Early film mogul Adam Kessel Jr. shaped the industry while retreating to his Lake Champlain estate—now a historic landmark with a second life
By Tom French
The Adirondacks often serve as the setting for Hollywood blockbusters from “The Last of the Mohicans” (filmed in the Blue Ridge Mountains) to “Miracle,” the story of the 1980 USA Hockey win against the Soviet Union (filmed in British Columbia). Sometimes, the Adirondacks stand in for fictional locations, such as Great Escape serving as the Brightstar Adventure Park in “Succession.” Occasionally, Tinseltown films at the real locale, as in “Escape at Dannemora.”
But despite the slights, the Adirondacks have one up on most of America. It could be argued that Hollywood started here.
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Adam Kessel Jr., an early 20th-century pioneer in the movie industry with ties to Charlie Chaplin, Keystone Pictures, and Universal, to name just a few, resided on the shores of Lake Champlain in Port Douglas near Keeseville. His home, also known as the Kessel Park Inn, was the site of movie deals and celebrity visits.
From Hollywood movie mogul hideaway to retreat for mental health care workers
Members of Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH) were treated to a tour of the property, hosted by current owners Rich and Zoanne Schnell, during the summer of 2024. The Schnells purchased the property in the early ’70s as a summer home and a retreat for mental health professionals, as they both worked in the mental health field.
“We realized so many resources were going into helping the patients, but nobody was helping the people who were working with them,” Rich said. “So, we made this an open retreat, and they could come when they wanted. We still have people come to this day and stay with us.”
They have since winterized the home and consider it their official residence. They also wrote an application for the National Register of Historic Places, which was granted in 2023.
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Research for the application suggested that the house was built in 1890. “The assessor assures me there’s no way to verify that, but we know Kessel bought it in 1912.”
The AARCH Tour began near a 100-foot tower built by Kessel. Kessel had a 60-foot yacht, the Orson, that he anchored in the bay. At one point, Kessel was commodore of the local yacht club. “To show off, he built this tower to fly his flag.”
A rise to prominence, feuds with Edison
Originally from Brooklyn, Kessel’s business interests began with his father and four brothers. From printing, the brothers branched into gaming and “amusements” including the manufacture of “card machines,” “slot machines,” and the mutoscope – an early coin-operated motion picture device with a circular drum of sequential photographs.
Kessel’s proximity to Coney Island and its connections to early entertainment venues (Thomas Edison used it as a location for his movies) offered Kessel opportunities into the film industry. Kessel dabbled as a bookie, and in 1908 he leveraged debt owed to him into ownership of the Empire Film Exchange, a distribution business that rented short films to nickelodeons. Soon, he was one of the leading film distributors in New York City.
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In 1909, he helped establish the National Independent Motion Picture Alliance, a network of distributors, in response to Thomas Edison’s attempt to monopolize the industry. At the same time, Kessel, with others, founded New York Motion Picture Co. (NYMPC) in order to provide movies for the growing demand. By 1910, the company was releasing four new reels per week under various imprints.
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Conflict with Edison’s interests may have been one reason New York Motion Picture Co. moved to California, along with “plentiful natural light.”
Kessel’s second wife grew up in the Catskills, and she loved the mountains, so he resisted the move to California. He did travel to the West Coast on multiple occasions and was instrumental in the construction of a new studio for the production of westerns. Bison Films became one of the earliest and most prolific producers of early silent westerns, releasing dozens every year between 1909-1917.
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Keystone Pictures, famous for the Keystone Kops, was established by Kessel and others in 1912. By 1913, the company had signed Charlie Chaplin. A photocopy of the contract signed by Kessel and Chaplin is in what Rich calls his mini-museum. It includes advertisements from Kessel’s various film companies and many photos of Kessel on the property – his yacht in the harbor, riding his horse, and social gatherings. The property had a tennis court and miniature golf.
“He had stables here. He had a dog kennel and a couple of monkeys,” Zoanne explained. “There were formal gardens too.”
Chaplin defected to a different film company for more money a year after signing with Keystone. Letters suggest that Keystone considered luring him back with even higher compensation. Kessel believed this cycle of escalating salaries for stars was unsustainable, which is one reason cited for his exit from the industry in 1919.
Afterwards, advertisements and newspaper articles show that Kessel divided his time between Brooklyn and his Adirondack property, promoting Kessell’s (sic) Douglas Park in the Adirondacks as “The Bay of Naples in America.”
Piecing together the past
Kessel drowned in 1946 in Lake Champlain when it is believed he fell off his boat. His wife sold the property, and the new owners, Irving and Sadie Lavine, converted it into the Kessel Camp Inn, which became the Kessel Park Inn, a well-known restaurant and with lodging.
Rich admitted that when he and his wife purchased the property, “we didn’t know what we were doing. We were kids out of college. We didn’t realize we were buying a three-season facility with 5-by-5, double-hung windows, single pane. It was cold.”
Another complication was that part of the building, an addition, was on the adjacent property. “The owner offered to sell us the lot and structure, but we didn’t have the money at the time. I came home one day, and the guy had taken a chainsaw and cut the building in half at the property line.”
When the Schnells purchased the property, many of the historical artifacts from Kessel’s day vanished. “The former owner held an auction at the inn unbeknownst to us.”
Jimmy Walker, the mayor of New York City, had given Kessel an elaborate backbar. A polar bear rug was supposedly from Teddy Roosevelt. The Schnells have photographs of the items.
One item that Rich continues to search for is the bison head that served as the logo for Bison Films. “It was hanging on this stairway and disappeared.”
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