Recently, Northwood School acquired two new properties in Lake Placid for the purpose of expansion in the town: the former With Pipe and Book bookstore, on Main Street and a house on Norsnol Road. This is a part of our new headmaster, Mr. Maher’s, vision to improve the breadth of the Northwood curriculum and the visibility of the school in the local community.
The recent acquisition of the Balsams, which will soon serve as much-needed expanded housing for our faculty and growing female student population, is the result of a generous gift from an anonymous donor. The property known as With Pipe and Book, resulted from a partnership with Northwood alumni that have recognized the opportunity to promote innovative learning at Northwood School.
The Balsams property was once a part of the Lake Placid Club. It will be used for student housing, and is “state-of-the-art fine housing that our kids deserve,” according to Maher. (Photo: Adirondack Premier Properties)
“All schools are trying to make a more robust admissions program,” Maher began in an interview with Editor Nikita Tafazoli and myself. The acquisition of the property on Norsnol Road is a first step towards expanding the size of Northwood’s student body and improving upon its ratio of female to male students. Mr. Maher stated that, while knowing we cannot have in the immediate future a ratio of fifty percent males to fifty percent females, we need to improve upon the current ratio of seventy-two percent males to twenty-eight percent females. The property would create a “new standard of quality housing here” and “is an original part of the Lake Placid Club which is a part of our founding.” It has, currently, room for eight new girls with two doubles and a quad, and has room upon which to build another house and add another two doubles and single quad. “It’s state-of-the-art fine housing that our kids deserve,” said Maher, and, for those girls wondering, it is a four minute and thirty-six second walk from front door to front door. Also, “Only fifty percent of the faculty enjoys the perk of on-campus housing,” according to Maher, so the property would also provide room for new faculty housing in order for Northwood students and more of the faculty to build connections “after the academic and sports day when true relationships are formed.”
The iconic With Pipe and Book property on Main Street in Lake Placid. (Photo: Richard Pilon/Flickr)
Of the roughly 2.2 million people who come to Lake Placid each year, roughly 450,000 of them are children. These are children who will never see what Northwood has to offer because we are “tucked behind the trees and up the hill,” so the Pipe and Book property, seated in the heart of Main Street, will increase our visibility not only to the local community but to the hundreds of thousands of families who travel through Lake Placid each year. In this property, on the main street level floor, Maher plans to introduce a “new, innovative side of the curriculum that does not currently exist.” Here, there will be an open, visible space with five to six studios dedicated to “creative disciplines.” Mr. Maher has unofficially dubbed these studios the “Imagination Project,” and they would consist of design, robotics, entrepreneurial leadership, studio arts, and performing arts and music (D.R.E.A.M). Looking in the storefront, to the right of the studios, Maher envisions a student-run “Reno’s Café” which, among other things, would sell “Reno’s Grilled Cheese Sandwiches: A+” as grilled-cheese sandwiches are both a boarding-school favorite and Reno’s specialty. Advancement and Alumni Development would have spaces in this building, thus opening up rooms in Northwood’s main Allyn Building for a Center for Learning. The three single apartments and at least two bedroom apartments on the other two floors of this building would “allow us to add thirty-five percent more housing in one clean swoop.” The property would, in essence, give us “a huge foothold in Lake Placid to interface directly with 450,000-500,000 families who pass through Lake Placid each year.”
Essentially, Mr. Maher believes “Northwood should have a national reputation given the quality of the place, and yet it’s viewed in the market right now as largely regional and known to the North Country but not known enough to the country or the world.” The acquiring of these two properties is only the first step on the road towards this reputation.
Updated on 12/15/2015 at 2:07
