This was Cloudwater, Logan’s destination. But it had not always been known by that name. Sixty years before, it had been Rainshadow Lodge: one of the “Great Camps” built in the late nineteenth century as summer residences of the very rich along the lake shores of wild corners in upstate New York and New England. And Rainshadow Lodge, with its quintessential “Adirondack Rustic” architecture and huge cupolaed boathouse situated on Rainshadow Lake, had been one of the most famous and grandiose of all.
But all that had changed in 1954. Now its function was to serve as far more than just an oversized rustic summer playground for one of Manhattan’s wealthiest families. And Logan had driven all the way up from his Connecticut home to take full advantage of that new function.
Following a semicircular drive directly before the building, he parked the car, stepped out, ascended the steps — worn and incredibly wide — and walked past the lines of white-painted Adirondack chairs into the lobby. It was warm and welcoming, indirectly lit, with a mellow, golden, faintly hazy atmosphere redolent of wood smoke. He felt the oddly pleasing sensation of a fly sinking into amber.
A reception desk of cinnamon-colored wood, glowing from what appeared to be the application of fifty coats of lacquer, stood directly ahead. A middle-aged woman behind it looked up at his approach, smiled.
“I’m Jeremy Logan,” he told her. “Checking in.”
“Just a minute.” The woman consulted a tablet computer tucked behind the desk as if it were an anachronism to be kept hidden. “Ah, yes. Dr. Logan. You’ll be joining us for six weeks.”
“That’s right.”
“Very good.” She studied the tablet for a few more moments. “Dr. Jeremy Logan?” She looked up suddenly, recognition flashing in her eyes before being quickly suppressed. “But it says here ‘historian.’ ”
“I am an historian. Among other things.”
After a moment, the woman nodded, then glanced back down at the tablet. “I see you’ve been booked into the Thomas Cole cabin. By Mr. Hartshorn himself. That cabin is usually reserved for musicians or artists — writers are always assigned rooms in the main lodge.”
“I’ll remember to thank him.”
“It’s just past the boathouse, not two minutes’ walk. I could show it to you now, and then you can park your car in the assigned lot and retrieve your bags.”
“Thank you, I’d appreciate that.”
Turning around and unlocking a wooden cabinet behind her, she took a large key from one of several dozen brass pegs. Then, relocking the cabinet and coming out from behind the desk, she smiled once again, then led the way back outside and down the hard-packed dirt road to a nearby path into the woods, flanked by walkway lights in Tiffany-style glass. The perfume of pine was almost overpowering. Every fifty feet or so a smaller path diverged from the main one, heading either to the left or the right, each with a small carved signpost: ALBERT BIERSTADT, THOMAS MORAN, WILLIAM HART.
In short order, she turned down a final bend in the path, where the signboard read THOMAS COLE. Just ahead, half hidden among the trees, was a two-story Mission-style cabin, charmingly rusticated and yet of obviously modern construction, with a peeled-log facade and granite fieldstone foundation.
The woman handed him the key. “I’m sure you’ll find everything you need inside,” she said. She looked at her watch. “It’s almost eight. The kitchen closes at nine, so you’ll probably want to get settled in without delay.”
“Thank you,” Logan said. She smiled once again, then turned and retreated back down the pathway.
Hefting the key, Logan mounted the steps, then unlocked the front door and stepped in. Snapping on the bank of lights just within, he quickly took in the surroundings: wide-planked floorboards, antique rugs, a modern worktable with a Herman Miller Aeron chair set before it, built-in bookcases and cabinets of mahogany, a huge fireplace of rough stone, and a freestanding spiral staircase going up to a bedroom / sleeping loft above. Through a door in the far wall of the room, he could see a kitchen complete with microwave, Wolf stovetop, and refrigerated wine cellar. It was an aesthetically pleasing, yet highly functional, combination of old and new.
As he looked around, Logan allowed himself a slow, contented sigh. “Kit,” he told his wife, “I think this place is exactly right. And I’ve given myself six weeks. If I can’t finish it here, then I guess it may never get finished.”
Then, leaving the lights on, he exited the cabin to retrieve his luggage.
3
Twenty minutes later, Logan exited the cabin and went back down the path, the little guide lights illuminating the way like fairy lanterns in a forest. Coming out onto the wide central lawn, he approached the main building, then stopped once again to admire it. The sense of optimism that had come over him as he’d surveyed the cabin had not left.
Cloudwater called itself an “artists’ colony.” Situated in the heart of Adirondack State Park, it was tenanted at any one time by several dozen artists, writers, and researchers who came for one- to two-month stays in order to work on their individual projects: whether it be a painting, a novel, or a concerto. Each of the artists-in-residence had his or her private room in the vast lodge or — in the case of musicians and artists — the separate, secluded cottages scattered among the heavily wooded grounds. It was not a vacation spot — people who came here, came here to work, and rules were imposed to make sure things stayed that way. There was no cocktail hour, no structured activities save the occasional after-dinner lecture and the art movies shown on Saturday evenings. Visitors to an individual’s cottage were by invitation only. Lunches were private, served in one’s room or cabin, while breakfast and dinner were served in the lodge.
Climbing the steps and entering the building, Logan noticed a few people, in groups of two or three, walking through the soaring lobby, speaking among themselves in quiet tones. The ceiling was supported by pairs of huge curved beams, rising toward each other from opposite sides of the room, so that Logan felt almost as if he were inside the ribs of an inverted ship. Between these beams, and acting as crown molding, was a decorative, antlerlike fretwork of remarkable intricacy. Heads of bear, deer, and moose, apparently many decades old, were mounted on the walls, interspersed with prize fish on plaques, old photographs of the park, and paintings of the Hudson River School.
Stopping one group and inquiring as to the location of the dining room, Logan thanked them and was moving on when a voice sounded behind him. “Dr. Logan?”
He turned to see a tall, rather heavyset man in his early seventies, with a florid face and an almost leonine mane of snowy white hair. He smiled and extended one hand. “I’m Greg Hartshorn.”
Logan shook the hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
Logan had, of course, heard of Gregory Hartshorn. He’d been a prominent painter of the Lyrical Abstraction school who had founded a gallery in mid-1960s New York, where he made a fortune selling his and others’ paintings. He had put art aside about thirty years later in order to take on the position of Cloudwater’s resident director.
“I was just heading in to dinner,” Logan said.
“I hope you’ll find it excellent. Before you do, could I have a minute of your time?” And without waiting for an answer, Hartshorn steered Logan across the lobby and through an unmarked door into a cozy office, its walls crowded with sketches, watercolors, woodblock prints — but, Logan noticed, not a single one of Hartshorn’s own works.