During the Gilded Age, private steamboats were the preserve of the lake’s wealthy “cottagers” – the families who built the mansions on the so-called “Millionaire’s Row.” John Boulton Simpson’s Fanita was among the most prominent.
Simpson was a New York City businessman who, along with four other investors, purchased Green Island and built the Sagamore Hotel in 1882. They also built cottages for themselves on the island and with their wealthy mainland neighbors spent the long summers entertaining themselves and one another with regattas, cruises, balls and informal parties.
The Fanita was launched in 1890, and in a trial run, “developed good speed, much better than expected, travelling from Bolton to Caldwell, ten miles, in fifty minutes” according to a contemporary account in the Lake George Mirror.
Simpson’s “Inimitable Chowder Parties” as the Lake George Mirror called them, were among the ways the lake’s elite entertained themselves. By 1891, they were “regular features of life at this popular resort,” the newspaper reported.
The 65-foot Fanita could accommodate thirty passengers, which made her the perfect vessel for ferrying guests to the islands for the chowder parties and for picnics, as well as entertaining large parties at regattas.
She was also the fastest boat on the lake, until, that is Simpson’s Green Island neighbor, E.B. Warren, launched the Ellide in 1897.
The Fanita was certainly the lake’s most luxurious private yacht.
“Mr. Simpson,” the Lake George Mirror reported, “is a wealthy New Yorker, vice commodore of the Lake George Yacht club, and one of the proprietors of the Sagamore Hotel. He does not stand on the dollars and cents. He will have the best.”
The Mirror reported that “the yacht is handsomely finished in mahogany and fine plush upholstery.”
Photographs made of the yacht by Bolton Landing photographer Jule Thatcher (1856-1934), now in the collection of the Bolton Historical Museum, attest to the elegance of the boat’s lines and the extravagance of her interior.
While the Fanita may have been the perfect vessel for chowder parties, for parties limited to family members or for circuits around Green Island, something smaller would have been more useful.
So in 1916, Simpson purchased the 33-foot Fay and Bowen that he christened “Fanita Jr.”
The torpedo-sterned, long decked, yacht-white boat represents Fay and Bowen at its apogee.
By the 1920s, Chris Craft, Hacker and Gar Wood were making faster, less expensive boats, designed to plane over the water rather than slice their way through it.
The old Fay and Bowens, however, remained on Lake George, where they were maintained and used regularly by their owners.
The Fanita Jr came into the hands of the late Skip Muller of Diamond Point, who renamed her Andante.
A few years ago, she was bought by Dr. John Kelly III of Assembly Point, who asked Reuben Smith’s Tumblehome Boatshop in Warrensburg to restore her.
“Our philosophy of restoration is to be as historically accurate as possible, to bring the boat back to the condition it was in when it was built,” said Reuben Smith.
That requires not only a thorough survey of the boat itself but research in the archives of manufacturers, dealers and historical societies, as well as time spent pouring over catalogs and back issues of newspapers and magazines,
“We had a lot of questions,” Smith continued. “Over time, even the original lines of a boat can become difficult to discern. And without color photographs or catalogs, we sometimes have to make educated guesses about things such as the color of the upholstery.”
A 170-year-old paint company in New Bedford, Massachusetts, helped Smith match the original yacht-white paint.
Preconceptions, or, rather, misconceptions, about a boat’s original appearance must be tossed aside. An example: the seams or pinstripes in the foredeck.
“The deck seams of the old launches were often filled with a white, oil-based compound, which was then varnished over, giving the seams an amber color. To many eyes today, this looks like a mistake, because the seams of so many runabouts were painted white, over the varnish. According to our research, the seams on the Fay and Bowen decks were never painted like that,” said Smith.
They chose not to restore the engine, which Smith said was “too precious to restore; it’s the only Fay and Bowen T-head of that size that’s intact.”
Instead, “a correct model of engine for this boat” was found and installed.
The Fanita, Jr’s restoration was successful – and impressive – enough for the boat to win “Best in Show” at several antique boat gatherings.
The Fanita, Jr, however, was not intended to become a museum piece.
“John Kelly and his family use it for casual, everyday cruising. It’s fully modernized,” said Smith.
And it’s filled Smith with thoughts of a more graceful, gracious style of power boating.
“I like the stately speed and the handling characteristics of the longer boats,” said Smith. “They loafed along, using very little power by today’s standards. It was an efficient use of energy that should resonate with people today.”
The steam yacht Fanita was destroyed roughly one hundred years ago, so the photos in the collection of the Bolton Historical Museum are nearly all that remain to evoke her by-gone era. The Fanita Jr, however, will be on display at this year’s Lake George Rendezvous, to be held in Lake George Village on August 23.
