Arthur Burkett
Arthur Arms/Beattie Cottage 
Arthur Arms/Beattie Cottage 
Journal of the Outdoor Life ad. 
Removal of part of the connector at 74 Park Avenue that once attached it to 76 Park Avenue 
1931 Sanborn map showing the connection between 76 and 74 Park Avenue Address: 149 Park Avenue
Old Address: 74 Park Avenue
Other names: Arms Cottage (1911), Collins Cottage (1912), Hamer (1928), Homes Cottage (1928), Colyer Cottage (1929), Dassance Cottage (1929); DIS. Murphy Home (1930).
Year built: c.1910
Other information: Arthur Arms (his middle initial may have been A. or T.) bought the eastern half of lot #11 in Julia Miller's Villa Sites along Park Avenue; he apparently built the house on this lot. After Mr. and Mrs. Arms moved into their new house with his mother, Edna, Edith Arms ran the house as a nursing cottage, starting out with only three patients. The nurse living on the premises was Nattie Case. Minnie Buxton was the waitress. In 1915, there was only one more person in the house, besides the family members, than there had been in 1910. Ruth Collins, the head nurse in the infirmary at the Adirondack Cottage Sanatorium, operated the cottage in 1911. In January 1916, Arthur and Edith Arms sold 74 Park Avenue to Worthie Colyer for $6000 plus $1690 due on a mortgage held by Milo B. Miller.
Though the Colyer Cottages were jointly owned for a quarter-century, there is no evidence to prove that they were jointly managed for more than a few years when they were under the proprietresship of a nurse, Mrs. Charlotte Beattie. She had taken over the nursing cottage business at 76 Park Avenue by late 1920. By October 1922, the Beatties were running 74 Park Avenue as a nursing cottage, one of seven cottages in Saranac Lake that had contracts with the Veterans Administration for care of tubercular veterans. An undated document (probably 1923-25) shows that both 74 and 76 Park Avenue were under Mrs. Beattie's management. Perhaps she built the enclosed walkway shown on the 1931 Sanborn map which connected the two cottages, as the kitchen at 76 Park Avenue served both buildings. Together, they provided 14 rooms ranging in price from $35 to $65 monthly.
By early 1927 the house was under the management of Mrs. Kate Hamer, whose daughter was ill. By 1930, 74 Park Avenue was operating as a boarding cottage under Mrs. Dassance (the wife of Dr. L. G. Dassance), who also managed other private sanatoria concurrently with this one. By late May, 1930, she had turned this house over to Mrs. John Murphy, who had been in business before at 10 Forest Hill Avenue, and who ran it until at least 1935.
The Arthur Arms/Beattie Cottage is listed as a contributing building to the Cottage Row Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.
Much of the above information is from an unpublished manuscript titled "Colyer Cottages," written by Philip L. Gallos for Historic Saranac Lake, c. 1984.
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