- Montreal, Quebec  

  It's a blessing to be here.

- New York, NY  

  Clear Lake, Clear Heart.

- Phil, PA  

  We've stayed here before and think there's magic here-

- Charlotte, VT  

  What a break in the rat race -

- Syracuse, NY  

Imagine that it is the 1800's in the Adirondack wilderness and you find yourself in a fireside chat with Ralph Waldo Emerson who participated in a "philosophers camp" not far from our Lodge, the writer Robert Louis Stevenson who cured from tuberculosis in Saranac Lake just minutes away from us and Albert Einstein who stayed on the very shores of our Lake Clear. You are winding down from an interactive day of mountain climbing, canoeing or skiing with idle chatter of conversations you have not had in years. The deep breathes of cool, clear mountain air relaxes and stimulates your senses and mind in a way that reawakens you for something new, that has both an intellectual and sensual savory spice. Aromas of wild game, fresh vegetables and herbs and spices from the garden obtained by your Adirondack guide, simmer in the hearthside and are smoked in the crackling fire. Imagine these delicacies prepared by an Old World immigrant family who have brought with them centuries of old world traditions dating back to medieval Europe of sautés, stews and original smoked biers, hefeweissens, mulled wines and blackberry brandy lindsor tortes.

Fast forward this now to the 21st century and imagine all this in the comfort of family handcrafted rustic lodgings with natural and holistic amenities of aroma therapy steam showers, fireplaces, "great camp" rooms, old world stone "Rathskeller" with a family crafted wein cellar and bier keller. All this as part of a 25-acre estate with 3 acres on the secluded shores of Lake Clear in an 1886 Adirondack Lodge that once served as a trading post and post office to the Upper Saranac Lake-St. Regis Wilderness area.

Now, picture yourself standing in the absolute stillness of a mountain morning where you can smell the freshness of the air and the yearning call of our Lake Clear loon family calling their mates and you can hear it as clear as the lake itself as if the entire world were expected to stand in audience.

Take-in the aromas from our kitchen permeating all nooks and crannies of our 1886 Lodge that is part the simmering of fresh herbs from our garden, hand-cut stocks and part spice of 3 generations of our family who have poured their soul to fill the hearts of a travelers seeking respite, contemplation, vigorous physical healing or just plain interactive fun.

Enjoy a culinary experience where you pick your own old world bier from over 100 styles or from 125 boutique wines from our handcrafted Wine & Bier Keller milled from trees from the property. Claim a table for the evening and not fear the silent push from a crowd as if they were heirs to the next seating and where the only (table) turnover you experience is fresh apples from the oven.

Take with you the evening's culinary memory, as it seems to fuel the fires in our handcrafted lodgings and gaze at the dancing embers as they serenade our northern lights.

Stroll our 25-acre great camp style Adirondack estate in Lake Clear where Einstein relaxed in the midst of the St. Regis Wilderness area of 520 lakes, streams, rivers and ponds where Thoreau and Oliver Wendell Holmes created the Philosophers Camp.

Feel the ambience of 3 generations of our family born from the Old World and the Adirondacks but who came together by the hand of fate to create magic from their heart and souls - a destiny it seems to be the cook to blend the essences of ourselves and our families with our 1886 Adirondack Lodge that is in a virtually surreal natural mixture when that sun sets over our lake shore and nestles over St Regis mountain. It is as if the sun were a lantern warming a mountaintop silhouette that literally appears to be the outline of a human figurine resting in contemplation.

You can FEEL the experience here.

Our families Lodge is in the midst of the largest intact wilderness area east of the Mississippi river with hundreds of miles of lakes, rivers, mountains, hiking, skiing and pack-backing trails that is both secluded (you are in the midst of more than a 100 year old 6 million acre state forest preserve of which half the land is "forever wild") and rich in human history. What we think sets the Adirondack Park apart is not only its unparalleled beauty but also its unique and extremely diverse human history. The Adirondacks were not only brazened by typical trappers and hunters in the early days but also by intellects, painters and composers who immersed themselves in the Adirondacks to both be rejuvenated, stimulated and in the case of tuberculosis, cured by the mountain lake way of life. The painter William James Stillman created a philosophers camp, Robert Lewis Stevenson wrote here, Einstein stayed in Lake Clear and this is just the tip of the intellectual iceberg. James Russell Lowell, John Holmes and the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok were others who were inspired by the Saranac-St.Regis wilderness are which surrounds our Lodge estate. We believe our mountains called to these people to become part of a natural-human eco-system that became the Adirondacks. If you stop for a moment within the stillness of the reflective mirrored water or the timelessness of a back country trail you can feel and sense them as surely as you can sense the gently swaying pine trees and the cool crispness of clear mountain water running over your hands. With much the same thought that Chef Cathy Hohmeyer blends her 21st century holistic and naturally spiced ingredients with timeless old and new world family traditions to make our unique Adirondack Alps culinary blend, so too have the writers and philosophers added their scent to the aromas of what you feel and sense as you immerse yourself in our "Great Woods" and what we try to have you experience at our Lodge.

Cathy's family is an original descendant of the Mayflower and her family built the Lodge in 1886 as a trading post and post office. The Lodge quickly became one of the Adirondacks early inns. Cathy's Adirondack heritage and culinary roots are evident everywhere and we have the feeling that the Lodge was always meant to be a place where people were welcomed and perhaps stop for a moment to help someone, socialize or impart an experience that perhaps made a small difference in someone's life. In between another ownership, Ernest's family, all born in Europe, acquired the Lodge in 1965. Of immigrant heritage, their hearts, souls and hands are everywhere from old world recipes, family heirlooms, handcrafted furniture and of course writings. My father a world traveler in his youth has muses filled with the appreciation of other cultures and the smallness of our world compared to the vastness of our galaxy. My mother, the poet, whose writings were of love and family and the yearning for Camelot. Hundreds of books, many original copies, line our walls And to make this connection of environment and fate even more poignant, Cathy and I met each other in grade school when I told her a joke about marriage where upon she fell off the slide and broke her wrist. Needless to say we did not speak for years, even when she worked for my parents in high school. But are paths kept crossing. We were both in Washington D.C. pursuing professional careers -and did not know it. We both came home to take care of ailing parents - and did not know it. And on that fateful day on my father's birthday when we were about to sell the Lodge so that I could resume my career, I not only found a job in my field (this is the Adirondacks remember) but Cathy stopped by indicating her interest in running the Lodge. The ultimate hand of fate was that long after we were married, we discovered her family built the Lodge.

It is this spirit that we seek to immerse you in - in a very laid back but very personalized approach. There are no valets in the driveway or TV's in the rooms. However, it is an experience where Ernest personally explains the evening fare, Cathy hand-cuts the fresh stocks of vegetables and herbs from our garden and where you can browse through our family handcrafted wein and bier keller milled from wood from our own property or stay in our hand built accommodations. We continue with many of our respective families new and old world traditions with our own 21st century flair. Yet we believe that since the early days of the Adirondacks there is a natural and human spirit here that is there to immerse yourself in and we attempt to rejuvenate you by Cathy's natural and holistic herbs, spices and oils that flavor our Adirondack Alps Cuisine. We reach out to you through our hand-crafted rustic furniture with old world twists and through every blade of grass and snow-packed trail which generations of our families have transverse along with the souls of many before us who always seemed to congregate on our 25 acre estate to contribute to an energy that helped themselves and formed the foundation to rejuvenate others. Decade's of my mother pounding on schnitzels, growing fresh flowers, herbs and spices in our garden scent the hallways, my father philosophizing to our guests while he mixed them a family elixir resonate in the Rathskeller and Cathy's great aunt hand sorting the registered mail that came by stage coach that was eagerly anticipated by local residents seem to dance in the embers of our mammoth stone fireplace.

Most importantly we do not treat you as our customer but as a friend who is visiting our home as for three generations this has been our home.

Cathy and I do not hit you with any pretense or accolades and our experience here is not about the family handcrafted accommodations or internationally recognized cuisine. It is the belief that our giving of ourselves is a poem to you, an inspiration to travel your road with a lighter bounce and to remember what is important to you and subsequently to all of us as part of humanity. It is about how we bring all of this together - WITH YOU - to add another seedling to a rejuvenated spirit that becomes what the Adirondacks are and what is Hohmeyer's Lake Clear Lodge.