The Otesaga Hotel and the Clarks
Near Cooperstown, New York
Rising above the southern shore of Otsego Lake is the Otesaga, a grand columned resort hotel that has welcomed guests since nineteen oh nine. Its name comes from a Native word associated with the lake, and its long lakeside verandah has become one of the enduring images of Cooperstown. The hotel was the creation of two brothers, Edward Severin Clark and Stephen Carlton Clark, whose family had grown enormously wealthy from the Singer sewing machine company.
Their grandfather, Edward Cabot Clark, had been the lawyer and business partner of the inventor Isaac Singer, and it was the elder Clark's marketing genius, including the idea of selling machines on installment payments, that turned Singer into a household name and the family into millionaires. In Cooperstown the Clarks became civic patrons on a grand scale, building the hotel, the museums, and eventually the Baseball Hall of Fame. When the Otesaga opened it was praised for luxuries astonishing for a small village, including thirty-foot columns, ice-cooled refrigeration, and a telephone in every guest room.
Edward Severin Clark, nicknamed the Squire, loved to chat with visitors in the lobby like a gracious host. More than a century later the Otesaga still anchors the lakefront, a reminder that one family's fortune quietly built much of what makes Cooperstown special.
