As one of the largest privately owned tracts of land looks for a buyer, hundreds of items from the historic Whitney Park in the Adirondacks will soon be up for auction.
Blanchard’s Auction Service in Potsdam is hosting the online auction later this month. The list of items includes old hickory furniture, more than two dozen guideboats, an assortment of duck decoys, high-end art and other furnishings from Whitney Park.
The 36,000-acre property near Long Lake has been on the market for more than a year, with a sale price of $125 million. A developer from Texas was set to buy Whitney Park near Long Lake last year, but that sale fell through.
Kip Blanchard, who is organizing the auction, visited the property multiple times to collect items for the upcoming auction.
Emily RussellWhitney Park auction features Adirondack guideboats, art, duck decoys, and more
Whitney Park encompasses 36,600 acres in the central Adirondacks, just west of the town of Long Lake. Photo: Nancie Battaglia
KIP BLANCHARD: Whitney Park is a very special place. I know there aren’t a lot of people who have been back there. It’s been in the same family since the late 1800s, but it is such a treasure just to be back there at the property. I mean, there are multiple great camps back there, lakes and rivers.
EMILY RUSSELL: Is it right that you visited a couple times at least to get some of these pieces, and if so, what was that like just to be on the property there?
BLANCHARD: We did. We went a couple times just to view all the items, to see what was there, to put our proposal together. From the main road to get back to where we were, it is almost a half-hour ride back in on a dirt road to get there. So yeah, it’s not quite as easy as most of our pickups; this was a bit of a challenge.
A painting from Whitney Park and a desk used by Marylou Whitney are among the items for sale at the upcoming auction. Photos courtesy of Blanchard’s Auction Service
RUSSELL: What stood out to you when you were on the property just looking at some of the furnishings?
BLANCHARD: It was a little overwhelming just how much stuff there was that needed to be taken care of. We took 25 boats out of there- guide boats and canoes- and over a hundred pieces of old hickory furniture out of multiple properties, but it was quite substantial.
RUSSELL: So let’s talk a little bit more about some of those items that are going to be auctioned off. Tell me just a few of the things that have caught your eye.
One of the guideboats up for auction from Whitney Park. Photo courtesy of Blanchard’s Auction Service
BLANCHARD: Some of the things that I feel that are most special to me or that I feel have great potential are things such as paintings that were done by Marylou Whitney of fish that were caught back on Salmon Lake, and they’re very folk art pieces that have the guide who was fishing that day, and I think those are just so special.
One of my favorite pieces from there is actually a walking stick that’s engraved to William Whitney, the founder of Whitney Park. It’s a silver-engraved walking stick, but when you actually pull it out, it’s his log scale, which is so appropriate, coming from the founder of Whitney Industries and such a large parcel of land, that this was William Whitney’s walking stick.
A painting by Marylou Whitney that will be part of the upcoming auction. Photo courtesy of Blanchard’s Auction Service
RUSSELL: How accessible is this kind of stuff? Are there items there that locals could afford, or is this auction more for people who are furnishing their own great camps?
BLANCHARD: Yeah, there’s such a wide range of things that are there. There’s stuff for just everyday ordinary people that are just looking to buy a memento for the day, for people to remember the family, the park, whatever it may be. There are things at all levels. There are $50 items, there are $500 items, and there are $50,000 items that are coming out of there.
RUSSELL: What is one of the most valuable pieces that will be up for auction?
BLANCHARD: I think the item that stands out the most would be the Ralph Cahoon painting. It’s not really Adirondack; it’s from Palm Beach, but it is a very desirable piece of art. His work is highly collectible. There is a Ralph Cahoon Museum in Cape Cod. So I think that is going to be one of the stars of the show for sure. There are lots of great things.
Some of the guide boats are very desirable, by known makers in very good condition, and some are coming out of the carriage barn that are more project boats that need a lot of work, but they do have the history as being something original to Whitney Park, and someone may want to restore that.
Some furniture at the Whitney Estate that will be auctioned off. Photo courtesy of Blanchard’s Auction Service
RUSSELL: So tell me just a little bit about how this auction works and when folks can actually see some of these pieces and then how the bidding takes place.
BLANCHARD: Sure. So they can view it online. We have an in-person preview on the 11th, 12th, and 13th of August at our auction hall in Potsdam, where everything is set up, displayed, artwork hanging on the walls and rugs on the floor and things set up from Stickley furniture to taxidermy hanging.
There are people who want to bid today, and we have buyers from around the country who aren’t able to show up in person, and they will just go online and view the catalog and bid that way. The actual auction will be an online auction on Friday, August 14th at 10:00 a.m., and that’s when we start closing out the lots, and we’ll go through them one at a time. So it will take us probably 8 to 10 hours to do the auction. So there won’t be an in-person auction; it’ll just be an online auction.