Historic Home on Beautiful Lakefront

This home has been in our family since early in the last century, first as the nerve center of a boy's camp and farm, and in recent decades an elegant, comfortable home. The current occupant is our dad, a scholar, leader, civic soul, and world traveler now retired in the house our mom grew up in and which they shared together. Their library as well as four generations' best antiques, memorabilia, cookbooks, kitchen stuff, and furniture fill the house. We are his three daughters, all educators ourselves. We live in Maryland and Virginia with our various kids and pets (maybe you'll notice one of them in the photos - he is not included in your rental!). We want to have Dad with us more frequently as well as build the kitty for the farmhouse's maintenance. So we are inviting you to come spend some time in our home as your own place to retreat and recharge.

This house and spot between the lake and the mountain mean so much to us. It's a rare wide spot on the steep and winding roads along Lake George. It invites the imagination and has done for all of us as we grew up; to walk the dog for his last trip out at night, listening to the owls hoot and the foxes bark on the mountain across the field, while reconstructing the constellations overhead, is to feel a whisper of the wild land. The lake and mountains provides infinite varieties of occupation. We have been blessed to grow up with this house; some of us call the bedroom on the left upstairs overlooking the lake the Girls' Room, and others call it the Rose Room, depending on when each of us first learned the house. The Boys' Room has only ever been the Boys' Room, however, although it certainly didn't have its current dollhouse when Grandpa added it on in the 1950's. The house sits in a beautiful spot but also has many different interior vistas and ingenious little touches, like the pull-out counter in the pantry, the drawers under the bunkbeds, and its many nooks and crannies to stop and have a quiet conversation, read a book, or play a fierce game of Battleship. It is a very special place.

This house has the finest glider on the best porch on the best lake. Seriously - the varied and comfortable seating throughout the house, all with reading lamps and places for books and drinks nearby, put it head and shoulders above any other house we've known. That is to say nothing of the landmark boathouse, sunsets on the dock, the fire table for roasting marshmallows, the trees on the patio spaced perfectly for hammocks, ample parking and beds for family reunions, or the picture window for birdwatching without bugs. The house looks so compact from the outside and yet feels sprawling from the inside. The kitchen was, as Dad says, "state of the art...in the 1950's!" We wish it had more counter space. But the kitchen table is continually occupied and the food is always delicious. It is also unfortunate that when Grandpa had the basement floor dug lower to make it a full workspace for himself, the workmen poured the concrete floor right back up to the level of the original floor. Nobody ever heard him curse louder or longer than he did that day. If you're over 6 feet you may have to bend your head when you do laundry. But that may help you notice the beams still with bark on them, or the foundation stones taken from Fort Ticonderoga. It all works out.