Lake Placid Club
They were "interested in the creation of group identity" based on Protestant Christianity, healthy nutrition, sports, the desire to deepen education over the course of a lifetime, refine aesthetics, and attain economic prosperity.
[4] Starting in the late 1920s, the club hosted winter sports events like a dogsled derby, attracting top competitors like Leonhard Seppala of Fairbanks, Alaska, who won in 1929.
The Arden was also the site for annual "Indian Council Fires," which were ceremonial events based on Iroquois culture, of which Dewey was personally enamored.
[9]: 169–173 Early in September, 1899, trustees of the club found the time ripe to bring together those most interested in home science, or household economics.
A pioneer in library science, Katharine Sharp, spent long periods at the club and died there in 1914 after a car crash during wedding festivities.
The club's facilities and national profile laid the foundations for Lake Placid's ability to host the Games.
[9]: 164 In the 1930s, a group of students from the Yale School of Drama performed at the club's Lakeside Theater during the summer months.
Air travel and time constraints meant that fewer families spent the entire season at the club.
A Lake Placid circular explained, "No one will be received as a member or guest against whom there is physical, moral, social or race objection, or who would be unwelcome to even a small minority ...
The dispute lasted several years (some members of the New York State Council of Mayors refused to attend a conference at the club for this reason in 1958);[27] the league decided to drop the charges of discrimination in 1959.
"[9]: 351 Since Dewey's time, the club had been very strict about membership, avoiding fashionable vacationers, not serving alcohol in the dining room, and only accepting guests who came recommended by other members.
It is now owned by the South Florida District of the Church of the Nazarene, which operates it as the Lake Placid Camp and Conference Center.
[28] A three-story building was constructed consisting of sixty-eight rooms and situated two blocks from the Atlantic Coast Line Railway station and was called Club "Loj" which opened on December 1, 1927, and hosted Dewey's 76th birthday on Dececmber 16, 1927.
[28] Features of Club Loj included a $12,500 firetruck and a 100,000-gallon water tank, each room had two exits, and a night watchman made routine patrols.
The second year of operation added a ten-car garage and a golf course, and the water works throughout the club was completed.
In the third year, four new buildings, Litlloj, Lyvok (Live Oak), Lakehouse, and Easthouse, began construction and the road to town was paved, and a special train car called "Lake Placid" was added to the Atlantic Coast Line.
