{"nrhp_refnum":"92001438","name":"Coulter Cottage","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"34 Shepard Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Saranac Lake","county":"Essex County","state":"NY","lat":44.32554152500006,"lon":-74.12585079099995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1992-11-06","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Health/Medicine","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-and-one-half-story wood frame house at 34 Shepard Avenue in Saranac Lake (town of North Elba), Essex County, New York, built between 1897 and 1899 and designed by architect William L. Coulter as his own residence.","why_significant":"The nomination argues that the house is an intact, representative example of turn-of-the-century residential cure cottage architecture built for private use by a tuberculosis patient. It also reflects the career of Coulter, an early architect in the region who came to Saranac Lake with tuberculosis. It retains a high degree of integrity.","narrative":"Built between 1897 and 1899 near the top of Helen Hill in Saranac Lake, this two-and-one-half-story shingled house was designed by William L. Coulter as his own home. Coulter, an associate of a New York City architectural firm, came to the village in 1896 after contracting tuberculosis, and he and his wife Violet both had the disease. He began his own practice in 1897 and designed many camps on the Saranac Lakes and Lake Placid, as well as village buildings. His house, rectangular in plan with a stone foundation and a cross-gabled gambrel roof, includes a sitting-out porch and several sleeping porches. These features made it a working cure cottage. After a 1917 health survey, it was leased to operators who ran it as a nursing cottage or boarding house. The house is regarded as an intact, representative example of cure cottage architecture, retaining its design, materials, setting and association.","period_of_significance":"ca.1897-ca.1940","architect_builder":"William L. Coulter, Architect","architectural_style":"Shingle style","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Still used as a single dwelling; a non-contributing late twentieth century garage is on the property.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:44.97478-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/92001438.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/92001438/8602f8e308-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/92001438/8602f8e308-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Mwanner","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coulter_Cottage,_Saranac_Lake,_NY.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Mwanner</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coulter_Cottage,_Saranac_Lake,_NY.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"15000754","name":"Helen Hill Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/new-york/helen-hill-historic-district-15000754/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75312934","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coulter_Cottage","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5176182"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/essex-county/coulter-cottage-92001438/"}