— Part FIVE —
In May 1920, Charles O’Hara leased the Pratt Camp to Grace E. Jackson of Newark, N.J. for the establishment of an exclusive summer girls’ camp called Nytis Loge.
“Nytis Loge” is a Native American phrase interpreted as “the place where good friends come.”19
If successful, Mrs. Jackson planned to purchase the Pratt Camp property.
Nytis Loge was to have 30 counselors and masters in swimming and equestrian skills including riding stables.
The school headlined “dalcroze eurythmics,” tennis, equestrian training with riding horses from the First Field Artillery of New York, a 250-yard rifle range installed by the Winchester Arms Company and a nationally honored swimming champion (Virginia Knott) responsible for aquatic sports.
O’Hara also built a new $50,000 two-story dining hall and dormitory building of “English half-timber stucco design.”
The directors named were Mrs. J.H. Thill of New Rochelle and Mrs. Frank Winslow of Rockland, Maine assisted by numerous women physicians and teachers.
Applicants were to contact Mrs. Thill by writing to The Wigman, Fifth Lake, Inlet.20
But a Utica reporter spent most of his review of the camp on the specialized dance “dalcroze eurythmics” exercises, knowing his readers like him knew little about it.
This fairly new, unstructured type of dance emphasized reaction to a music piece with expressions of mind, body movement and other activity.21
Unfortunately, while the reporter provided a glowing review in the final paragraph of his article, he may have distracted his audience with his attention to this new dance method at the school.
He reported it (eurythmics) wasn’t something to eat, but you “dance them, or rather you express them through your appreciation of rhythmic factors.”
He continues: “not a great deal of costume is necessary:” swimming suits or “gauzy Greek things that are fascinating especially against an Adirondack background”.
He cautioned hikers not to be surprised when intruding on student exercises upon the trails leading to the school.
He also noted that the school did not have many students.22
The school did not last long and no ads appeared in 1921.
Using this failure as an opportunity, Charles O’Hara decided to open a new hotel on the Camp Pratt property.
O’Hara called the new hotel Ara-Ho, his name spelled backwards, to be operated by son Bernard and his wife Mary.
He remodeled the two-story building built for Mrs. Wilcox in 1920 into a main hotel building, jacking it up to construct the first floor lobby, similar in appearance to the New Arrow-head’s lobby.
The hotel building is very close to what would appear today (2013) as Holl’s Inn.23
The Ara-Ho Hotel opened in late July 1923.
Each room had a telephone, running hot and cold water and private bath.
Its manager was Charles Drexler.
The hotel also had cottages which could be rented.24
O’Hara’s wife Caroline hung a sampler she made which contained the proverb: “Relish With Content Whatever Providence Has Sent” in the lobby.
This piece was later transferred to the next owners.
Lampshades were added to blend with a new color scheme of pink and silver gray.
In 1927, the site generator was replaced by Inlet’s new municipal (Inlet Utilities, Inc.) corporation.
The hotel’s capacity was expansive enough to become what we would today call a conference center.25
The O’Haras operated the hotel until 1933.
Management of both the New Arrowhead and the Ara-Ho in the depression forced Charles O’Hara to file for bankruptcy and compelled him to relinquish the Ara-Ho hotel to creditors in November 1933.
In April 1934, Edward Hurley, Charles Williams and Dennis Dillon acquired a charter for the Central Adirondack Hotels, Inc. of Inlet and obtained the Ara-Ho.
In August that year the Inlet Volunteer Hose Company rescued the Ara-Ho from destruction when flames were discovered on its roof.
A year later, the hotel had new owners.26
When Charles O’Hara built the Ara-Ho in 1923, he conveyed a mortgage to Maurice Callahan of the Old Forge Bank.
While small portions of the property were released from mortgage liens in the late twenties, Maurice Callahan as trustee for the corporation acquired most of the original Ara-Ho property in November 1934.
In a transaction dated May 20, 1935, the Central Adirondack Hotels, Inc., whose president was Maurice Callahan, sold the Ara-Ho Hotel property, now 134 acres with 1754 feet of shore front to the Holl’s Inn, Inc., trustees being Oscar and Hans Holl.
Though the price recorded was $10, the brothers probably assumed the outstanding mortgages.27
The Holl brothers were born in southern Germany.
Hans worked in hotels in Germany and Switzerland as an apprentice to well-known chefs.
The Holl brothers came to America in 1923, beginning a long service as cooks and hotel managers.
At the time of the Ara-Ho purchase, the Holls were certainly not hotel novices.
The report of the Ara-Ho purchase cited their management of Hotel Halm, Lake Constance and Vier Jahreszeiten, Bad-Ems, Germany; the Plaza, Sherry-Netherland; Hotel Astor, New York; the Floridan, Tampa; and the Alba, Palm Beach.
The Holl brothers had concerns about such an investment in bad times, but these prior successes and being only in their thirties convinced them they could start again elsewhere if they failed.28