Great Camp Sagamore

Five Weeks to “Saving Sagamore”

Howie Kirschenbaum and Barbara Glaser, two young preservationists, purchased Great Camp Sagamore in 1975 because they thought it would make for a successful conference center. They would soon come to learn about the camp's unique historic value and would fight to preserve it, including by successfully creating and lobbying for an amendment to the State Constitution.

Saving Sagamore tells the inspiring story of their perseverance and their collaboration with the Preservation League of New York to build public support for Sagamore’s preservation.

An Ambitious Timeline

A quintessential Adirondack gilded age “camp” once owned by Alfred Vanderbilt, Great Camp Sagamore in 2025 celebrated fifty years as an educational nonprofit.

When the team at Sagamore reached out in July of that year to inquire about producing a short documentary, they had a mere five weeks before the project needed to be ready for their annual fundraising gala. The gala plays a crucial role in raising funds for Sagamore’s nonprofit mission, and the film premiere was an important part of the program.

Less than two weeks later we traveled to Saratoga Springs to interview Howie Kirschenbaum and Barbara Glaser, whose 1975 purchase of the property set the stage for the historic Great Camp to be saved from destruction.

An older couple sits on a couch and speaks in an interview.
A couple paddles in a tandem kayak on a serene lake.
A man casts a fishing rod into a lake at dusk, with mountains in the background.
Man adjusting another man's lavalier microphone outdoors beside a lake
A cinema camera between a cinematographer's legs in a canoe.
Film crew recording an interview with an elderly couple in an elegant vintage living room
Professional Canon video camera filming a misty lake and forested mountains at sunset
Man standing beside a professional video camera in a rustic wooden workshop
Film crew recording an elderly man interview in a bright living room with multiple cameras, monitors, and a boom microphone.

In the Field and on the Lake

While some of the film’s interviews were conducted in the Albany area, the story of Great Camp Sagamore cannot be told without a visit to the place itself. We spent two days there, paddling ourselves to the middle of Sagamore Lake at sunrise and hiking the perimeter trail to get the best footage of the camp’s historic buildings.

We stayed on-site overnight and sorted through hundreds of archival photographs to find additional material for the film.