McGibbon Stable, c. 1909. Photograph by Edward T. Start
Courtesy of the Adirondack ExperienceTrudeau Sanatorium Historic District, Reference Number 16
Year built: 1909
Architect:
Other names: American Management Association's Vehicle Storage Building & Distribution Services Building #3
McGibbon Stable from AMA Way, 2021
Courtesy of John Eldridge
Description: McGibbon Stable is a large (4,800 square foot) frame barn on a U-shaped plan, with attached woodshed and housing for workmen. The stable sits on a uncoursed, uncut rubblestone foundation; walls are wood shingled and the roof is asphalt. The center section of the stable is crowned by a wooden ventilator with a simple weathervane above a central clipped gable. Fenestration is varied and includes windows, doors, garage doors and stable doors. On the sanatorium map, McGibbon Stable was shown as one building, but AMA shows it as two buildings, one each of 1,760 and 3,040 square feet. A small concrete block addition on the northeast side dating from 1941 was demolished in 1994.
History: In 1908 the Village of Saranac Lake expanded its corporation boundaries and extended Park Avenue from the northeast edge of Dr. Ezra McClellan's Highland Park subdivision to the sanatorium property line. What had been a little-used service entrance to the sanatorium, passing a group of well-worn outbuildings, suddenly became the most accessible entrance, visible from the Village's most exclusive neighborhood. Wood and coal sheds, barns, a laundry, a crematory (probably for medical waste, not for the disposal of human bodies) and other buildings considered unsightly were torn down and replaced by up-to-date facilities that lasted the life of the institution. 1
The process of building the stable was described by Dr. Trudeau: "Every department had to grow to match the growth and development of the others, and in 1909 the old barns and sheds were all pulled down and a pleasing modern structure, with every convenience for stables, wood-sheds, and coal-sheds was built on land which had been acquired and donated by Mr. D. Lorne McGibbon at a cost of $5,000." 2
In addition, a legacy of $25,000 was given to the Improvement and Contingency Fund from the estate of Miss Hilda Tiffany, sent by her father Louis C. Tiffany "in accordance with a wish expressed to him by Miss Tiffany." Miss Lilla C. Wheeler made a gift of $1,100 to the same fund.
"The new building . . . embodies in one attractive though simple structure, stables, barns, carriage house and woodshed, and rooms for the men overhead, and is a most useful, sightly and necessary addition to the plant of the institution," wrote Dr. Trudeau. 3
Sources:
- Mary B. Hotaling, Draft nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, January 1993.
- National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Comments
Footnotes
1. E. L. Trudeau 1909-10, quoted in Marguerite Armstrong Scrapbook #4-2.
2. E. L. Trudeau, Autobiography, 299.
3. Marguerite Armstrong, Scrapbook #4-2.
