Lake Carmel

Lake Carmel's allure endures
By MICHAEL RISINIT
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: June 22, 2005)
75th anniversary


KENT — Sports Illustrated has its fleece blanket. Time magazine gives away a free hand-held organizer with a subscription. The now-defunct New York Daily Mirror enticed subscribers with land in the country.

That piece of the American dream for a generation of blue-collar workers was 201-acre Lake Carmel — created by damming the Croton River. The community was the concept of Warren and Arthur Smadbeck, brothers and prolific developers from Manhattan who had taken over their father's real estate business. Seeking refuge from the sweaty canyons of New York City, the paper's subscribers bought lots around the lake, built bungalows and enjoyed swimming, boating and fresh air.

Lake Carmel, part of the town of Kent, is celebrating its 75th anniversary during the summer and its allure hasn't diminished with age. It's why Laurie Sarracco, 31, and her husband moved from Yonkers three years ago. It's where her 3-year-old, Robert, bobbed on a recent morning.

"Some of our friends from Yonkers like it. They say, 'Oh, you live in the country,' " she said. "Others are like, 'There's nothing up there.'

"But it's only an hour from New York City," Sarracco said. "People don't honk their horns. There's less hoodlumism, if that's the right word."

Today, the neighborhoods around the lake are home to about 8,500, mostly full-time residents. A pharmacy, a hardware store, a liquor store, a smattering of delis and restaurants and a few other businesses dot the main roads — routes 52 and 311 and Towners Road.

At Lake Carmel's peak as a summer retreat and as it melted into suburbia following World War II, there were eight taverns, four butchers, a barber, a pharmacy and a shoemaker, said Eugene Schmidt, 96. He bought the Happy Valley tavern and restaurant on Route 52 in 1945, where Sapori's Restaurant is now, and ran it for 28 years.

"In 1945, you looked out your window and there were 85 lights. Eighty-five families lived year-round in Lake Carmel," said Schmidt, who came from Queens.

"A friend of mine came here in the summer," said Schmidt, explaining how he gave up working in New York City restaurants for sleepy Putnam County. "He said, 'Gene (if you open a business), you're going to be rich.'"

The lake then was a slice of summer. Vintage photographs feature diving boards, dirt roads and DeSotos. Postcards show bathing trunks and modest one-piece suits. Telephones, Schmidt recalled, were few.

"On a Friday night, there were at least eight ladies trying to get into the phone booth (in the Happy Valley) to call their husbands and tell them what to bring up," he said.

By July 1930, the Daily Mirror sold more than 12,000 lots. Each was 20 feet by 100 feet and a minimum of two was needed to build a cottage. One parcel cost $96.50 and could be had for $12.50 down and $3.50 a month. While Lake Carmel remains one of the more moderately priced neighborhoods in the county, anyone who made that initial investment would have been handsomely rewarded, with recent property sales ranging from $150,000 to $300,000.

The original size was modeled after a building lot in the city, said George Michaud, the county's director of real property tax services.

"People understood the concept. Most were renters from the city. It gave them lake rights, a piece of the country," Michaud said.

S. Barrett Hickman, a retired state Supreme Court justice whose father ran the Hickman General Store in Carmel, said he delivered coal to some of the lake's bungalows. Some of the early homes, Hickman said, appeared to be a patchwork of materials.

"Driving (one day), we come up to this car with the trunk tied down. Lumber was sticking out the back. You could see bricks. My father said, 'There goes another house to Lake Carmel,' " Hickman said.

By the following year, the lake's popularity persuaded the Smadbecks and the Daily Mirror to look elsewhere.

"Owing to the tremendous success of Lake Carmel created last year by the Daily Mirror for its readers, there has been an insistent demand that the Mirror create another resort in Putnam County, and we are very proud and happy to be able to offer Putnam Lake to our readers," proclaimed a newspaper advertisement in June 1931.

Warren Smadbeck and his brother as the Home Guardian Co. sold more than 700,000 lots in 30 states, where 75,000 homes were built. At one point, it was estimated the developments housed a permanent population of more than 500,000. Warren Smadbeck died in 1965 at age 80; his brother, Arthur, died 12 years later at the age of 90. According to Arthur Smadbeck's obituary, the brothers were often referred to as the "Henry Fords of the industry" for their practice of buying lake-bordering tracts within commuting distance of large cities, subdividing them, building roads and selling the home sites through newspaper promotions.

The brothers' projects included Lake Parsippany in New Jersey and several developments in Suffolk County. The Home Guardian Co. also built the Hotel Presidente in Havana during the late 1920s.

Decades ago, Lake Carmel was a place of unlocked doors and a quieter Route 52, said Violeta Smadbeck, Warren's widow. She still splits her time between her Manhattan home and the lake.

"This place was always full of friends. You could park them on the floor, wherever," said Smadbeck, 90 of her sprawling lake home.

For Jackie Green, a definite newcomer from Violeta Smadbeck's perspective, the lake's neighborly atmosphere was part of its appeal. Green moved there in 2001, continuing the original trend.

"If I'm going to move out of Brooklyn, I said, I wanted a lake," said Green, 32, who was swimming with her children, Autumn, 3, and Michael, 11 months, on that recent morning.

"Everybody's so friendly," she added. "That's why we moved here. We love it."