Lake George: An upstate summer tradition for Long Island families

An eyeblink ago, Kim Hauck, of Wantagh, vacationed each summer in the 1960s with her siblings, parents and grandparents at The Split Rail Resort in Diamond Point along the western shore of Lake George.

Now, she’s the grandparent, taking her children and grandchildren back to Lake George each year. The locale has become such a part of Hauck’s extended family for five generations that when Hauck’s sister died in 2023, the family spread her ashes in Lake George area parks that she had loved. One of Hauck’s nieces got engaged at the lake and chose to have her bachelorette party there. One of Hauck's daughters did a gender reveal there.

“The setting is just beautiful, the background of the mountains, the lake. There’s always something going on, the shops, the restaurants,” says Hauck, now 67, who works in Nassau Community College admissions. There are the annual visits to Lake George Village’s Tom Tom Shop for souvenirs, to Top of the World Golf Resort for the view and perhaps a round of play, to The House of Frankenstein Wax Museum.

And, of course, there are still the weekly Thursday night fireworks. In days gone by, they would visit Waterslide World, which closed in 2018. Or the Storytown U.S.A. theme park to see Mother Goose’s Old Woman in the Shoe and go on rides; Storytown U.S.A. has since been absorbed into Six Flags Great Escape.

Myriad Long Island families echo the same tradition of returning year after year to the string of communities along the 32-mile lake in the Adirondacks, often on the same week or weeks each summer, which leads to families befriending other families who come back to the same resorts during the same time. Families will reserve their spots for the following summer when they leave at the end of the current one.

“It really hasn’t changed much 30 years later, which is part of the charm,” says Frank Russo, 46, a consultant from East Rockaway who started going to Lake George with his parents in his teens and now has children that age whom he takes today. “It was just far enough away that it was a vacation, but not far enough away that we couldn’t go every year.”

BOATING AND KARAOKE

Brendan Scully, 45, of Oceanside, who works in maintenance for a school district, remembers staying in small cottages along the lake growing up. “I was always fishing off the dock, that was a big thing for me as a kid,” he says. Family members and friends would water ski, or they’d all rent a day pass to use the camping islands in the middle of the lake for a barbecue, reachable only by boat.

Scully’s father, Kevin, 70, and his mother, Jane, 70, both retired, eventually purchased a home in Lake George Village, and now Brendan and his sister, Megan, 41, of Island Park, come up with the grandchildren, continuing the family tradition of more than 40 years. The elder Scully owns a motorboat; when it’s just him and Jane at the house, they’ll take it out on the lake. “We sit in a place called Sandy Bay,” he says, where there are moorings to hook up to. “We’ll swim in the water,” he says, or dock at a lakeside happy hour offering live music.

Julia Baxley, who grew up in Rockville Centre and now lives in Bayside, has been going to Lake George since she was in elementary school; she’s 25 now and works in product integration for ABC-TV’s daytime shows. “All my memories are playing games with my aunts, uncles and cousins,” she says, uninterrupted time with family not distracted by modern technology. The extended family stays every year at The Trout House, a group of cabins that share a beachfront property in Hague, on the shores of northern Lake George.

Vacations might include renting a boat and climbing to the top of Diver’s Rock and leaping off.

“The climb up is really hard, struggling up the slippery side of the rock and grabbing plants to pull yourself up. All the cousins, we have framed pictures mid-flight down to the water,” she says. Says Baxley’s cousin Caroline McCormack, 24, a media supervisor from Wyckoff, New Jersey: “It’s a rite-of-passage to jump.”

The time together includes simple pleasures like reading — “one year we passed around a book and we all read it,” Baxley says — and the weekly karaoke competition sponsored by Trout House, with winners getting gift cards for the ice cream place down the road. All winter the extended family plans who will sing what and with whom, she says, even the grown-ups. “Fifteen years ago, me and my cousins were singing Jonas Brothers,” she says. “It’s fun and silly.”

A CABIN FOR 14

Baxley’s mother, Kathy, 60, the deputy mayor of Rockville Centre, started going to Lake George with her two sisters and parents almost 50 years ago, when she was in junior high school, and that was because her father had grown up going with his parents before that. The family stayed those days at the Canoe Island Lodge in Diamond Point, which still exists.

“Once we started having children, my dad wanted to start it up again and treat everyone to a family vacation,” Kathy says. They now need a cabin for 14 people; the adults will spend between $700 and $800 for groceries, planning barbecues and taco and Italian nights, Kathy says.

Family after Long Island family extolled their love of Lake George as a home away from home. “It’s such a happy place. It sounds kind of cheesy. I wanted to be able to share that experience with my own children,” Russo says. He has three daughters, ages 15, 14 and 11. “We liked it so much, we ended up buying a place there.” The Russos purchased a vacation home in Bolton Landing last year. When they visit in the summers, the family will rent a boat and pull the kids on inner tubes. They’ll let them bring their friends up. Sometimes they’ll walk around Lake George Village.

‘STEP BACK IN TIME’

Lake George has become a place for families’ special events, families say. “I keep going back there for all my special occasions,” says Hauck’s niece Erin O’Connor, 34, a nurse from Hauppauge. “My husband chose to do my engagement at Lake George,” she says. That was in 2021. And, over the Fourth of July weekend in 2022, she had her cousins and friends throw her bachelorette party there.

O’Connor and her husband, Daniel, 34, a property manager, now have a baby girl, Aubrey, 11 months; she’ll have her first summer vacation to Lake George with her parents in August, staying at the Surfside on the Lake in Lake George Village. “Building fresh new memories,” O’Connor says.

Tara Hackett, of Rockville Centre, celebrates the big 5-0 birthday this summer. “And guess where I’m spending it?” she says. “I’ve been going to Lake George every summer of my life; never missed one. We’ve probably stayed in every motel, hotel and lodge on Lake Shore Drive.”

She and her husband purchased a timeshare at The Lodges of Cresthaven about 10 years ago that entitles them to July Fourth week each year with their teenagers, ages 17 and 14. It also gives them two additional floating weeks.

“It’s like a step back in time when you go there — maybe because I’ve been going there so long that I feel that,” says Hackett, senior director of major gifts at Adelphi University in Garden City. “It’s really good old-fashioned summer fun.”