This article is reproduced with permission from The escape house, a newsletter for second homes and those who want it. Subscribe here. © 2022. All rights reserved.
In rural southwestern New York, there is a small lakeside town named Chautauqua. Less than 200 people live there year-round. In early summer, when vacation home owners and their Airbnb ABNB,
guests arrive, the population swells to over 10,000. During peak season in July and August, the lakeside town hosts over 100,000 people, most of whom come to attend an annual gathering of cultural spiritual events, artistic, recreational and interfaith.
Never heard of Chautauqua? You’re not alone. It has been described as a “hidden utopia” and a hidden “cultural oasis” in one of the most rural corners of the Northeast. Chautauqua is an Iroquois word meaning “a bag tied in the middle” or “two moccasins bound together” which describes the shape of the lake. Molly Cuddy of The Escape Home has the scoop.
Mecca of arts and culture
The city is best known for being home to the Chautauqua Institution, which hosts the Summer Assembly and brings in speakers from around the world to discuss a variety of current issues.
Institution sessions “promote conversation and foster reflections on performance, creativity, curiosity and values,” says Tom Becker, who served as president of the Chautauqua institution for 13 years before retiring in 2016. “It’s a strange balance between intensity and relaxation. There’s really nothing like it anywhere in the world.
The Chautauqua institution was founded in 1874 and is credited with creating the concept of adult continuing education and blending vacation learning in a rural setting with entertainment, culture and politics. The concept traveled across the country and became known as the “Chautauqua Movement”.
A rust belt favorite is gaining popularity
In recent decades, however, the lake’s resort community was little known outside of Cleveland, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh, its closest big-city neighbors.
Stephanie Novinc, who lives in Cleveland, has visited the area since 1967.
“When I was a kid, my parents and a lot of other people who lived in our area had campers, permanent campers at a place called Camp Chautauqua,” she says. “It was really small at first and it grew and grew and grew.”
In recent years, Chautauqua has captured the attention of a variety of visitors and second-home buyers, including snowbirds who want to escape the sweltering summer heat of Florida and Arizona. Some holiday home owners come from as far away as Australia and South Africa, usually because they have a connection to the institution, or because they have a friend or family member who is involved in the institution.
But the biggest new group of vacation home buyers comes from New York. “It’s being discovered by New Yorkers because they see value in it,” says Karen Goodell, a real estate agent with ERA Team VP who has been selling homes in Chautauqua for 40 years. Like a growing number of his clients, Goodall lives in New York and spends his summers in Chautauqua.
family entertainment
The “value” that Goodell refers to involves the ability to purchase a pass, or ticket, which grants access to hundreds of events, classes, shows and recreational activities during the summer assembly of nine weeks of the institution. This summer, a one-week pass is $550 for ages 26 and older and $185 for ages 13 to 25. The pass allows individuals to attend almost any event the institution has to offer. There are programs for adults and children. “It’s the best deal there is,” Goodell says.
“If your grandparents and your parents and your siblings and nieces and nephews all had to (go) on vacation somewhere. It would be a place where you would all have [enjoyable] experiences,” says Becker.
“It’s extremely, extremely family oriented and that’s what I love,” Novinc confirmed. “It’s just fun at home.”
In the summer of 2020, when Covid-19 precautions crippled much of the economy, the institution canceled its summer events for the first time since its founding. Last summer, the facility was running programs at about 60% capacity.
This summer, Chautauqua hopes the program will be back in full swing. The calendar of events already includes performances by singer Sheryl Crow and the Dance Theater of Harlem; and lectures by author and Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria and Constanze Stelzenmüller, transatlantic foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution. They will both be part of a lecture series called “What Should America’s Role Be in the World?”
Chautauqua Real Estate: Something for Everyone
Most homes in Chautauqua range between $500,000 and $700,000, but prices are considerably higher for homes on Lake Chautauqua, which is 19 miles long and has 41 miles of lakefront. Last year, homes on the lake sold for between $1.5 million and $3 million, Goodell says. Condos, which are also available, are much cheaper, with many starting between $150,000 and $250,000.
Some vacationers only stay for a few weeks at a time, while others stay all summer. But Goodell suspects some landlords and tenants may start to stay longer due to more lax work-from-home policies because of Covid-19. “It’s been more accepted as a mode of operation,” Goodell says. “I really think Chautauqua and other communities like ours are going to benefit from this new way of working.”
This article is reproduced with permission from The escape house, a newsletter for second homes and those who want it. Subscribe here. © 2022. All rights reserved.
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