Located just minutes from Lake Placid, Ampersand Bay and Lower Saranac Lake each year attract visitors from around the world. This has been the case for more than a century. Many celebrities have shared in this unique Adirondack experience. There is a disagreement as to whether the Native Americans or Robert Louis Stevenson first named Lower Saranac the "Lake of the Clustered Stars." The stars are as bright today as they were then. (Visit Stevenson's cottage or perhaps the Six Nations Indian Museum when you are here). Mark Twain was especially enamored of Ampersand Bay.

Spectacular sunsets all year-round. (Click image to enter the gallery)

He lived a couple of hundred feet up Lake Street in a quaint little cottage and could stroll to the shore for the peace and calm of the setting. He was a man who could sit alone for hours without experiencing boredom, and wouldn't we love to have a peek into his thoughts for some of the wonderful stories surely too numerous to put to pen.

When Albert Einstein needed a vacation from his research at Princeton, he would head up to Lower Saranac Lake, where he kept his sailboat, and spend days in relaxed sailing among the many islands. He didn't hesitate to mix with the local community and enjoyed playing regularly with one of the local amateur string ensembles. Today he would find the lake very much the same as half a century ago, with its unspoiled mountain vistas and miles and miles of untouched shoreline.

Sit, relax and take in the views. (Click image to enter the gallery)

The British writer W. Somerset Maugham had a residence in town and claimed that the sunsets from Ampersand Bay looking down Lower Lake fifteen miles to Panther Mountain were some of the most glorious events in the lake country. And the great Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, another resident, found the lower lake to be "inspirational!" Dmitri Kessel, the world renowned photojournalist of Life magazine, stored his boats and valises at Ampersand Bay Boat Club for more than a quarter century, and he would travel from Paris to spend six to eight weeks with us each summer. He did make the long trip to Ampersand Bay one winter "a long time ago" to marry his beautiful wife Shirley in a very special place. The basement of the Saranac Lake library is a wonderful resource for local history. It has a marvelous collection of old photographs, books and records of the area,

The Adirondack's breathtaking autumn colors. (Click image to enter the gallery)

and one could spend countless days poring over the fascinating anecdotes and stories of the interesting folks who have called it home, and of the countless visitors who have merely fallen in love with its beauty.

The folks at Ampersand Bay Boat Club are thrilled to be a part of the special history of the North Country and to have been welcoming guests and visitors for over half a century. We welcome you to share in this experience with your own adirondack vacation.