
New York City merchant and real-estate magnate
who may have been the second wealthiest man in
the country at the time, bought the Grand Union.
With Henry Hilton (see Fig. 12) who contemporary
ANTIQUES
accounts often called Stewart's svengali,' asslstmg
him, Stewart set out to turn the Grand Union into
the hotel of the resort and the largest hotel in th e
world After Stewart's death in 1876, Hilton, through
some clever, not to say shady maneuvering, man
aged to gain possession not only of the Grand Union
and other of Stewart's properties in Saratoga
Springs, but also of A. T. Stewart and Company in
Ne\\ York City, which alone must have been worth
about $35 million. A flamboyant, if somewhat unsa
vory character, who was one of the cronies of
Mayor William Marcy "Boss" Tweed of New York
Cit y, Hil ton fitted perfectly into late nineteenth-cen
tury Saratoga, a time when the likes of Lillian Rus
sell and Diamond Jim Brady \vere also welcome at
the resort.
In ] 877 Hilton purchased the Windsor Hotel (Fig.
11 ). across the street from the Grand Union. The ho
tel. whi ch had opened the previous year and imme
diatelv failed, tried to set a new tone in Saratoga by
offering excellence in food and service. (Service, by
the way. was only given by white waiters, breaking
the established Saratoga tradition.) The Windsor
v"as the first Saratoga hotel to introduce such Conti
nental cus toms as late dinners; and music, which
had been provided in Saratoga in the form of band
concerts, was now played by an orchestra during
dinner. A generator produced electric light and an
elevator, still rare in hotels, brought guests, primar
ily famiues, to their rooms. Tennis and croquet
courts were groomed for outdoor sport." The hotel
buildmg, a Queen Anne structure with sharply
peaked, angular roofs, had a wonderful set of Chi
nese-stvle screens and balustrades on its porches.
JuLY 1985
Fig. 9. Grand Union Hotel . at
tributed to John D. Stevens (d.
1880) and Frelin G. Vaughan,
built c. 1870, in a photograph
taken c. 1910. The hot el was
demolished in 1952.
Fig. 10. United States Hotel,
designed by Stevens and
Vaughan, completed in 1874,
in a photograph taken in 1907.
The photograph shows the ho
tel, now demolished, dressed
with bunting for a political
convention.
104
105
Fig. II. Windsor Hotel , built in 1876, enlarged by McKim, Mead
and White in 1880, and now demolished , in a photograph ta ken
c. 1885.
Fi g. 12. Henry Hilt on (1824 - 1899) a nd hi s family in front of t he
house illustrated in Fig. 14 in a photograph taken c. 1890.
The Screens were probably designed by the firm of
McKim, Mead and White, who were asked to make
a $24,000 alteration of the Windsor
9
in 1880, only
four years after it opened. The screens are similar to
those McKim, Mead and White provided for the
Newport Casino the same year.
Well into the late nineteenth century, life in Sara
toga Springs centered on the hotels, which catered
to the needs of all visitors in this most democratic of
all nineteenth-century American resorts. III Few sum
mer residents had their own houses, and only two
built large estates, one of whom was Henry Hilton.
He purchased Woodlawn Park in 1879, and in the
ensuing decade erected a number of buildings on the
property, including two houses, both now destroyed.
Hilton's architect at Woodlawn was his close friend
and executor, Edward D. Harris of Yonkers, New
York. One of the houses at Woodlawn (Fig. 13) had
sharply peaked roofs, latticework balustrades and
screens, and small-paned windows of colored glass.
The second had the air of a large stable or carriage
house (Fig. 14), which was appropriate since the
architectural source for it was the vernacular barn
and house complexes of Normandy.
The other large summer estate in Saratoga was
that of the Spencer Trask family, who bought the
property and the 1850's house on it in 1881. Mrs.
Trask found the house "hideous," with "frightful"
paper on the walls and an unsightly cupola, but the
site was attractiveII and, since the previous owner
had defaulted on his mortgage, the price was right.
ll
The Trasks named the estate Yaddo (after thei r
young daughter's mispronunciation of the word
"shadow"), and hired Arthur Page Brown to make
major alterations to the house (see Figs. 15, 16).
Born in Ellisburg, New York, Brown had worked for
McKim, Mead and White from 1879 until he went
into practice on his own in 1884, the year before he
took on the Trask commission. Brown removed the
cupola at Yaddo, built a tower, and added a wing to
the original house,13 an for the considerable sum of
$75,000. In 1891 Yaddo burned to the foundations.
Distraught and ill, Trask hired William Halsey Wood
(I 855 -1897), a noted ecclesiastical architect, to re
build the house, and it is this building which still
stands in Saratoga, as a residence for artists and au
thors.
The houses illustrated in Figures 17 and 18 date
from about the same time as Brown's additions to
Yaddo and were clearly in the same expansive spirit.
Both were designed by Samuel Gifford Slocum, who
was born in Moravia, New York, and came to Sara
toga Springs in 1882. He left for Philadelphia in 1888
and settled in New York City in 1890, but he contin
ued to visit Saratoga Springs in the summers and
maintained an office there until the end of his life,
serving as the architect of many of the better houses
in the town. H -
Saratoga seems to have been bypassed by the
phase of American architecture known as the shin
gle style, which was popular at seaside resorts at the
end of the nineteenth century, embracing instead
the colonial revival style which grew out of it. One
of the first examples of the colonial revival in Sara
toga Springs was the house built for Harry M.
Levengston Jr. shown in Pl ate VIII. A full-blown ex
106 ANTIQUES
Fig. 13. One of the main
house, a t Woodlawn Pa rk.
Union Avenue, designed by Ed
ward D. Harris (J 839 - '1919)
for Hlnry Hil ton, built c. 1880,
and now demoli shed. The pho
tograph da tes f rom c. 1890.
Fi g 14. The other ma in
hOLlse at Woodl awn Pa rk, de
signed by Ha rris for Hilton ,
built c. 1885, a nd now demol
is ho:d. The photogr a ph dat es
from (. 1890.
ample of the style is the grandly scaled house that is
now the home of the president of Skidmore College
(PI. IX). It brings the architecture of Saratoga full
circle to the Greek revival houses of the 1830's.
However, its portico is not the prelude to a Greek
temple but a salute to the columned porticoes of late
eighteenth-century Federal houses.
JUl'!' 1985
By the time these houses were built, Saratoga's
prestige had declined precipitously. For a while
Richard Canfield revived Morrissey's old club, but it
failed and he sold it in 1911. The hotels went into a
long decline and one by one were closed or demol
ished. Only the August racing season continued to
have a following.
107
-
-
Happily, the pendulum has swung. In the 1960's a
successful performing arts center was opened, the
race track was and the houses on North
Broadway and Circular Street began to be bought up
by horse breeders and owners. As a result, Saratoga
is again the queen of tlle spas and a delightful place
to visit on a summer's day.
For their assistance in tile preparation of thIS article, I
would like to thank Betty Gereau, Beatrice Sweeney, Kevin
L. Stayton, and Charles wvendge.
Fig. 15. Yaddo, originally
built in the 1850's for R. S.
Childs, remodeled and en
larged by Arthur Page Brown
(1859-1896) for the Spencer
Trask family, 1885 - 1886. The
photograph dates from c. 1886,
about five years before the
house burned in 1891. The
Trasks had a new house built
on the site.
Fig. 16. Porch at Yaddo in a
photograph taken after 1885.
The fountain at the left is a
copy of the ones made by
Louis St. Gaudens (1854 -1913)
to flank the fireplace in the
dining room of the house de
signed by McKim, Mead and
White for Henry Villard
(1835-1900) in New York City.
Brown, the architect of Yaddo,
had worked in the firm's office
at the same time as St. Gau
dens.
I Tales abo ut Saratoga Springs a bound Ln suc h books as Hugh Bradley's
S uch was Saratoga (New Yo rk , 1940) and George Waller's Sarat oga, Saga of
an Impious Era (Englewood ClifTs, New Jersey, 1966). The architecture of
the town is discussed In Stephen S. ProkopofT and J oa n C. Siegfried, The
Ni rlet eenth-century Architecture of Saratoga S prings (New York, 1970).
1 James ex pressed his opinion about Sa ratoga in The Nation on August II.
1870, pp. 87 - 89. About a month lat er (The Nat ion , September 1S, 1870,
pp. 170 - 172) James wrot e about Newport, Rhode Isl and, which was much
more 10 his liking. It had an antique, time-worn qua fi ty thaI was in com
plete conIras t to {he newness of Saratoga
ANTIQUES
Fig. 17. This house at 722 Nonh Broadway, built befo re 1888,
was designed by Samuel GI fford Slocum (J 854 -1920) for Benja
min Spi nk.
' Eli Pelki ns. Saratoga /901 III t/s lrat ed (New York, 187 1), p. 3.
' The is in the Olmsted Papers in Was hington, D. C. In the sa me col
lection " correspondence:! betweEJ1 Olmsted an d the p ropri etors of the
Cnited States Hotel in April 1874. Olmsted evid en tly prepared plans fo r
the grounds of the hotel, whIc h was then being rebuilt. However, ,he p ro
priet or<; relllr ned the pl a ns to Olms ted on April 28 , saying "we think you r
plan, fO I laying o ut our grounds a re very beautiful bu t as t ht> sprin g is SO
extremelY backward and we bnd that we ha\Ce so much ebe to do, we ha" e
deci ded that with the exception of pl a nting some 'rees &c to Ie,
grounds ", lone for a nother year." Whether or not they call ed on Olmsted
,he neXl yea!" is not known.
The house, now dem oli s hed, is illustrated in Sarah Bradford Landau,
"Ric hard Morr is Hun t, the Continent a l PicllIresque, and th e 'Stlck Style,'''
IO/l rnal 01 the Sot:ielY of Archi lecl/./ral /-/i' lOria lH. \'01. 42, no. 3 (October
1983). p. 28 1.
' Nat Mniel .Bart lett Sykester, Hi .\ tory of Saratoga COlIl/ ly, New York, with
Ni ltOflCll1 Notes 0 11 it 5 I'llfioll'> TOWI1 5 (Chi cago, Ne\\' York. and Ri chmond,
1893), p. 403.
; Hill an Is discussed in Stephen Birmin gham, 0111' Cro\Vd (New York,
19(>7). pp. 142 - 143; and The Veil' York Time.' for September 4 a nd 7 a.nd
October 24 and 29. 1871.
Fig. 18. Stoneleigh, Union Avenue, designed by Slocum for
Harr... S. Leech, built 1885 - 1886, burned in 1937. Slocum de
signed a nearly identi cal house call ed Redstone for George Heyl
of Plllladelphia after he moved to that city in 1888.
Jtll Y 1985 109
108