The Camp
The camp that Massarene, Muncil and Mizner designed and built would be architecturally unique among the Great Camps of the Adirondacks. Its 20 original buildings included an owner’s cabin, dining hall, four or five sleeping cabins, two boat houses, a tennis house, bowling alley a Japanese tea house that would become one of the Adirondacks’ most iconic images. But unlike the heavy log style first developed by William West Durant or the ornate artistry associated with later Adirondack styles, White Pine Camp’s builders effected a more subtle rustic expression. Their “pre-modern” composition featured soaring roof lines, asymmetrical -shaped buildings, and the extensive use of dramatic, natural lighting. If windows are indeed the eyes of a home, White Pine Camp’s unusually shaped windows--in corners and clearstories--open every room to a kaleidoscopic array of natural light textures.
Another one of the builders’ innovations was the rough-milled siding developed by Muncil and Paul Smith’s millwright, Charles Nichols. It was a compromise between more traditional clapboard siding and the rustic slab siding typical of other Adirondack camps. Muncil and Nichols’ “brainstorm siding”, as they humorously referred to their innovation, soon became a common element of Adirondack architecture. Also known as “Adirondack siding”, it soon spread throughout the region and beyond.
In addition to its innovative architectural style, White Pine Camp’s designers surrounded their buildings with the most extensive landscape architecture of any Adirondack rustic estate to date. Its masonry walls, paths, bridges, flower plantings and lush rhododendron gardens create a medley of natural elements that embrace the camp’s grounds.