The Best Hotels in Lake Placid

There's no sign at the end of the drive, which tells you something about the clientele. This Forbes Five Star Adirondack camp resort sits on a private peninsula of Upper Saranac Lake, stone fireplaces and twig furniture in every room, and guests dress for black-tie dinner twice a week around a communal table. Snowshoeing, croquet, and champagne at 4 a.m. are all equally on offer, which is roughly the point.

Rebuilt after a 2005 fire, this Adirondacks lodge sits right on the edge of Lake Placid, the water kind, not the film. Arts and crafts bones, plaid upholstery, and animal prints give the interior a luxurious take on rustic Americana. There's a casual pub for hot toddies and chess, and a proper dining room for something more considered. The kind of place that takes the "tranquil getaway" promise more seriously than most.

A family-owned resort on the edge of Mirror Lake, where the Adirondacks do their most photogenic work year-round. Gas fireplaces have quietly replaced the wood-burning ones, and the spa runs a salt-therapy room alongside a sixty-foot indoor pool. Two restaurants on-site, one more formal than the other. Lake Placid hosted the Winter Olympics, so the snow-sports infrastructure is serious, but summers here are no consolation prize. It holds a Michelin Key.

Lake Flower practically laps at the lobby of this contemporary lakeside lodge on the shores of Saranac Lake, a town the Adirondacks' mid-century eclipse left more or less unspoiled. The Saranac Waterfront Lodge reads as a grand lakeside hotel updated for now, with the activities and amenities that formula implies. Hikers, paddlers, and people who just want to stare at water from a comfortable chair all seem equally at home here.