A six-story brick landmark on Saranac Avenue, Hotel St. Moritz has stood in Lake Placid since 1926. Over the decades it housed Olympic teams, opened a ground-floor bar called the Swiss Room, and watched the village host the Winter Games twice.
White Rainbow has restored the building and reopened it under the St. Moritz name.
A century and a quarter on Saranac Avenue, one entry at a time.
New York draws a line around 2.8 million acres of wilderness and calls it the Adirondack Park. Two years later, voters amend the state constitution to declare the forest preserve “forever wild.” Today the Park covers more than six million acres, the largest protected area in the contiguous United States. Lake Placid sits at the foot of its highest mountains.
Albert Stickney builds a summer inn on Saranac Avenue: a wood-frame building, three stories, a wide porch facing the road and a capacity of 25 guests. He calls it The Pines.
Stickney sells the inn. The new owner, Paul Augsberger, renames it after the Swiss town that had, by then, become shorthand for winter elegance: St. Moritz.
Augsberger builds a six-story brick addition that swallows the original wood-frame inn. The hotel is winterized for the first time and opens year round. This is that building.
A Lake Placid man named Godfrey Dewey travels to Switzerland to manage the U.S. ski team at the second Winter Olympics. He carries the American flag at the opening ceremony. He comes home with a conviction: Lake Placid can host the next Games, and it can become the St. Moritz of America.
Helen Kane, the “boop-a-doop” singer whose voice and style inspired Betty Boop, comes to the St. Moritz to ski. The hotel's advertising that season promises nude sunbathing on the roof and private sun cabinets for guests who prefer discretion.
The III Olympic Winter Games open in Lake Placid: 252 athletes from 17 nations, the first Winter Games ever held outside Europe. A local man, Jack Shea, wins speed skating gold in both the 500m and the 1500m. He is the first athlete to win two golds at a single Winter Olympics. The St. Moritz houses foreign Olympic teams throughout the Games.
J.R. Grossman opens a bar on the ground floor of the St. Moritz, with its own street entrance and sign. He calls it the Swiss Room. It becomes a gathering place for locals and hotel guests alike.
Albert Einstein, summering at Knollwood Club on Lower Saranac Lake, comes to St. Moritz as a guest of honor at a gathering.
Goodman Kelleher, a renowned chef and hotelier, purchases the St. Moritz. He refurnishes the rooms with historic furniture from the Whiteface Mountain House nearby, making them, in his own words, “the best furnished in any hotel in Lake Placid.”
Goodman Kelleher dies. William Rascoe and his wife Joan acquire the hotel and operate it through the next decade.
On January 25, Governor Averell Harriman opens the Whiteface Mountain Ski Center, dedicated to the 10th Mountain Division and the ski troops of World War II. Lake Placid becomes a year-round ski destination. In 1960, the St. Moritz begins its partnership with Whiteface Mountain to offer some of the first ski packages in Lake Placid.
Robert F. Kennedy visits the St. Moritz while campaigning for his brother's presidential run — a fifty-car caravan, a coffee hour, and a speech.
On January 23, the St. Moritz is sold at auction for $51,650.
The XIII Olympic Winter Games return to Lake Placid. On February 22, the U.S. men's hockey team, college players against the four-time defending Soviet Union, wins 4–3. Sports Illustrated will later name it the top sports moment of the 20th century. On the same outdoor oval where Jack Shea won gold in 1932, Eric Heiden wins all five men's speed skating events.
Glen Cameron and Jim LaFountain purchase the hotel and operate it for many years. Under their ownership, the St. Moritz enters what many Lake Placid residents still remember as its most beloved modern era.
The St. Moritz is purchased by Jill and Frank Segger, who return the building to its original 1907 name, The Pines Inn. Duncan's Grill, the hotel's restaurant, is named after their son, who becomes an accomplished luge athlete for Team USA.
White Rainbow has restored the building and reopened it as Hotel St. Moritz. The name returns with it.
The St. Moritz is open again, with a refreshed look.
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