By Constance Hill
Think of camp as you know it; then take away the kids, the rules, and the bugs. Think of heaven on earth; consisting of 5 star luxury that feels like 10 star. Add white glove service, scintillating cocktail conversation, and rustically opulent rooms that you don’t want to leave. Picture a host that anticipates and grants your every wish: you have arrived and you are at “The Point”.
There really is nothing else like “The Point”. The era is the predecessor to the log cabin style ofAlgonquin Park and the home of the original “Adirondack Chair” now Canadianized to the “Muskoka Chair”. This former Rockefeller family summer home was built in the tradition of the “Great Railway Camps”, when the family would pack up and leave New York by train for their summer residence on Saranac Lake, New York.
The Adirondack Great Camps were built on the rugged shorelines between the forests and the mountain lakes. Grafted of native timber and stone, these great log mansions eptiomized the 19th century idea of roughing it in great comfort, style and luxury. The dinner party atmosphere is like “The Great Gatsby” on vacation.
A trip to “The Point” provides a wealth of activities and diversions from boating and waterskiing to tennis, hiking and skeet shooting. There are champagne cocktail cruises on the lake launch and in true camp tradition there is a bonfire after dinner, complete with Persian rugs and pillows to recline on just the way the Rockefeller’s and their guests did many years before.
The guests dine together much like old friends at a house party in the woods. The experience of being entertained in the gracious style of honoured guest and friend leads to many lasting friendships and is one of the most unforgettable memories treasured after a trip to “The Point”.
The staff motto, “consider it done” is delivered in the spirit of warm hospitality, privacy and utter comfort. One enters the Great Hall and senses the feeling of good cheer and the enveloping gentility of the surroundings.
From the featherbed to the fine dining and unmatched wine cellar, the point of it all is to be sequestered in one of the world’s finest hideways; seduced by the unique sense of guest entitlement.
