Cottage Core Inspired by 3 Days Glamping in the Adirondacks

Glamping in cottage core style overlooking the Adirondack Mountains and Lake Champlain as the fall foliage season approaches. You’ll adore the elements of these New England-designed cottages.

It’s late September, and the fall foliage is just barely cresting in the northeast. The temperatures are in the high 60’s, and sunshine is in the forecast. We packed our car with our dog, Ella, in tow and headed two hours north to Vergennes, Vermont, home to Basin Harbor on Lake Champlain overlooking New York state’s Adirondack Mountains.

You may also enjoy the Vermont Fall Foliage Home Tour post.

What is Glamping?

Glamping is defined as “glamorous camping.” Glamping allows you to enjoy many amenities not found in the traditional camping setup. Glamping may include a private place to dwell, a private bathroom and/or kitchen, a swimming pool, heat, air conditioning, cozy bedding, etc…

Glamping can mean embracing all the luxuries of home while being a little adventuresome by staying in a yurt, tippee, luxury RV, or a rustic-style cottage instead of the traditional tent.

Glamping in the Adirondacks at Basin Harbor

Our Vermont neighbor recently visited Basin Harbor for an educator’s retreat this past summer. She loved her time there and recommended we try out one of their quaint guest cottages. She said it would be a bit like glamping in the Adirondacks and that the resort was also very pet-friendly. This sounded right up our alley!

But this post isn’t about the resort itself, but what we found once we arrived and the cottage core designs that surrounded this 700-acre lakeshore landscape. After all, this is a vintage home decorating blog, and inspiration can be found almost anywhere we look or visit, isn’t that right?

Over a century old, the property is rich with history and is a “Historic Hotels of America” member. Basin Harbor was established in 1886 by Ardelia Beach and has remained family-owned ever since.

Home to one of the most beautiful sunsets around.

The property has three historic guesthouses and 77 distinctive cottages that exude New England charm. Glamping in the Adirondacks has never been so quaintly enjoyed.

Canary Cottage / Our First Accommodations

We arrived at Basin Harbor on a Monday and were given a key to “The Canary” cottage overlooking Lake Champlain and the Adirondack mountains from the Vermont side of the lake. It looked amazing, but we never thought to ask if there would be stairs and how many. Oh boy, a large Bernese Mountain Dog who was still in a cast going up and down these stairs. We weren’t sure if this was going to work out, but we gave it a try.

The Canary cottage was glampy and charming. The cottage had a main living room with a screened-in porch extension and two antique French doors overlooking Lake Champlain with views of the Adirondack Mountains.

Coastal blue accents like this vintage coffee table trunk, nautical lamp, side table, and two blue sitting chairs garnished the room.

The flooring was dark wood with pine furniture highlights.

A working fireplace was tucked away in the back corner behind a cozy, comfortable, worn-in leather couch.

The fireplace was also accented with blue books and a blue frame above the coat hangers.

A pretty brown rug with floral pinks casually centered this cottage-style living space.

My favorite was the large screened-in porch with just a few scattered lounge chairs. Nothing fancy at all.

Although the blue ceiling, vintage French doors, and white paneling were just fabulous in their cottage core colors.

The views of the Adirondack Mountains were captivating. We sat here watching local students who attend the on-resort Lake Champlain Maritime Museum camps out for rowing practice, the sailboats and motorboats that were out for their morning and evening jaunts, and tourists who muddled their way around the lake on rented kayaks.

All enjoying the outdoors before the bitter cold winter arrives at the lake.

It felt a bit like staying in a tree house cabin and a houseboat at the same time.

Then it was onto the bedroom, which was super cute with vintage tennis racquets framed over the bed paired with matching brown bed covers.

A vintage blue luggage rack and a wicker chair with coastal blue cushions. This bedroom also had sliding doors that walked out onto the screened-in porch.

Which, when warm enough, was nice to leave open for the sounds and fresh air of the lake.

You may also enjoy the Glamping with Beddy’s Zipper Bedding post.

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We loved our little glamping cottage overlooking the Adirondack Mountains. But after one night and two days, we realized that the staircase down to the Canary Cottage would be too much for Ella and us to handle with her cast. We certainly didn’t want to take any chances of her hurting her leg further.

So we moved into the Eaglerest cottage a few doors down. It was a bit smaller, with less of a view of the lake and no screened-in porch, unfortunately for us. But that was okay; we were together glamping in the Adirondack Mountains.

You may also enjoy the Best RV Bedding & Antiquing Road Trips.

Eaglerest Cottage

Eaglerest cottage looked to actually be part of a larger historic stone building that had been made into separate smaller cottages.

This cottage had a rust asphalt roof, stone exterior siding, and a small front yard just off the resort’s golf course.

The cottage’s windows were old and reminded me of an old English countryside cottage. The windows rolled outward with screens that protected us from the monstrous mosquitos that loomed on the property, most likely due to all the rain that Vermont experienced this summer.

Read more in the post, Mother Nature And An Antique Millinery Hat Mold.

Eaglerest cottage had pine paneling matching the cottage core wallpaper, which was off-white with green pinecones, ideal for glamping in the Adirondacks.

There was wall-to-wall rustic carpeting versus wood flooring, which was actually better for us, as the wood floors were slippery for our Berner, Ella, with her casted back leg.

Two French doors provided bedroom privacy from the main living room, and the rustic cottage core stone added a fitting texture for a cottage core-style bedroom while glamping in the Adirondacks.

Pet Friendly

One of the reasons we chose Basin Harbor for our glamping trip to see the Adirondack Mountains was because of its pet-friendly policies. They even have an onsite pet-sitting service, should we desire it. Dogs are welcome in all areas except for the main lobby where you check-in.

One of the owners of the property had two golden retrievers who went with him everywhere. They could be consistently seen together on his golf cart around the cottages, swimming in the lake and posing for photographs.

Cottage Doors

The cottage-style screen doors were one of the cottage core elements that stuck out to me while glamping here. I thought it was such a unique way to show off each cottage’s exclusivity.

Come to find out that all of these screen doors were made by a local craftsman who used to work at Basin Harbor, Don of Donny’s Door. Check out his work and learn more about this screen door craft. It’s fabulous!

Let’s take a walk around and check out some of the cute cottage screen doors.

What’s more characteristic of an old cottage than a screen door slamming? And the idea to make the screen door one of the distinctive key design elements was ingenious. I absolutely adored each and every one of these.

Leisure Line Adirondack Chairs

Adirondack chairs are a classic New England favorite. We have a few Polywood Adirondack chairs around our fire pit at our home in Maine. See more in the post, How We Designed & Built A Pea Stone Patio in 2 Days. And my father made us a set as a wedding gift and, later, 4 Westport chairs.

What is the history of the Adirondack chair? The Adirondack chair was designed in the early 1900s by Lee Thomas in Westport, NY, who set out to create a comfortable outdoor chair that could withstand flat, muddy ground or the slant of a hill. The original chairs were called Westport chairs, with one piece of wood serving as the backrest before today’s modern design was introduced for mass production.

Learn more about Adirondack chairs’ history here.

Basin Harbor beautifully placed their colorful Adirondack chairs, more similar to the Westport Chair, around the property, from fire pits to overlooking Lake Champlain onto the Adirondack Mountains. Although I do not know for sure, I suspect these chairs are from Westport, NY, as its location is almost directly across the lake from the resort.

Here are a few Adirondack chair ideas sure to inspire you.

Thank you so much for joining us on our glamping trip to the Adirondack Mountains and Lake Champlain this past week. Coming soon will be Vermont’s one-of-a-kind fall foliage season and Vermont Vintage Market Days. I hope you found a little inspiration on your visit with us here today. And I’m so grateful that you dropped by!

If you’d like to learn more about Basin Harbor, visit their website HERE.

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This post may contain affiliate links that won’t change your price but will share some commission.

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