— Part sEVEN —
While Hans managed the culinary operations, Oscar operated as host and performed the accounting chores.
The Holls strove intentionally to maintain a quiet and relaxed atmosphere at the hotel.
Guests were assigned a table with a waitress whose responsibility included insuring a newspaper and a tin of the guest’s favorite tea or vitamins were on the table.
Televisions and phones were excluded from the rooms.
Holls Inn was an “American Plan” hotel; three meals served a day at designated one hour periods.
The plan included free use of the hotel’s ping pong tables, tennis court, rowboats and canoes, horseshoes and movies.
Landscaping of the lakefront lawns included lawn chairs and towering trees as sun shelter for outside reading.
As late as the 1980s, the hotel still employed about 25 workers, down from 45 a decade earlier.
Guests and their families enjoyed the Holls’ tradition of service and valued amenities, responding for years with a ninety percent return rate.33
Hans’ wife Anna Hagen came to America in 1927, met Hans at a German Club in New York City and they married in 1939. In 1952, Hans and Anna left the Holl’s Inn, Hans sold his interest to Oscar and they purchased Dibble’s Inn in Vernon, New York.
However, running the popular restaurant neighboring the then new (1953) Vernon Downs racetrack became overwhelming and encouraged the Holls to return to Fourth Lake and purchase the private estate Albedor in May 1956.
Hans died in 1966. Anna left the Albedor and lived at First Lake until her death in 1994.34
Just prior to Hans and Anna leaving Holl’s Inn, Oscar married former Whitesboro teacher Rosemary Goetz in 1950. Together they continued their tradition of service at Holl’s Inn until Oscar’s death in 1993.
Occasionally, newspaper accounts in the 1980s would report that, while rental cottages and camps on the Fulton Chain were full, the older and familiar larger hotels were in continual decline.
Among the recent closures reported were the Mohawk, Neodak, bankrupt Hollywood Hills and Rocky Point, North Woods Inn and Holl’s Inn were struggling to survive.35
But in numerous interviews about Holl’s Inn, Rosemary Holl was proud to be among the last of the family of traditional Adirondack hotels on the Fulton Chain.
In an era when automobile and airplane long distance travel was prevalent, many of the long popular hotels were closing with uncertain futures.
Rosemary stated that the line in Caroline O’Hara’s sampler (“Relish With Content Whatever Providence Has Sent”) was a credo that she lived by and continued to be a treasured memory.
The Holls believed that people would continue to respond positively to the “warm and friendly attitude to all who pass through their doors.”
Guests and friends agreed that Oscar Holl followed the original tradition of early Adirondack innkeepers of times now gone who exhibited the qualities of a true gentleman.
The Holls wanted their guests to experience the feeling of returning home when they arrived with fresh flowers generously distributed in the interior space of the hotel.
The hotel was probably the last Adirondack Hotel still offering the “American Plan,” including meals as part of the board paid.
Rosemary would remark how, like the Mark Twain rejoinder, reports of the death of Holl’s Inn have been greatly exaggerated.
She felt that their service would never go out of style. Even when someone said “everyone has a price,” she responded with “now you’ve met someone who doesn’t.”
At the close of one interview, she claimed that this was her life and she would be at Holl’s Inn for a long time.36
Rosemary died in 2008.
While Holl’s Inn closed as a hotel in 2006, some rentals still occurred at its cottages until a year or so ago.
In 2012, Holl’s Inn and its property were listed on the market by the family.
I wish to thank all who read early drafts of this article and provided suggestions, most of which I used.
Photos are from my collection and the Goodsell Museum.
2 Wikipedia definitions for whale oil and kerosene, 4/13/2013.
3 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Charles W. Pratt; Oil House of Charles Pratt ad, Googlebooks.com.
4 “The Story of a Wilderness,” Joseph F. Grady, 2002, North Country Books, pp. 144-159,
5 Syracuse Daily Journal, A.J. Northrup, Mar. 15, 1878, “Camps and Tramps in the Adirondacks” A.Judd Northrup, 1882, C. W. Bardeen, pp. 173, 181; “Canoeing the Adirondacks with Nessmuk,” Ed. , Dan Brenan, Adirondack Museum/Syracuse University, 1993, p.58, 133.
6 “Before There Was Inlet II,” Charles Herr, January 31, 2009.
7 Watertown Daily Times, Jan. 4, 1890.
8 James Galvin to Munn Estate, May 1, 1889, mortgage, Book 9, p. 297; later paid in full in 1894.
9 Lowville Journal & Republican, Feb. 6, 1890; Watertown Daily Times, Feb. 22 1890; Comptroller to Basselin, Feb. 14, 1890, Book 29, p. 507, Hamilton County Clerk’s Office.
10 Basselin to Galvin, 9/24/1890, Book 23, p. 154; Galvin to Basselin 9/24/1890, Book 23, p. 60; Basselin to Charles Pratt, 10/14/1890, Book 23, p.63, Hamilton County Clerk’s Office.
11 Hamilton County Deeds, Galvin to Pratt, 10/6/1896, Book 29, p. 35; Book 34, p. 583.
12 Syracuse Telegram, July 3, 1903; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 3, 1903.
13 Rebecca J. Passoneau, Columbia University, Center for Computational Learning Systems.
14 Pratt Institute internet site, “The Pratt Family,” 2013.
15 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 30, 1907.
16 Syracuse Journal, June 3, 1914, Troy Times, June 15, 1915.
17 Lowville Journal and Republican, Feb. 1, 1912; Pratt Institute to Charles O’Hara, May 29, 1914, Book 49, p.590, Hamilton County Clerk’s Office, Charles M. Burtis to Frank Tiffany, 4/17/1912; Frank Tiffany to Burtis, 10/15/1913; Frank Tiffany to Lansing Tiffany, 5/4/1914; Charles O’Hara to Frank Tiffany, 2/3/1915; Tiffany to O’Hara, 2/13/1915; Tiffany to O’Hara, 2/19/1915; O’Hara to Tiffany, 2/22/1915, Tiffany to O’Hara, 3/6/1915.
18 Utica Daily Press, July 14, 1919.
19 Utica Daily Press, Oct. 23, 1942, a poem by Anne Campbell.
20 The Troy Times, July 2, 1920; Syracuse Post Standard, June 6, 1920; Boonville Herald, June 10, 1920.
21 Dalcroze Eurhythmics, Espie Estrella, About.com, 2013.
22 Utica Daily Press, July 31, 1920.
23 Memories of Inlet, Letty Kirch Haynes, p. 16, North Country Books, 2006; Adirondack Echo, Aug. 17, 1988; Boonville Herald, Aug. 28, 1974.
24 Syracuse Journal, July 18, 1923.
25 Utica Daily Press, Aug. 1 1923; Utica Observer Dispatch, Aug. 25, 1988.
26 Lowville Journal & Republican, Nov. 19, 1933; Gloversville Morning Herald, April 23, 1934; Utica Daily Press, Aug. 8, 1934.
27 Central Adirondack Hotels, Inc. to Holls Inn, Inc., May 20, 1935; Book 71, pp. 369-376, Hamilton County Clerk’s Office
28 Memories of Inlet, pp. 17-18; Utica Daily Press, June 17, 1935.
29 Utica Daily Press, June 17, 1935.
30 Syracuse American, Aug. 8, 1937.
31 Adirondack Echo, Aug. 17, 1988; Utica Observer Dispatch, Aug. 25, 1988.
32 Utica Observer Dispatch, June 11, 1943.
33 Adirondack Echo, Aug. 17, 1988; Utica Observer Dispatch, Aug. 25, 1988; Boonville Herald, Aug. 28, 1974.
34 Utica Daily Press, May 8, 1956; Oswego Palladium, Jan. 30, 1952; Memories of Inlet, pp.16-21.
35 Chittenango Bridgeport Times, July 29, 1981.
36 Utica Observer Dispatch, Aug. 25, 1988; Boonville Herald, Aug. 28, 1974; Adirondack Express, July 25, 1989; Adirondack Echo, Aug. 17, 1988.