June 2018

Lore has it there are ghosts at Hotel Saranac. But if you’re trying to get in touch with the past at the hotel, you don’t need a team of paranormal investigators. You just need to take the staircase to the second floor, climbing stone steps whose edges have been rounded over by countless footfalls, and head to the wood-trimmed telephone booths by the lobby bar. (Kids, ask your parents about telephone booths.)

There, hanging inside the defunct stalls, are dozens of index cards left by visitors who have shared their handwritten memories of the 91-year-old hotel since it reopened in January following a four-year, $35 million restoration:

“When I was a small boy I used to ride my tricycle through the arcade.”

“Used to stay here back around 1945 to perhaps 1948. Dad used to call on laundries here, and my mother and I came up for our vacation.”

“When I was in high school, we used to come here after school, play in the elevators + explore. Sshh … don’t tell anyone!”

The Roedel Companies, a New Hampshire–based hotel firm whose founders have ties to Saranac Lake going back more than a century, spent twice its original budget and two years longer than planned on the project. Viewed purely in business terms, there are easier ways to open a hotel. But Fred Roedel III, the company’s chief financial officer, acknowledged that reopening the hotel means a lot more to Saranac Lake than just putting 82 rooms downtown. The hotel isn’t just an economic anchor to this village of 5,300—it’s a community one, too.