It is the site of many old summer "cottages" and Great Camps, including Marjorie Merriweather Post's Topridge.

"The camps of many of these families began as tent colonies, with separate units for sleeping, dining, games, and so on, and evolved into permanent structures built with understated taste.

Eventually, families would lease or buy land from Smith and build tent platforms, and finally clusters of cabins and cottages.

The party consisted of ten family members and an equal number of servants, "three horses, two dogs, one carriage, five large boxes of tents, three cases of wine, two packages of stovepipe, two stoves, one bale of china, one iron pot, four washstands, one barrel of hardware, four bundles of poles, seventeen cots and seventeen mattresses, four canvas packages, one buckboard, [...], twenty-five trunks, thirteen small boxes, one boat, one hamper", all of which was then transferred to wagons for the 36-mile (58 km) ride to Paul Smiths, and thence by boat to their island campsite.

[2] Upper Saint Regis Lake is part of the original Seven Carries canoe route from Paul Smith's Hotel to Saranac Inn.