How the Stillwater Hotel in Upstate New York Inspired the Setting for Down a Bad Road

The carved wooden sign outside the rustic Stillwater Hotel reads: WHERE THE ROAD ENDS AND A GOOD TIME BEGINS. If that isn’t enough to lure a weary Adirondack hiker, camper or fisherman inside for a cold drink and a hearty meal, there’s a weathered placard beside the door, promising MODERN LODGING and COLOR TV. While the accomodations are somewhat dated, the quirky ambiance of the place more than makes up for it.

My first visit to the hotel was about five years ago, when I met my college friend Jackie there for the weekend. A chilly October rain was falling as I turned my car onto the densely forested Stillwater Road, and to my dismay, the pavement ended after a mile or so. I proceeded with caution, jouncing along a rocky track that was partially washed out in places. The woods finally opened up at the end of the road and the Stillwater Reservoir lay before me, shrouded in mist.

Parking next to Jackie’s mud-spattered SUV, I went into the restaurant. The coziness of a snug, pine-paneled bar area enveloped me, and there was my dear friend, perched on a comfortable barstool, sipping a glass of red wine and chatting with Mother Marian, the hotel’s longtime proprietor. We greeted each other with the warmth of old friends, then went into the dining room for a delicious early dinner.

After our meal, Jackie and I returned to the homey bar for another glass of wine. As we sipped our cabernets, the door burst open and a rowdy threesome of young women in soaking wet fleece burst in. The girls were in the preliminary stages of cheerful inebriation, and they immediately ordered a round of beers to help things along. “We’re camping!” one of them announced, energetically clinking glasses with me. She described their campsite on the water’s edge. “It was absolutely perfect when we arrived this morning,” she said, “but now it’s raining.” I nodded in sympathy as the three girls grimaced in unison, then guzzled their beers.

It was Saturday night, and the small bar area began to fill with a motley assortment of customers: a married couple celebrating their anniversary, a charter plane pilot from Tupper Lake, a pony-tailed man who introduced himself as Stillwater’s official bagpiper, and four more damp but enthusiastic campers. From her station behind the bar, Marian uncorked fresh bottles of wine, and kept busy refilling everyone’s glasses.

Shouts of laughter and good-natured name calling rose in the back room, where some of the campers were engaged in a noisy game of cards. The door burst open again, and a man carrying a guitar case hustled inside, bringing a gust of rain with him. The assembled revelers squeezed themselves closer to the bar, to make room for the newcomer. The musician settled himself on a stool and commenced playing an acoustic version of the Grateful Dead’s Truckin’, with the crowd happily joining in.

At evening’s end, a touch worse for the wear, Jackie and I said farewell to our new friends, and stepped out into the dark night. The rain had stopped and the sky was clearing, so we decided to take a walk down to the water’s edge before turning in. The boat launch area was shrouded in inky darkness and we had to watch our footing carefully, but above us, the sky glittered with stars. From far out on the lake, the eerie call of a loon drifted toward us, and I shivered at the sound. “It’s so peaceful out here,” I murmured, “but kind of lonesome, too.”

The remote setting brought to mind the sad story of Grace Brown, the young factory worker whose upper-class boyfriend, Chester Gillette, savagely knocked her to the bottom of nearby Big Moose Lake in 1906, after learning she was pregnant with his child. I had read Murder in the Adirondacks, Craig Brandon’s haunting non-fiction account of the incident, and the tragic nature of the story had stuck with me ever since. Turning our backs to the dark and silent water, Jackie and I walked back up the hill to the brightly-lit hotel. I filed the lonely nighttime scene away in my head, thinking: I’m going to use this in a book some day.