The St. Armand Town Hall, Bloomingdale Born: 1877
Died: 1964
Married: Helen M. Dean
William Henry Scopes came to Saranac Lake for treatment of his tuberculosis at the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium in June, 1896. He became interested in architecture watching William L. Coulter supervise the construction of the Administration building at the San, an interest he pursued by taking a correspondence course in the subject. He began practicing while still a student, designing alterations to houses and, in 1903, the St. Armand Town Hall in Bloomingdale.
Maurice Feustmann (1870-1943) also came to Saranac Lake for the tuberculosis cure in the late 1890s after a European education, although after two years, he continued his cure in the Southwest. In 1903, Scopes invited Feustmann to return to Saranac Lake to become his partner. The new firm of Scopes and Feustmann entered and won a competition to design a Reception Hospital for Mary Prescott. The Colonial Revival-style Reception Hospital, off of Franklin Avenue, began what would become a specialization in the design of sanatoria, including the Mary Lewis Reception Hospital in Loomis, New York; the Vermont State Sanatorium; the Laurentian Sanatorium at St. Agathe, Quebec; the William Wirt Winchester Memorial Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut; the Lake Edward Sanatorium; and the County of St. Louis Sanatorium at Duluth, Minnesota. Scopes had already been working in the Colonial Revival style when Feustmann joined him, and the latter may have introduced Italian Renaissance and Beaux-Arts influences from his European education.
By 1910, the firm was also speculating in local real estate, purchasing a large block of Julia Miller's subdivision bounded by Park Avenue, Catherine, Baker and Little Baker Streets in 1907 and beginning to develop it themselves. They designed and built houses incorporating curing features at 84, 86, 90 and 96 Park Avenue (now 169, 177, and 185 Park, and 75 Catherine), as well as Feustmann's own home just behind 96 Park Avenue at 28 Catherine Street. Feustmann held 90 Park Avenue as a rental property until at least 1916, while Scopes's daughter Helen S. Turner owned and rented out 96 Park Avenue almost as long. The firm also designed several other area houses including the Dr. A. H. Allen Cottage (1909) at 22 Catherine Street (now 11 Woodycrest Road). They produced designs for several camps, notably a Swiss-style chalet built for Marcus M. Marks on Blue Mountain Lake in 1905 (and published in Henry H. Saylor's Bungalows in 1911), and the slab-sided main lodge at the Kildare Club, a private Adirondack camp rebuilt in 1906 from an earlier hunting and fishing club near Tupper Lake.
Peyton Clark Cottage In 1914, Scopes married Helen M. Dean of Quebec, who had been living in Saranac Lake since 1911, probably as a patient.
The names "Scopes and Feustmann" became inseparable, and it is difficult to distinguish their contributions. Together, they are responsible for a substantial portion of the built environment of Saranac Lake, including the Harrietstown Town Hall, the Hotel Saranac, the Santanoni Apartments, and the Will Rogers Hospital.
Scopes and Feustmann did no work in Saranac Lake after 1930, when new construction ceased almost entirely. The firm had offices at 175 5th Avenue in New York City. 1
William Scopes died in 1964 at 87, and is buried in Pine Ridge Cemetery. He was honored in 1956 by the Central New York Chapter of the _Architects American Institute of Architects".
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, December 24, 1964
W. H. SCOPES, ARCHITECT, DIES AT 87
William H. Scopes, noted designer of tuberculosis hospitals, died at Saranac Lake General Hospital at 12:15 this morning after a long illness. He was 87 years old.
Mr. Scopes resided at 32 Church Street; his wife Helen died this past October 31.
Mr. Scopes originally came to Saranac Lake to cure from tuberculosis; while here, as an occupant of Little Red, the first cure cottage at the Trudeau Sanatorium, he became interested in architecture and took a correspondence course in the subject. He later went to Columbia University for further study.
He began practicing architecture in 1903 and designed practically all of the buildings at Trudeau.
In association with his partner, the late Maurice M. Feustermann, [sic] Mr. Scopes designed the Will Rogers Hospital, the Hotel Saranac and the Harrietstown Town Hall. His first building in the Adirondacks had been the St. Armand Town Hall.
The firm became famous as experts in the design of tuberculosis hospitals and designed a tuberculosis addition for many hospitals in the United States and Canada.
In 1956 Mr. Scopes was honored for “long and distinguished service” to his community by the Central New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. At that time, Mr. Scopes was also chairman of a Water Commission which made a complete study of the village's water supply.
Mr. Scopes is survived by his brother, John of Albany. At press time, funeral arrangements were not complete but the Fortune Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
See also Trudeau Sanatorium Historic District
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