Five generations of Dahlgrens have spent their summers on Heart Bay, and for every one of them, the 1937 Lyman berthed in the historic boathouse is as cherished as any family member – perhaps more so.
Fran Sisca, the owner of Hague’s Mountain Motors, recently returned her to the boat house – the same one that once sheltered the race boats of George Reis’ fierce rival, Commodore Jonathan Moore – after a six-month restoration.
More often than not, Sisca’s shop forgoes opportunities to restore Lymans, a wood lapstrake boat manufactured on Lake Erie from the mid 1920s through the early 70s.
“They’re usually not worth the time it would take to restore one, nor the cost, for the matter,” said Sisca.
“Betts,” as the Dahlgrens’ boat is named, is different.
To begin with, she’s rare, and in all likelihood, the only one of her kind on Lake George.
“95% of the Lymans that you see on Lake George are made from Okume Plywood, a hardwood veneer,” said Sisca.
“Betts” is a true mahogany boat, constructed with mahogany planks, not unlike the Hackers and the Gar Woods of the same era – the era before plywood became available for marine construction.
Sisca was also drawn to Betts’ legacy on Heart Bay.
“She’s lived on Lake George her entire life, and Tim and Bobbie Dahlgren wanted to make certain that she would be available for the next generation to enjoy,” said Sisca.
According to Tim Dalhlgren, his grandfather, Ted Dahlgren, appears to have bought the boat from a marina in Glenburnie, which had ordered at least two from the factory in Sandusky, Ohio. He named the boat for his daughter, Tim’s mother.
Dahlgren’s grandfather, a Westchester County resident, first brought his family to Lake George in the late 1930s or early forties. At the Sagamore, where they stayed, they happened to meet another Westchester family, the Singers, who apparently found the Rogers Rock hotel more congenial than the Sagamore and persuaded the Dahlgrens to join them there.
“Albert Singer intended to come for the week and ultimately chose to stay for the entire summer,” said Dahlgren.
According to the late George Singer, Albert Singer’s son, the hotel was razed in 1942 and the families who had discovered Heart Bay as hotel guests bought property and established camps of their own nearby.
“All the families on this bay have very deep roots here,” said Tim Dahlgren. “Our grandchildren just left and as they were saying good-bye to their friends, it struck me that they were saying good-bye to the grandchildren of the very people we had grown up with.”
Betts has been refinished and repaired once before – by the restorer from Denmark, by way of Florida, who arrived in Bolton Landing in the late 1980s, Torbin Gray.
Gray’s workman-like repairs and the engine he installed kept the boat afloat and running for another 35 years.
“Cocktail cruises and star gazing, those are things this boat is great for,” said Bobbie Dahlgren, who met her husband in high school and who has been coming to Heart Bay every summer since 1968.
“We used to ski behind this boat,” recalled Tim Dahlgren. “When my brother got married, all the groomsmen did too.”
When children and grandchildren need to get to the Northern Lake George Yacht Club, Betts is a livery boat.
“One of my favorite pictures shows the boat backing out with all the kids – ten or fifteen, as many as twenty – on a beautiful day,” said Dahlgren.
“I’m very confident that as long as the family keeps the boat painted and varnished, she will last a very long time,” said Fran Sisca. According to Sisca, you will, in all likelihood, see Betts for yourself at this summer’s Lake George Rendezvous, to be held August 23-25 in Lake George Village.
