— Part four —
For what transpired concerning the Pratt Camp during the years 1912-1915, I have found the following information from the letters of Charles M. Burtis, business manager for the Pratt Institute, Frank Tiffany and Charles O’Hara.
In April 1912, Charles Burtis authorized Frank Tiffany to find a buyer for the Pratt Institute’s camp which by then was beginning to show signs of abandonment.
When Charles O’Hara leased the Eagle Bay Hotel for 1914 and 1915, Tiffany’s business affairs were such that he was receptive to O’Hara’s offer for he and his wife to manage the Inlet Inn so Tiffany could rent their family camp.
On May 29, 1914 Charles O’Hara purchased the Pratt Camp from the Pratt Institute.
A report indicated that his purchase included 176 acres and 2,000 feet of lake frontage.
Two years earlier in February 1912, O’Hara acquired the Hotel Windsor in Lowville at a mortgage foreclosure and would continue to seek a buyer for the next few years for funding his Inlet hotel plans.
O’Hara purchased the Pratt Camp in order to quickly sell it to provide him funds to buy the Eagle Bay Hotel at the price initially acceptable by its owners at the time of signing the lease.
Unfortunately, after his purchase, which required a down payment of $4,000 of the $15,000 price, the owners of the Eagle Bay Hotel had recently raised their price and refused to sell it to him, hoping to sell it to Charles Williams of Big Moose.
Tiffany repeatedly tried to find a buyer for O’Hara’s Pratt Camp as late as March 1915.
By 1916, O’Hara ended his lease with the Eagle Bay Hotel and decided to rebuild the Arrowhead. The Eagle Bay Hotel did not sell and was then managed by Dwight B. Sperry, one of its owners.
The Arrowhead was built not on its previous site but directly in front of and attached to the Inlet Inn.
The New Arrowhead opened to much fanfare in 1916. O’Hara’s plans for Pratt Camp were put on hold.17
Having no evident long term plans for the property, O’Hara rented the Pratt Camp to professional squash tennis player G. F. Waterbury of New York in 1919 for the summer.
The report indicated it operated in connection with the New Arrowhead.
O’Hara may have been using the unused Pratt Camp for occasional overflow from that hotel.18