William Avery Rockefeller II

1 · POSITION

William Avery Rockefeller II belongs in the Library as the patron of Camp Wonundra, the private Adirondack retreat that became The Point. His commission supplied the buildings and domestic setting on which the later hotel was founded. His contribution is patronage of a particular house; the evidence does not establish that he founded or operated the commercial resort. [1, 3, 7]

2 · WHICH ROCKEFELLER

The commissioner was the Rockefeller born in 1896 and deceased in 1973. Historic Saranac Lake identifies him as the son of William G. Rockefeller and Elsie Stillman Rockefeller. His grandfather, a brother of John D. Rockefeller, had co-founded Standard Oil. The family connection explains the means behind the commission, but the grandfather’s business career is not the younger man’s biography. [2, 5]

3 · THE NAME IN THE RECORD

The Point and the Center for Land Use Interpretation use William Avery Rockefeller II. Historic Saranac Lake heads its entry William A. Rockefeller III. This master retains the issued registry name and records III as a research alias. Identifying dates, parentage and Camp Wonundra are more reliable safeguards against confusion than the generational suffix alone. [1–3]

4 · AN ADIRONDACK LIFE

The contemporary death report reproduced by Historic Saranac Lake places Rockefeller’s life in the region well beyond a single building project. It records long residence on Upper Saranac Lake and subsequently at Bay Pond, and service as a past vice president of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks. These establish regional involvement; they do not by themselves demonstrate a conservation programme at Wonundra. [2]

5 · THE COMMISSION

The hotel’s 2018 fact sheet dates construction to 1930–1933 and describes the original purpose as a family home. Adirondack Architectural Heritage independently gives a 1930 start; CLUI gives 1933. Taken together, these support an early-1930s commission completed in 1933, subject to the discrepant date noted below. The location was Upper Saranac Lake. [1, 3, 4]

6 · A LATE GREAT CAMP

Adirondack Architectural Heritage places Wonundra near the end of the Great Camp tradition. That matters chronologically: the house drew on an established Adirondack vocabulary rather than originating it. Its early-1930s construction also means that “Gilded Age” describes an inherited social and architectural ideal, not the literal date of the building. [4, 5]

7 · PATRON AND ARCHITECT

William G. Distin was the architect. Rockefeller supplied the commission; Distin supplied the architectural design. CLUI and the preservation organisation agree on this division of credit. A People record should preserve both forms of authorship, without turning a wealthy client into an architect or treating the designer as incidental to a family story. [1, 4]

8 · THE PLAN OF THE HOUSE

Annie Stoltie’s 2013 account identifies an octagonal entrance and Distin’s spreading plan, with bedrooms extending from a substantial central great room. The architectural relationship between shared space and private rooms helps explain the building’s later hospitality use. That reading is an editorial interpretation of the documented plan, not a claim that Rockefeller commissioned a future hotel. [5]

9 · DOMESTIC ROOMS THAT REMAIN LEGIBLE

The 2018 fact sheet identifies Mohawk as the Rockefellers’ former principal bedroom and Algonquin as William’s study. It also records a commissioned map of Upper Saranac Lake above the study fireplace. These specific associations give the patron a tangible presence in the surviving property. They are operator-published room histories rather than an inventory checked against original furnishing records. [3]

10 · PHOTOGRAPHY AND PERSONAL USE

Stoltie describes Rockefeller as an amateur photographer and records a darkroom in the guesthouse, with associated sinks and photographs surviving at the time of her visit. The same article observes that early bedroom photographs showed comparatively simple country-house furnishings. The present resort’s decorative richness should therefore not be read as an unchanged Rockefeller interior. [5]

11 · THE LATER HOTEL

A contemporary travel notice published by The Christian Science Monitor on 3 November 1981 already described The Point as an operating resort, with eight master bedrooms, in Rockefeller’s former retreat. This is useful evidence of commercial use by that date. It does not establish the exact opening day or the complete sequence of owners. [7]

12 · SEPARATE OPERATIONAL AUTHORSHIP

Garrett Hotel Consultants reports that the Garrett Hotel Group owned and operated The Point for 25 years until 2007 and worked across design, construction, hosting, staffing and management. That is the former operator’s account, but it clearly locates substantial hotel-making after the original private commission. Rockefeller’s record should not absorb the Garretts’ later work. [8]

13 · WHAT EXISTS NOW

The current guest-room page describes eleven rooms distributed among four original log buildings, with lake views and individual fireplaces. This is the hotel’s published configuration at the research cutoff. The change from the eight bedrooms mentioned in 1981 illustrates why room counts must carry their dates; neither figure is an inventory of the original family household. [6, 7]

14 · CONTINUED ARCHITECTURAL WORK

Adirondack Architectural Heritage’s archived 2017 tour paired the historic camp with the work of contemporary architect Andrew Chary. This is evidence that the property has a later architectural history worth documenting separately. The tour description alone does not justify attributing every alteration or present interior to Chary, Distin or Rockefeller. [10]

15 · LIBRARY ASSESSMENT AND LINKED PEOPLE

The case for Rockefeller rests on a surviving commission that became a distinctive hospitality setting. It is narrower than a claim that he invented the Great Camp, pioneered the modern resort or established a replicated hotel model. The strongest linked research subjects are William G. Distin for the original design, David and Christie Garrett for later hotel authorship, and Andrew Chary for subsequent architectural work. Codes should be resolved against the register before linking these records. [1, 4, 8, 10]

16 · ⚑ CANDOUR

⚑ The II/III suffix varies between hotel and local-history sources. The life dates distinguish the subject, but this master does not claim to settle genealogical numbering. Historic Saranac Lake’s newspaper transcription was consulted; original civil records and the original newspaper were not.

⚑ Construction dates also vary. The hotel’s accessibility page gives 1929; its 2018 fact sheet gives 1930–1933. This entry uses the latter range, supported by AARCH’s 1930 start and CLUI’s 1933 date, while retaining the discrepancy. AARCH’s archived tour gives 1986 for rechristening as The Point; the contemporary 1981 notice already uses that name for a resort, so 1986 is not treated as the first opening. [1–4, 7, 9, 10]

Published room histories and former-operator accounts are identified as such. No construction contract, complete ownership chain, original household inventory or detailed alteration schedule was examined. Claims of uninterrupted original decor, personally devised modern service rituals, record hotel pricing and measurable influence on other resorts are not established by this research.