Saratoga Spa Complex – Saratoga Springs NY

Description

Saratoga Springs has been famous for its mineral waters, for bathing and drinking, for four centuries, and was known to native people long before that.  The town has a rich history of tourism, horse-racing and gambling, and its many springs have been developed commercially and heavily exploited by bottling companies.  In order to protect the springs from over-pumping, the area was declared a New York State Reservation in 1909. Dr. Simon Baruch, a leading exponent of hydrotherapy, guided the Spa’s development in its early years. 

In 1928, New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt established a commission to rehabilitate the springs, chaired by Bernard Baruch, son of Simon.  The first reconstruction project, in 1928-30, was the Lincoln Bathhouse to replace an earlier bathhouse that had burned. A monumental cast stone building, it was the first building in the park to exhibit the formal Neoclassical design which characterized later park architecture. Surrounding the Lincoln Baths are a greenhouse shed and eight pump houses. These are pre-New Deal constructions.

In 1931, a large new spa complex was begun using state funds and loans from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), established under President Hoover and expanded under President Roosevelt.  The central complex was presumably completed in 1934 (a date carved on the facades of the four main structures) and surrounding buildings and landscaping were finished in 1935.  The New Deal contribution constitutes at least half of the spa complex.  FDR, who had launched the project as Governor, quite naturally came to the opening of the Roosevelt Baths in 1935.

The cruciform layout has a broad north-south mall lined with monumental Georgian Revival buildings crossed by a narrower mall and farther north by an east-west road. The formal pathways, plantings and buildings were designed to draw the eye along the formal vistas. The two most prominent buildings, the Hall of Springs and the Simon Baruch Research Institute feature broad porticoed facades facing one another across a grassy mall and large reflecting pool. Round-arched arcades extend outward from these buildings, further defining the central square. Many inspirational inscriptions about the history and benefits of the spa water are found on the exterior of the arcades.

Just to the south, the Roosevelt Bathhouses I and II also mirror each other across the mall, with formal arcades reaching north on both sides.  Looking up the mall, the eye is drawn to the entrance of the Avenue of Pines, a mile-long roadway lined with towering pine trees leading toward Lincoln Park. Looking south, one sees the meadow and mature forest lying below the plateau.

The Saratoga Spa reservation was designated a state park in 1962. The park today covers 2,300 acres and includes such additions as the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (1966) outdoor swimming pools, two golf courses, picnic areas and more.  The spa was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.