PLATTSBURGH — Steven Frederick stashed away bits and bobs for almost a quarter century at Clinton Community College.
Select items from his cache of Hotel Champlain and Clinton Community College artifacts will be auctioned today at 10:30 a.m. in front of the Alumni Cottage, 136 Clinton Point Dr. Plattsburgh. Preview starts at 9:30 a.m.
“I started working at Clinton Community College 23 years ago, and I am a big history fanatic of the Hotel Champlain,” Frederick, vice president of institutional advancement, said. “I made sure anytime there was a renovation or something going on that nothing historical or unique got thrown away. I quietly stashed them all over campus like a squirrel hiding nuts for winter. I stashed all these items over the years. Some items I have on display. Sometimes I literally put in the basement. Out of sight, out of mind.”
Since CCC relocated to the SUNY Plattsburgh campus with administration offices at 133 Court Street and academics in George Moore Hall at 46 Beekman St., there isn’t room for Frederick’s collectibles.
“Who knows who’s going to be the next tenant up there who moves into the building or what happens to the parcel? It’s a good time to make available all the items that I’ve stashed over the years and collected, and people in the community donated items. We’ve quite an extensive list.”
Auction highlights can be viewed online at the college’s website: clinton.edu. Click on the Foundation tab, and then Hotel Champlain tab.
“It’s also really nice paintings that were donated to the Clinton Community College Foundation over the years. We have such a variety. We have art work and historical artifacts. We have some antiques that are not necessarily hotel related. Everything is very, very unique. All the proceeds from the sale is going to go to the Foundation to help us getting established at the new site. It’s just to support the Foundation,” he said.
Frederick has a handful of favorites. Topping the list are the pigeon-hole key racks from the Hotel Champlain.
“If you can imagine checking into the hotel in 1911, the clerk would have turned around and reached into this, it looks like a bunch of cubbies, and they would look up your room number and they would say, ‘Ah, Miss, you are in room 230. Here’s your keys.’ They are one-of-a-kind. They are custom-made for the hotel. They were in storage since the hotel closed,” he said.
The Bluff Point hotel became a Jesuit seminary, Bellarmine College, which operated from 1951 to 1966.
“I had seminarians just visit last week in their late 80s, and they wanted to come back to see the former school. They said, ‘Oh my gosh. We used to use those racks. They would roll up their linen napkins after they were washed. When you walked into the dining hall, you would reach in and take your napkin from the pigeonhole key rack,” Frederick said.
CCC used the racks for mail.
“They have had multiple uses since 1911, but I got them up for sale. I also have just about all the keys to Hotel Champlain. I bet you I have 200 keys in a box. Dr. Light was the very first college president when he took over in 1970. He came to me about 10 years ago, right before he passed away. He came to the office, and he said, ‘Steve, I have been tripping over this box in my garage for 40 years. Here, you can have it.’ It’s all the keys to the hotel rooms. Some of the keys, maybe eight or 10, still have the actual brass tag that has the room number on it, and it says Hotel Champlain on the back,” Frederick said.
Another favorite is an empty bottle of Hotel Champlain spring water.
“At the end of the stonewall is a beige, octagon-shaped building. Inside that building is a well. They had a machine that pumped the spring water, and it filled these beautiful glass bottles with a label that said ‘Hotel Champlain Spring Water, Bluff Point, NY.’ The machine filled the bottle, and then it pressed a metal cap on top of the bottle,” he said.
Frederick claims this is the last existing bottle. “Because behind that octagon building is about a 3 ft. high pile of green glass that somebody smashed all the bottles. Even the Clinton County Historical Association doesn’t have a bottle. They got the label, but I got the bottle with the label. People are chatting about this bottle around here. Collectors are like, ‘Oh god, I have to bid on this bottle. It’s beautiful. It’s pristine.’ The actual machine that filled the bottles, we kept it. Plattco refinished it for us, and it’s in the lobby of the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing. It was made in 1921, so it’s on display as an antique bottling machine. I geek out over this stuff. I can’t help it,” he said.
The second iteration of the hotel had a terracotta tiled roof with a skylight.
“In 2002, we replaced the roof. They took the skylight off the roof. I found it next to the dumpster with four guys ready to heave it into the dumpster. I’m like, ‘No. No. No. No. No.’ I put it on two pallets, and I hid it in the furnace room of one of the buildings. Maybe only two other human beings knew where I hid that skylight,” he said.
Auctioneer Stephen Martin is a NY certified appraiser of antiques.
“He thinks that will probably be my highest item. It’s so unique. It’s from the hotel, from 1911, custom-made, in pristine condition even thought it sat on that roof for over a 100 years,” Frederick said.
Other artifacts include Hotel Champlain china, plated sterling tea set, silverware, dinner plates, etc. There are art works by Patricia Reynolds, Bosco McKinney, and V. Bernstein.
The auction will feature 28 chairs with the letter ‘C’ carved into them.
“Everybody thought the ‘C’ stood for Clinton or Champlain. It took some digging, but I proved that they are the former deck chairs of the Chateaugay Steamer. This is the sister ship to the Ticonderoga that was launched in 1909. The Chateaugay was launched in 1889. It was first iron-hull steamer on Lake Champlain, and the iron ore came from the Chateaugay iron and ore mine, hence the name,” Frederick said.
The grandson of the former owner of the Champlain Transportation Company verified the authenticity of the chairs.
“He walked and took one look at them and said, ‘Oh, yeah. Oh, my god, you got the deck chairs off the Chateaugay.’ He flipped them and showed me the marks. He showed me where they were stored and what deck they were on. He 100% confirmed these are the deck chairs off the Chateaugay Steamer,” Frederick said.