Address: Gull Bay, Upper Saranac Lake; Bartlett Carry Road
Other names:
Year built: 1920 Gull Bay camp was purchased in 1929. John Loeb purchased it from A.F. Marvin,who apparently had built it in 1920
Gull Bay Camp was built by A.F. Marvin in 1920, and later bought by John L. Loeb, Sr., the head of the Wall Street firm of Loeb, Rhoades & Company, a predecessor of Shearson Lehman/American Express Company.
The camp caretaker was Edwin Trimm from 1937 until 1955. Lester E. Reome also worked there, starting in 1940. Later, Carl Hathaway served as caretaker.
Plattsburgh Press-Republican, January 9, 1978
Hathaway keeping pair of traditions afloat
By ROBERT SPERBER, Staff Writer, Saranac-Placid Bureau
SARANAC LAKE - One man is keeping two North Country traditions alive. In the summer, Carl Hathaway builds guideboats. In the winter, he cuts blocks of ice out of Upper Saranac Lake.
"It's beginning to amount to that," the 48-year old caretaker of John Loeb's camp on Gull Bay said this week.
Unlike the sheer enjoyment and identification Hathaway feels with his guideboat building craft, he has no love for ice-cutting. Few people use this method to get their ice any more in this day of food freezers and commercial ice makers. But the Loebs apparently like it, as Upper Saranac Lake water has been certified AA — almost 100 per cent pure.
Hathaway and three other men cut about 400 cakes of ice from the lake, each cake measuring about 18 inches by 18 inches by 13 inches. The work itself takes three days to complete.
On the first day, Hathaway uses an electric circle saw to carve squares In the ice, sort of a giant chess board. All but the last two inches of the ice are cut through. This alone takes about eight hours.
On the second day Hathaway takes a large hand saw and cuts through the remaining two inches, then wedges a row of ice cakes from the main section. He then chops them into squares and floats them into the open area of lake water left from previous cuttings.
The other men then drive up in a truck. Using a ramp going from the lake to the rear of the truck, two men using poles slide the ice cakes up the ramp and into the truck. From there the cakes are taken to the ice house, where they are stacked on top of one another, almost filling the entire building.
Hathaway and crew cut all 400 cakes in a normal 9 to 5 day.
On the third day one of the most remarkable parts of the process takes place: insulation. The ice is used by the Loebs during the summer when they come to their camp. To insulate it against the 80- to 90-degree heat which is common in the summer, sawdust is dropped over the blocks to insulate it.
According to Hathaway, the sawdust keeps the ice preserved no matter how hot it gets. After it is placed on top of the blocks, it flows down through the cakes and covers the various layers.
When the Loebs want ice for their drinks, Hathaway simply takes one block out of the Ice house and chops it into cubes, places it in a bucket and brings it over.
The Hathways are content to use ice from their freezer. They've been doing it for years, Hathaway says, adding that he wouldn't mind giving up the ice cutting work.
He's no stranger to it, though. He's been doing it for 44 years. His father, also a caretaker, taught him how to do it at an early age, and when Hathaway was a boy he used to go to work for various ice houses.
Dangers do lurk, such as falling in the icy cold water.
"Pretty much ruins the rest of your whole day," Hathaway remarks in describing such events.
With the exception of cutting blocks for the ice palace during the winter carnival, the art is pretty much dead now. Except for Hathaway, that is.
