Living on Bartlett's Carry

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Staff Photo/Kim Smith Dedam
Staff Photo/Kim Smith Dedam

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August 10, 2008

By KIM SMITH DEDAM The Press Republican Sun Aug 10, 2008, 12:00 AM EDT

BARTLETT'S CARRY -- History tells how Virgil Bartlett built a sportsmen's lodge on a narrow band of hills at the source of the Saranac River.

A short carry for canoes, the land divides water moving from Upper Saranac to Round Lake, now called Middle Saranac Lake.

He knew fishermen and hunters had to cross here in 1854 along an Adirondack water route. There were no roads.

Bartlett's vision of wilderness living endures in the reclusive property association that kept his name.

Bartlett Carry Club, a private cooperative of nine families on 36 acres, opened for a rare glimpse on a recent rainy afternoon.

NEVER GONE

The meeting hall -- built from the ashes of the Bartlett Inn in 1924 -- filled up for the preview of ongoing historic discovery.

Not far from where the first tavern stood, Fran Yardley brought Virgil's story into the present.

"The river hurries past you and yet is never gone," she said, summing up her work in words from an old book.

An actress and Adirondack storyteller, Yardley inherited the property at Bartlett Carry with her late husband, A.J., a descendant of Farnham Yardley, heir to a gentlemen's club that purchased the place from the Bartletts.

Picking details from boxes of photographs and postcards, old guest books and a huge locked safe they found when they arrived in 1968, Yardley described a treasure trove of "little clues tucked into hidden places."

Notes written on the back of photos or folded and stuffed in relics revealed the story.

They are a rare collection of source material, and Yardley's exploration is gradually becoming a new book.

WILDERNESS HOSPITALITY

Earliest images show a few barns and a wooden house that doubled as Virgil's inn on the spot called Bartlett's Carry.

The landscape was open, the forests cut clear.

Virgil was known for his explosive temper and dedication to hard work.

His wife, Caroline, outlived him and sold the property in 1889 to a group of wealthy gentlemen called the Saranac Club, who expanded the tradition of wilderness hospitality.

It cost 25 cents to have a boat hauled over the carry then, Yardley said.

CARRY CLUB

Use of the site rose and fell with the times.

The main buildings burned twice before a final reconstruction that became a camp around 1952 for Banker's Trust employees called Pyramid Carry.

Will Rogers Sanitarium leased the property from 1965 until 1968, when the Yardleys returned.

Photos from the family's personal collection chronicle demolition by hand of several buildings.

Some structures damaged beyond repair were burned in practice fires by the Saranac Lake Fire Department, Yardley said.

The original property had 12 lodges, she said, some named after forest trees.

In 1972, the first guests arrived to the restored Bartlett Carry Club, which was later sold into cooperative ownership.

The idea since has been to "honor and preserve the things we had brought back," Yardley said, "in a place where Virgil and Caroline might not mind staying."

RETREAT

Bartlett Carry camps are hidden in Forest Preserve now, their smoking chimneys covered in moss.

When talk of history ended, Marika Holtzman, 16, walked down a wooded path edged in patches of bright green clover.

A ballerina, Holzman carried a pair of pink slippers in her hands.

The teenager has been coming here from her home in California since she was 3 months old.

Bartlett's Carry is an important part of every summer, she said.

"I love it here. It's a retreat."

kdedam@pressrepublican.com