Imagine sitting in a rocking chair on a porch as long as a city block. Big white columns rise up over you, and beyond them the Mohawk Valley rolls out toward the Adirondacks. Behind you, an orchestra is tuning up for the evening dance. Nearby, guests wander the grounds, kids run around under the eye of college-trained counselors, and carriages line up to carry visitors off to the mineral baths.
For more than a century, that was the view from the Pavilion Hotel in Sharon Springs.
The Pavilion went up in the mid-1830s, right as Sharon Springs was becoming one of the country's leading health resorts. People came for the mineral water - its healing qualities had been known for generations - but the Pavilion gave them a lot more than a place to take the cure. It started out as the Great House, and before long it had become the social and architectural heart of the village, a destination built around health, leisure, and polished society.
Under John H. Gardner and his family, the hotel turned into a resort complex like nothing else around. The Greek Revival building ended up with a 200-foot front porch, 24 massive columns, and a cupola topped with a red Pavilion pennant. People used to say you could spot that pennant from beyond the Mohawk Valley on a clear day. At its peak the hotel held as many as 600 guests, with a dining-room staff of 150.
The Pavilion built a whole world for the people who stayed there. Private cottage suites came with their own porches and marble fireplaces. There were riding stables, tennis courts, a putting green and golf course, bowling, billiards, concerts, dancing, even talking motion pictures. A covered walkway ran from the cottages to the hotel, so guests could get to meals and entertainment no matter the weather. Local farms kept the kitchens stocked with fresh milk, eggs, fruit, and vegetables. Health treatments, recreation, scenery, sociability - it was all folded into one long day.
The guest register tells you how famous the place was. Presidents Martin Van Buren, John Quincy Adams, Ulysses S. Grant, and Theodore Roosevelt all stayed there, along with generals, industrialists, and writers. Oscar Wilde gave a lecture in August 1882, and James Fenimore Cooper reportedly kept coming back for the view.
But honestly, I find myself just as drawn to the people who aren't named in those old photographs - the families on the lawn, the guests posed on the porch, the workers who kept this enormous operation running day after day.
Looking at those photographs, I sometimes wonder what those people would make of it, knowing that we'd still be studying their faces nearly a century and a half later. They couldn't have guessed that the building around them would vanish entirely, leaving behind only images, advertisements, menus, memories, and a handful of surviving cottages to tell the story.
By the early 20th century, things were shifting. Taking the waters had gone out of fashion, automobiles gave vacationers new places to go, and wealthy families were increasingly building their own summer homes instead. The Pavilion couldn't keep up. In 1940, the papers announced that the 103-year-old landmark would be torn down. Its 300 rooms, its dining halls, that famous white-columned porch - all of it disappeared soon after. Some blame the cost of the upgrades it would have needed; local tradition points to other reasons. Nobody's entirely sure what tipped the decision, but the loss itself was permanent.
To me, the Pavilion isn't just the story of a hotel that disappeared. It's a reminder that a community takes shape around the places where people gathered, worked, celebrated, and dreamed. Sharon Springs was once counted among the best-known spa towns in America, and the Pavilion sat up on its hill announcing exactly that. The hotel is gone now, but its story still shapes how we see the village, and it's part of why preservation matters, before another landmark ends up as nothing more than a photograph.
I invite you to learn more at "The Pavilion Hotel: Sharon Springs' Lost Landmark," presented by the Sharon Historical Society on Monday, Aug. 10 at 7 p.m. We'll go through rare images and stories about the hotel, its cottages, its famous guests, and its final days.
To register for the program go through the Sharon Historical Society's Eventbrite page.
Ron Ketelsen moved to Sharon Springs, New York in 2014 after purchasing the historic Roseboro Hotel. He became president of the Sharon Historical Society in 2021 and has helped expand its educational programs, collections, and preservation efforts. Recognized as one of the region’s leading local historians, Ketelsen presents more than 15 programs each year on Sharon Springs, Schoharie County, and worldwide history topics. He is also leading efforts to develop a new museum and climate-controlled archives for the Historical Society.
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