William G. Distin an architect of Saranac Lake, New York

Saranac Lake, New York

Saranac Lake is a village located in the state of New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 5,406. The village is named after Upper, Middle, and Lower Saranac Lakes, which are nearby....

, was an early associate of Great Camp designer William L. Coulter

William L. Coulter

William Lincoln Coulter was an architect who came to Saranac Lake, New York in the spring of 1896 in an effort to cure his tuberculosis, and stayed to design some of the finest Adirondack Great Camps and Cure Cottages in the area...

 who went on to design a number of Adirondack Great Camps.

Born in Plattsburgh, his family moved to Saranac Lake in 1889. After graduation from Saranac Lake High School

Saranac Lake High School

Saranac Lake High School is located in the village of Saranac Lake, New York, USA. There are approximately 640 students in grades 9 through 12. It is administered by the Saranac Lake Central School District. The school is housed in a building, completed in 1968. The school colors are red and...

 in 1900, he was hired by William Coulter as a draftsman; his apprenticeship lasted six or seven years. After Coulter's death in 1907, Distin attended Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, graduating in 1910. After a short period in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, working for S. S. Beekman designing houses, he traveled for a time in Europe. Returning to Saranac Lake about 1912, he joined the successor to Coulter's architectural firm, run by Max Westhoff, Coulter's former partner. In 1917, Distin worked for the Army building hospitals in Washington, DC. After the war, he returned to Saranac Lake to reopen Westhoff's firm, the latter having moved to Springfield, Massachusetts

Springfield, Massachusetts

Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...

.

After some smaller commissions for camps on Upper Saranac Lake

Upper Saranac Lake

Upper Saranac Lake is one of three connected lakes, part of the Saranac River, in the towns of Santa Clara and Harrietstown, near the village of Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks in northern New York. Upper Saranac Lake is the sixth largest lake in the Adirondacks. With Middle Saranac Lake and...

 such as Camp Intermission

Camp Intermission

Camp Intermission, also known as William Morris House, is a historic Great Camp located on Lake Colby just outside the village of Saranac Lake in the town of Harrietstown, Franklin County, New York. It was built in 1928 for theatrical agent William Morris, designed by William G. Distin. The...

, he designed Camp Wonundra for William Rockefeller

William Rockefeller

William Avery Rockefeller, Jr. , American financier, was a co-founder with his older brother John D. Rockefeller of the prominent United States Rockefeller family. He was the son of William Avery Rockefeller, Sr. and Eliza Rockefeller.-Youth, education:Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York,...

 in 1934. In 1937 he built "Eagle Nest" at Blue Mountain Lake

Blue Mountain Lake, New York

Blue Mountain Lake is a rural hamlet in the Town of Indian Lake of Hamilton County, New York located at the intersection of New York Routes 28 and 30 with a population of 146 according to the 2000 United States Census. Blue Mountain Lake also refers to the lake on the banks of which the village is...

 for Walter Hochschild, and in 1948, Camp Minnowbrook, in the same area, for R.M. Hollingshead. There were also seven smaller great camps on Lake Placid

Lake Placid (New York)

The body of water called Lake Placid is in the Adirondack Mountains in northern New York in the USA. The lake is approximately , and has an average depth of about . It is located in the towns of North Elba and St...

, and work on the Lake Placid Club

Lake Placid Club

The Lake Placid Club was a social and recreation club founded 1895 in Lake Placid, New York by Melvil Dewey, and intended as a place where educators might find health, strength and inspiration at modest cost...

.

Distin also designed a number of notable churches, including St. John’s in the Wilderness Episcopal Church

St. John’s in the Wilderness Episcopal Church

St. John's in the Wilderness Episcopal Church is an Episcopal church in Paul Smiths in the Adirondacks, New York State, US. It was founded in 1876 by Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau with the help of Paul Smith and many of the wealthy camp owners around Spitfire, Upper, and Lower Saint Regis Lakes...

 in Paul Smiths

Paul Smiths, New York

Paul Smiths is a hamlet in the Town of Brighton in Franklin County, New York, on Lower Saint Regis Lake, in the Adirondacks, 10 miles north of Saranac Lake, located at 44°26' North 74°15' West....

, Saint Barnards Catholic Church in Saranac Lake, Saint Eustace Episcopal Church in Lake Placid, and the Island Chapel, on Upper Saranac Lake

Upper Saranac Lake

Upper Saranac Lake is one of three connected lakes, part of the Saranac River, in the towns of Santa Clara and Harrietstown, near the village of Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks in northern New York. Upper Saranac Lake is the sixth largest lake in the Adirondacks. With Middle Saranac Lake and...

. He also designed the replacement of the original Adirondack Loj, which burned in a catastrophic fire that swept Essex County

Essex County, New York

Essex County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 39,370. Its name is from the English county of Essex. Its county seat is Elizabethtown...

in 1903.

Sources

• Gilborn, Craig. Adirondack Camps: Homes Away from Home, 1850-1950. Blue Mountain Lake, NY: Adirondack Museum; Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000.