Thomas Bailey Aldrich seemed to have it all. He was editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Walt Whitman and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow were firm friends. One of his books inspired Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
But it was heartbreak that built The Porcupine, Aldrich’s 13,000 square foot mansion in Saranac Lake, N.Y. In 1901, his son Charles contracted tuberculosis. The new house, it was hoped, would cure him. After all, clear Adirondacks mountain air made Saranac Lake the world’s leading centre for TB treatment. But Charles didn’t survive, and the family left Saranac Lake forever.
More than a century later, the Porcupine is a much happier place. Thank Fred Mazzeo for that. He bought the property in 2015 and has restored it to Adirondack elegance reminiscent of an era when the rich and powerful – Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Guggenheims – retreated from sweltering New York City to summer compounds called “great camps.” Indeed, the Porcupine’s architect, William Coulter, designed several of those camps, too.
Fred says, “This house is like a piece of art. I’m just a custodian.” But he jokes that when he dies, he’ll return to haunt it: “Don’t anyone dare move the furniture.” From charming birch bark bed lamps to an inverted canoe that lights the guest billiards table, furnishings reflect iconic Adirondack decor. So, too, the back sunroom, with its wicker chairs and mounted deer heads. Original pine flooring peeks out from under elegant area rugs and stair runners.
Good Points At
The Porcupine
By Peter Johansen