Béla Bartók Cottage
Address: 61 Park Avenue
Old Address: 30 Park Avenue
Other names: Costello Cottage, DIS 1912
Year built: c. 1905
Other information: Composer Béla Bartók is said to have lived in the cottage sometime during the summers of 1943 and 1944, near the end of his life, and wrote his Concerto for Orchestra there. The cottage, called a bungalow by its owners, was the home of Margaret Sageman, the proprietor of the Sageman Cottage next door. If in fact Bartok stayed in the bungalow, he was the only patient ever to be housed in the Sageman home.
It has been thought that Bartók stayed in this cottage for the summers of 1943 and 44. This version of the story is based on Phil Gallos' recollections of a conversation with Margaret Sageman. Gallos remembers her recounting that Bartók stayed in the small cottage behind the main house. However, Béla Bartók's son, Peter Bartók, clearly recalls that in 1943 his father stayed in the Sageman Cottage (not the bungalow behind the house). It is possible that the composer stayed in the small Bungalow in 1944. 1
For the two summer months of 1945, Bartok and his wife Ditta rented a small cabin behind 89 Riverside Drive. He died of polycythemia soon after returning to New York at the end of the summer.
Along with the Sageman Cottage, the bungalow was built by William H. Moore, and later sold to Nelson Benway. In March 1911, it was purchased by Sam Edelberg and his wife Mary, who operated the cottage as a commercial private sanitarium until 1923, when they sold both houses to George C. Sageman.
The Béla Bartók Cottage is a contributing building to the Cottage Row Historic District.
Sources
- National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
- Gallos, Philip L., Cure Cottages of Saranac Lake, Historic Saranac Lake, 1985. ISBN 0-9615159-0-2
Comments
Footnotes
1. Letter exchange with Historic Saranac Lake, 2012.
