On November 8, 1983, New Yorkers headed to the polls for election day. With no statewide races, for most voters the top of the ticket that Tuesday featured district judges or town-level leaders. In Peekskill, NY, a little-known man named George Pataki won a comfortable re-election to his second term as the town’s mayor, totalling 3,622 votes. The biggest issue for most voters was a statewide transportation bond allocating $1,250,000,000 to improve the infrastructure.  At a state-wide minimum wage of $2.75, that bond could pay for many, many man-hours of repairs. Voters ultimately agreed, passing it by a slim margin of 52%. 

Several other proposed statewide measures also appeared on the ballot in 1983, and most also passed. But in measuring their success, the margins mattered–some squeaked by, and others did much better. Interestingly, the measure granting the greatest margin of victory of them all, simultaneously both winning the biggest number of “yea” votes and losing the fewest number to “nays” concerned a small patch of land in the Adirondacks, and a non-profit organization called “Sagamore Institute, Inc.”  

This measure was listed on the ballot merely as “Proposition 6” and clarified simply as “Allows for the exchange of Adirondack Park Land between the state and Sagamore Institute, Inc.” The newspapers reported its passage as a matter of course. Most folks went on with their lives without much more thought. But at Great Camp Sagamore, it meant reuniting a world. 

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When Barbara Glaser and Howie Kirschenbaum bought Sagamore in 1975, the $100,000 price conveyed only what we call today, “lower camp.” These closest-to-the-lake spaces historically housed and entertained Sagamore’s owners William West Durant, Alfred Vanderbilt, Margaret Emerson, and some of their most senior staff. In the 1975, these were considered the most valuable of the buildings, and therefore most in need of preservation. Glaser and Kirschenbaum did not have much of a say; this was the sole deal offered to them, and they took it.

From the architectural perspective, the arrangement was accurate. Whereas the lower camp buildings remain iconic, the plain red-and-green-painted, board-and-batten-constructed, worker-and-workshop-housing buildings of “upper camp” have never possessed similar amounts of design ingenuity. The purpose of the barn, after all, was to be a barn. So it was built accordingly.  

From the historical perspective, however, the division did unintentional injury to the past. For at Adirondack “Great Camps” like Sagamore, the two areas of the property–the workers’ camp and the owners camp’–had always co-existed in a sort of yin-yang harmony, each proving indispensable to the other. The owners needed the workers not just for their manual labor, but also for their local knowledge and skills as outdoorsmen. While the right staff could make a Great Camp deliver an exceptional, unforgettably rugged-yet-luxurious wilderness experience, the wrong staff could turn it into a desolate house in the far-flung woods. And, the workers depended on the owners for their livelihoods, always knowing that a happy employer was traditionally a more generous one as well. 

For decades, these two worlds of owners and workers had lived mere steps away from each other at Sagamore, inextricably linked but also entirely separate, combining near-aristocratic high society with mountain men (and sometimes, mountain families) who lived in these rugged spaces all year long. During its stewardship of Sagamore, Syracuse University had also kept the two camps together. They remained united in purpose, even as that purpose became more egalitarian, changing from providing elite adventurism for wealthy vacationers, to hosting educational initiatives and conference meetings.  

So although it may not have initially presented itself in the elation of the 1975 signing, as time went on the historic connection – and present separation – between upper camp and lower camp continued to manifest itself. More and more, Glaser and Kirschenbaum wished that they could reunite the two camps. Yet the New York State Constitution stood squarely in the way.  Since the upper camp had joined the other 1500 acres the DEC had bought, it could never be sold or transferred again, except for by constitutional amendment. 

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Although aware of this issue, Glaser and Kirschenbaum did not let it slow them down in the other parts of their work. So although it may not have initially presented in the elation of the 1975 signing, as time went on the historic connection – and present separation – between upper camp and lower camp continued to manifest itself. By 1977, the last of the sales and transfers with both New York State and Syracuse University had gone through, and they had Sagamore up and running. They hosted conferences for large numbers of teachers convening for professional development. Topics included strategies like cooperative learning, peer-to-peer teaching, and student led inquiry. Their pioneering proved visionary once again–today, these tools form the foundation for most modern curricula.  

Under Glaser and Kirschenbaum’s leadership, Sagamore also started convening two popular programs for other, non-educator guests. One focused on gathering musicians to write, sing, and share mountain folk songs, while another toured several of William West Durant’s camps. These continue to this day, as two of Sagamore’s most-popular, signature programs – the Mountain Music Festival and Durant’s Gilded Age Camps.

Meanwhile the 1980 Winter Olympics transformed the Adirondacks and affected Sagamore as well. With so little housing for spectators in Lake Placid, Sagamore was able to accommodate guests and drive them, by bus, the 90 minutes in each direction to and from the games each day. The bus trips along the curvy and bumpy roads may not have created the most enjoyable memories, especially for those prone to motion sickness. But, the chance to watch the slalom by day and then recount the action by a roaring fire in Sagamore’s Main Lodge at night certainly was.

The experience was memorable for Sagamore’s leadership as well. It highlighted the Camp’s potential as a broader overnight destination, where staying and exploring new ideas or activities at the camp could be a rejuvenating Adirondack experience all in itself, even if no professional development or pedagogical conversations occurred. It could broaden Sagamore’s appeal, increase the number of visitors it served, diversify the kinds of knowledge and stories it shared, and raise revenue all at once.  

But to accommodate these new kinds of guests in addition to Sagamore’s other initiatives, Sagamore Institute very much needed to make Sagamore into an entire Great Camp once again. So they found a simple-yet-elegant solution. Rather than negotiating a sale with the state, which could take time and become complicated with money matters, they instead settled on a land-swap, in which Sagamore Institute would trade 200 acres of undeveloped, private land in the nearby town of Arietta for the 9 acres of upper camp, valuated at the same price. The Adirondack Park would become even more forever wild, the taxpayers would see no difference, and more history could be preserved.

So a group of Sagamore’s supporters and allies, led by Howie Kirschenbaum, and Diana Waite, Executive Director of the Preservation League, geared up to petition Albany to amend the New York Constitution – and reunite camp. 

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Amending the New York State Constitution is far from easy. Designed to institute stability and discourage frenetic changes, any amendment must pass both chambers of the state legislature, earn re-passage in the next legislative session (after voters have re-elected or replaced the legislators), and win approval from the statewide voters as a ballot measure. It takes persistence, advocacy, and a meaningful message. Led by Howard Kirschenbaum and Diana Waite, Executive Director of the Preservation League, Sagamore successfully harnessed all three.  

The persistence perhaps came naturally. Ever since buying Sagamore, Kirschenbaum and Glaser had tackled any number of restoration and preservation problems with energy and aplomb. In some ways, lobbying legislators was a welcome change from replacing roofs and planning the programs each season. Moreover, by the 1980s, Sagamore Institute could approach Albany not just as idealistic advocates for education, but as proven champions of conservation and preservation who had gotten Sagamore up and running in fine form and in just a few years.

The meaningful message also materialized, supported by scholarship and research. In the years since the Preservation League and Sagamore Institute had saved Sagamore, interest in these iconic mountain complexes had re-ignited. Indeed, the term “Great Camp” itself was born, largely inspired and affirmed by the publishing and success of Syracuse University Professor Harvey Kaiser’s book Great Camps of the Adirondacks. Stories like Sagamore’s convinced many that the former estates of the Gilded Age elites were well worth preserving, less as tributes to those former owners’ opulence but rather as sites of reflection on the Adirondack past. Reuniting Sagamore would only further its ability to teach and inspire others.

Advocacy would take time. Albany has always featured intense politics, and the early 1980s were no exception. Legislators had to balance the diverse needs of an immense, complex state.  Governing the international ethos of the Statue of Liberty, the urban intricacies of the five boroughs, the raw power of Niagara Falls, the pristine pines of the Adirondack Park, and everything else in between made for complex chambers in the Capitol building. Plenty of worthy projects petered out, not for any deficiency in their goals, but simply due to legislative logjams.  So Kirschenbaum, the Board of Trustees, and the Preservation League all lobbied whomever they could to move the matter forward.  

Interestingly, and in classic Sagamore style, the key moment occurred not from an Albany assemblage but rather from the ethos of Sagamore itself. State Senator Warren Anderson had been a past guest here and had booked himself and his wife for another program at the camp.  He also just happened to be the Majority Leader in Albany – one of the state’s two top legislators. When a shifting schedule made him cancel his trip, Anderson called Kirschenbaum to notify him. That conversation provided a perfect opportunity to connect – not as a quid pro quo, but as a conversation between two members of the Sagamore community. 

As a result, Senator Anderson steered the matter through Albany, ensuring it got through committees and general votes in consecutive legislative sessions, and out to the voters in 1983--when more than 1.6 million New Yorkers said “yes.”

Sagamore had achieved another historical milestone, amending the state constitution with grassroots support and deep determination. 

By 1986, the transfer was entirely complete, and the two camps united once again, preserving not only one of the last entirely intact iterations of an Adirondack Great Camp, but also recreating a site that could take up even more ambitious programs and goals. 

Whether you voted then, have supported Sagamore since, or are joining us for the first time, we are excited to celebrate this movement and this moment with you on August 2, along with so many others from a half century of Saving Sagamore to Share Sagamore!