Westport/Essex
Where the Adirondacks
Meet Lake Champlain

By Nancy and Richard Woodworth

Is there a less likely place than a corner of the nation's second most populous state to find quaint 19th-century villages relatively unscathed by time? This is the region where the Lake Georges, the Lake Placid and the Old Forges have been sullied by wanton commercialism on the edges of the East's largest forever-wild area. So it is an agreeable surprise to leave the Adirondack Northway and head east through unspoiled countryside to the area where the Adirondack Mountains meet Lake Champlain.

Here is Westport, a hillside village where a library, rather than a town hall or a church, dominates the village center and the green is called the Library Lawn. A tradition of local beneficence began with the gift of both library and lawn in the early 1800s. It continued in 1991, when the land across the street was given for a village park leading down to the Northwest Bay of Lake Champlain and a sandy swimming beach open to one and all.

Here is Essex, an old-fashioned place containing one of the most intact ensembles of pre-Civil War village architecture in America. The entire village is on the National Register of Historic Places and persists as a living history museum. One cannot help but be impressed by the beauty of its lakeside setting as well as by its architecture.

Both Westport and Essex occupy particularly scenic sites beside Lake Champlain. Looming behind are the Adirondack High Peaks. Across the lake are the Green Mountains of Vermont.

History gave this section of Lake Champlain pivotal roles in the American Revolution and the War of 1812. The lake became the primary route for travel and commerce between Canada and the growing American republic. By 1850, Westport and Essex were among the largest and busiest communities on the lake, each with populations of 2,300. The coming of the railroad brought summer visitors, who filled the area's hotels and inns to overflowing. "Social Notes from The Westport Inn" was a feature in the New York Times and the Boston newspapers. Prestigious Camp Dudley prospered here as America's oldest summer camp for boys.

The reduction of train service and the rise of the interstate highways freeze-dried the area's development in the 1950s. One finds here not mere vestiges but rather the essence of the look and the lifestyle of half a century or a century ago.

Contrary to trends elsewhere, most of Westport's old inns have been converted into private residences of distinction. The railroad depot is now an equity summer theater. The yacht club is a public restaurant. The country club is open to the public. Boats are launched from public launching sites and busy marinas. The Lake Champlain ferry arrives in Essex every half hour in summer from Charlotte, Vt. Tourists find excellent brochures for walking tours of Westport and Essex and their historic sites.

What these villages don't have is traffic lights, chain stores or fast-food outlets. Such things weren't needed in days of yore, nor are they needed here today. Westport and Essex offer other virtues. They are two of the more appealing lakefront towns we know of, far from the hordes yet with touches of sophistication interspersed amid the charms of yesteryear.


Material excerpted from Inn Spots & Special Places / Mid-Atlantic, by Nancy and Richard Woodworth. Copyright 2003.