Cure Cottages

Between 1873 and 1945, Saranac Lake became a world renowned center for the treatment of [[1]], using a treatment that involved exposing patients to as much fresh air as possible under conditions of complete bed-rest. In the process, a specific building type, the Cure Cottage developed, built by local residents seeking to capitalize on the town's fame, by physicians, and often by the patients themselves. Many of these structures are still extant, and their historic value has been recognized by listing on National Register of Historic Places.¹

Fifty-nine of these structures named below are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as individual cure cottages. Others can be found in National Register-listed Historic Districts. Many others exist in Saranac Lake and surroundings, but were not listed on the National Register.

Note: The name assigned to each of these cottages gives the impression that it was called by that name throughout its service as a cure facility. In fact, it was common for a house to be operated by several different people over time, and the name of the cottages changed accordingly. We have tried to assign the name each cottage was best known by, but some idea of the history of the property can be gained by looking at the "Other names" entries. See the discussion at Disinfection Records for more on the sources of this information.

See also Cure Cottage History

Cottage	Pre-911 Address	Current Address	Notes
Dr. A. H. Allen Cottage]]	22 Catherine Street	11 Woodycrest Road	A 1909 Scopes and Feustmann-designed cure cottage.
Ames Cottage]]	43 Church Street	A Queen Anne style cure cottage built about 1906.
Baird Cottage]]	111 Glenwood Road	67 Glenwood Road	A virtually intact cure cottage built in 1930, near the end of the cure cottage era.
Barngalow]]	108 1/2 Park Avenue	40 Cliff Road	A two-story cure cottage that was originally a barn, converted to residential use in 1910.
Bogie Cottage]]	59 Franklin Street	25 Franklin Avenue	A 1908, Craftsman-inspired cure cottage.
Camp Intermission]]	Northwest Bay Road	Camp Colby Road	A Great Camp built for theatrical agent William Morris, designed by William G. Distin
Peyton Clark Cottage]]	9 Rockledge Road	A Tudor Revival-style, cure cottage designed by William H. Scopes. The owner's wife had tuberculosis.
Colbath Cottage]]	30 River Street	A Queen Anne-style cure cottage built about 1896.
Coulter Cottage]]	34 Shepard Avenue	A two and 1/2 story cure cottage designed by William L. Coulter and built between 1897 and 1899 as his residence.
Denny Cottage]]	76 Bloomingdale Avenue	A cure cottage built about 1910.
Distin Cottage]]	11 Kiwassa Road	186 Kiwassa Road	A cure cottage designed by architect William G. Distin for his father, photographer William L. Distin.
Drury Cottage]]	29 Bloomingdale Avenue	A cure cottage built c. 1912.
Ellenberger Cottage]]	183 Broadway	A Queen Anne style cure cottage built before 1917.
Fallon Cottage Annex]]	31 Franklin Street	A 1901 cure cottage. ²
Feisthamel-Edelberg Cottage]]	11 Neil Street	An intact cure cottage built before 1915.
Feustmann Cottage]]	28 Catherine Street	83 Catherine Street	A private cure cottage designed by architect Maurice Feustmann for use by his own family.
Freer Cottage]]	40 Kiwassa Street	267 Kiwassa Road	A largely intact private cure cottage built before 1925
E. L. Gray House]]	15 Helen Street	27 Helen Street	A cure cottage designed by Scopes and Feustmann, built between 1911 and 1913.
Hathaway Cottage]]	6 Charles Street	A largely intact, Queen Anne-style cure cottage built about 1900.
Hill Cottage]]	36 Franklin Avenue	A 1913 Craftsman-style cure cottage.
Hillside Lodge]]	Harrietstown Road	An intact cure cottage built about 1920.
The Homestead]]	3 Maple Hill	A boarding cure cottage built in 1890.
Hooey Cottage]]	24 Park Place	A 1916 cure cottage.
Hopkins Cottage]]	5 Birch Street	A cure cottage built in 1923.
Jennings Cottage]]	16 Marshall Street	23 Marshall Street	An 1896 Bungalow-style cure cottage.
Johnson Cottage]]	6 1/2 St. Bernard Street	A largely intact cure cottage built before 1896.
Kennedy Cottage]]	26 Shepard Street	A 1897 cure cottage that was used by the National Vaudeville Artists before the construction of the Will Rogers Hospital.
Lane Cottage]]	4 Rockledge Road	A 1923 cure cottage built by Edward Shaw for his wife, who had tuberculosis. The Shaws had two young children; fearing that they would contract TB from Mrs. Shaw, a separate house was built for them, nearby.
Larom Cottage]]	112 Park Avenue	247 Park Avenue	A cure cottage built between 1905 and 1910.
Larom-Welles Cottage]]	110 Park Avenue	50 Cliff Road	A 1905, cure cottage, built for the priest of St. Luke's Church, later the home of Dr. Edward Welles, a pioneer in thoracic surgery.
Dr. Henry Leetch House]]	3 Johnson Road	12 Labrador Lane	A 1932 cure cottage designed by William G. Distin for Dr. Henry Leetch, who specialized in treating tuberculosis, and who had the disease himself.
Leis Block]]	3-5 Bloomingdale Avenue	12 Bloomingdale Avenue	A 1902 commercial building with apartments built with "cure porches", it originally housed Henry P. Leis pianos and a pharmacy on its first floor.
Leis Cottage]]	26 Algonquin Avenue	401 State Route 3	A private, shingled cure cottage built about 1906.
Lent Cottage]]	18 Franklin Avenue	114 Franklin Avenue	An apartment house, built about 1920 as a cure cottage
Little Red]]	Algonquin Avenue	154 Algonquin Avenue	The original cure cottage of the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium founded by Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau.
Magill Cottage]]	37 Riverside Dr.	74 Kiwassa Road	A cure cottage built about 1911.
Marquay Cottage]]	6 Slater Street	67 Slater Avenue	A 1914, Queen Anne-style cure cottage built of rusticated cast-concrete blocks, with an octagonal corner tower.
Marvin Cottage]]	15 Franklin Street	119 Franklin Avenue	A cure cottage built about 1900.
McBean Cottage]]	89 Park Avenue	192 Park Avenue	A Colonial Revival cure cottage with Craftsman-style touches, built between 1915 and 1925.
Morgan Cottage]]	100 Park Avenue	211 Park Avenue	A 1915 bungalow designed by Scopes and Feustmann as a cure cottage.
Musselman Cottage]]	25 Riverside Dr.	60 Kiwassa Road	A boardinghouse-style cure cottage built about 1907.
Noyes Cottage]]	16 Helen Street	35 Helen Street	A cure cottage built in 1898.
Partridge Cottage]]	15 South Street	30 Clinton Avenue	A 1925 Colonial Revival apartment house, with three apartments used as a cure cottages for three families.
Pittenger Cottage]]	14 Forest Hill Avenue	A cure cottage with five cure porches, built about 1920.
Pomeroy Cottage]]	26 Baker Street	55 Baker Street	A Craftman-style house built about 1910, it may have been designed as a private cure cottage by William G. Distin.
Radwell Cottage]]	2 Charles Street	178 Charles Street	An intact 1896 cure cottage.
Ryan Cottage]]	62 Algonquin Avenue	29 Algonquin Avenue	An 1893 Queen Anne-style cure cottage.
Sarbanes Cottage]]	72 Bloomingdale Avenue	129 Bloomingdale Avenue	A cure cottage built about 1930.
Orin Savage Cottage]]	33 Olive Street	117 Olive Street	A cure cottage built about 1910.
Schrader-Griswold Cottage]]	49 Riverside Dr.	116 Kiwassa Road	A 1906 Queen Anne-style cure cottage.
Seeley Cottage]]	27 Olive Street	127 Olive Street	An intact cure cottage built in 1890.
Sloan Cottage]]	21 View Street	31 View Street	A Coulter and Westhoff-designed single-family cure cottage built in 1907.
Smith Cottage]]	12 Jenkins Street	25 Jenkins Street	A cure cottage for a single patient built about 1903.
Stevenson Cottage]]	Stevenson Ln.	44 Stevenson Lane	A cure cottage used by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1887.
Stonaker Cottage]]	Glenwood Road	92 Glenwood Dr	A private home built in 1916 for the president of Northern New York Telephone who used it as a cure cottage.
Stuckman Cottage]]	6 Clinton Avenue	17 Fawn Street	A cure cottage built between 1897 and 1900.
Walker Cottage]]	67 Park Avenue	134 Park Avenue	A 1904 Colonial Revival-style house that evolved into a cure cottage. ²
Wilson Cottage]]	8 Williams Street	21 William Street	An intact Queen Anne-style cure cottage.
Witherspoon Cottage]]	3 Kiwassa Road	164 Kiwassa Road	A boardinghouse-style cure cottage built in 1910.

There were many more houses that were used as cure cottages in Saranac Lake. Many of them can be found on the pages of this site: see Streets.

For other properties on the National Register of Historic Places, see Other historic properties.

WATCH Curiously Adirondack: The Adirondack Mountain Village of Saranac Lake Remembers Its Curative Past produced by [Clement] and Ed Kanze.

Most of us have heard William Faulkner's famous line about the past not being dead. His wisdom is nowhere more apparent than in the Adirondack Mountain village of Saranac Lake. Here, from the 1880s to the 1950s and a little bit beyond, tuberculosis patients arrived from near and far to rest on porches, breathe crisp pine-scented mountain air, and get well or die trying. Antibiotic therapy eventually put the village's sanitariums and cure cottages out of business. Still, in architecture, memory, story, and a heart-breaking poem penned by a brilliant young woman who didn't get well, the village's rich past remains vibrant and alive.

1. Comments

2013-08-29 18:29:29 I want to see the Williams Cottage —174.108.78.123

1. Footnotes

1. National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation: [[https:/ pgallery.nps.gov RHP/GetAsset RHP/64500466_text|Cure Industry Resources in the Village of Saranac Lake, Essex and Franklin Co., NY]], 291 KB, John A. Bonafide, Mary Hotaling, and Rachel D. Bliven
2. Gallos, Philip L., Cure Cottages of Saranac Lake, Historic Saranac Lake, 1985, ISBN 0-9615159-0-2.