Guggenheim Camp

Camp name: Rock Ledge

Other names: Guggenheim Camp; Guggenheim Center

When built:

The Guggenheim Camp on Lower Saranac Lake incorporates the former Clara Limberg (or Limberger) camp property called Rock Ledge Camp and the former Max Morgenthau camp, Idle Point.

Edmond Guggenheim wrote that he had the Limbergs' main camp torn down, and replaced, apparently, with the present Guggenheim main camp.

Albert H. Davidson worked for Edmond Guggenheim as a guide.

North Country Catholic, September 1, 1963

$85000 Donation for Wadhams Hall Institute Will Provide For Language Institute

Ogdensburg — a gift of $85,000 from Mr. Edmond A. Guggenheim of New York City was announced this week by Bishop Smith. Mr, Guggenheim, a former summer resident of Saranac Lake, is making the donation to be used in erecting three buildings for a summer language institute on the property which he has already given to Wadhams Hall on Lower Saranac Lake. The original gift of his summer home “Rockledge” to Wadhams Hall was announced in December 1962.

Mr. Guggenheim is well known in Saranac Lake for his philanthropic works. The language institute will provide the most up-to-date methods of teaching modern languages and will help in preparing those who will serve in the Missions in Latin America. The institute will be under the direction of the faculty of Wadhams Hall. Very Rev. Msgr. Floyd J. Brown is Rector.

The property on which the summer program will be held includes 148 acres of beautiful woodland, bordered by the Forest Home Road and on the West by Fish Creek which flows into Lower Saranac Lake. The land was acquired by Mr. Guggenheim in 1917. It was originally owned by William J. Ehrich and was later occupied | by the Limberg and Morgenthau families. Henry J. Morgenthau Jr., former Secretary of the Treasury, spent his summers there as a youth.

The new buildings will be built on the point at the Lake where the former Morgenthau camp stood. The main building now on the property will be a faculty residence. The new buildings, in rustic style to match the existing buildings, will include a residence for 60 students, a dining hall and kitchen and a separate classroom and seminar building which will also convert into a chapel for daily Mass.

Contracts were awarded recently and work has already begun on the project. The contractors are Frechette Lumber Co. of Tupper Lake, Richard F. Goodrich of Saranac Lake, and Brown and Tenney Electric of Potsdam. Maurice J. Finnegan, Jr. of Syracuse is the Architect. It is expected that work will be completed by early Spring so that the buildings will be ready for use next summer.

A new name for the Institute is to be announced soon.

Comments

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