Esperance House, Historic Saranac Lake Collection. 
Undated subdivision map. The approximate site of the Esperance House is shown at bottom. Historic Saranac Lake Collection.
Address: Destroyed. It was located just south of the Algonquin Apartments, about where the New National Guard Armory is today.
Old Address: 10 Algonquin Avenue
Other names: L'Esperance House
Year built: At least by 1902.
"Esperance House, George LaBounty, Prop.," was advertised on page 59 of the 1902 Saranac Lake Directory, described as "Sanitary Conditions Perfect. Hot and Cold Water. Beautifully Situated on Lower Saranac Lake. The only place in the Adirondacks where a view can be obtained of the Lower and Upper parts of Lower Saranac Lake." The Esperance House was apparently located nearer to the State Road than to Lower Saranac Lake. These views were likely possible because the open land of the Ampersand Hotel Golf Course was located between the Esperance House and the lake.
Henry P. Leis and possibly his brother, George Leis, stayed at Esperance in the late 1890s. In Henry P. Leis: the man from Saranac Lake, Marie Leis Pearce, who knew the building in her childhood, writes
The L'Esperance House was on a hill, which not surprisingly is called Labounty Hill on a recent map of Lower Saranac Lake which shows various landmarks.(16) It was at the point where Algonquin Ave turned off the State Road to go down to Lower Saranac Lake. It was a large building of two stories with numerous rooms opening out onto open porches which ran around the building on at least two or three sides and on both floors. It was deserted in my childhood and a favorite site to visit to run around with lanterns at times like Hallowe'en.
She also indicates that the house was diagonally across the road from The Governor.
The house was listed in the Disinfection Records of the Health Department, 1911. Lydia Morrow LaBounty was the landlady until her death in 1917.
For photos from the house, see Edwin J. Johnson.
