One of the many reasons I was lured to the Lake Placid Horse Show and its sister event, the I Love New York Horse Show, which ran from June 29 to July 11, was to get to see the Olympic Village again.
I went to the Winter Olympics when they were held there in 1980. I was a teenager with a few lessons of downhill under my belt, and—in what I see now as a real act of patience—my father took me to watch the Men’s Downhill on Whiteface mountain. (My father hated skiing, but we went all the time.)
Thirty years later, it is exactly as I remembered it—quirky little curving streets, everything in either Adirondack or Chalet style. There are two big lakes, Placid and Saranac, that are as majestic as Italy’s Como and Garda. Since the U.S. Olympic Team still uses the mountain and the giant skating center for trials and team training, every other building has the Olympic rings for decoration.
If you ever get the chance, take the Veterans Memorial Highway to the top of Whiteface for one of the steepest and most thrilling drives. I have a newish BMW and think I am a confident driver, but more than once I felt like I would be blown off the face of the earth. They close at 4 p.m. every day so no one will drive during sundown, and are closed October through April when it is deemed too risky to drive at all. Oh yeah, there’s a castle at the top with a mediocre sandwich shop, but you don’t go for the food.
But come summer season this becomes serious horse country, and since I’ve covered the Hampton Classic, I thought it was time to broaden my horizon.
It’s a scene up there, a low key one, but a scene nonetheless. When the horse trailers arrive (via a crazy, windy mountain pass drive, a miracle in itself), it is clear that bigger is better, and bigger and shinier is better still. After they unload the Thoroughbreds and the German Warmbloods (my new favorite kind of horse, based on the name alone, of course), then come the props!
If you’ve never toured a top horse show barn, you are missing something. Each farm or stable has a sitting area where they hang their sign and flaunt their regalia. Some go for the campaign look with napoleon desk and side armoires. Others want to give off the British landed gentry feeling, with flowering hydrangea, a chintz sofa, and matching armchairs. Some have oil paintings, others have gilded mirrors.
I was there as an exhibitor, on behalf of luxury leather good maker Aeon New York. In my modest tent I had only arranged for rented white plastic chairs. I won’t be making that mistake again. To add to my feelings of insecurity, the show managers placed me directly across from the Hermès tent.
So while my friend Tom Glazer and I unloaded his GMC Yukon (with a staff of two: his 15-year-old daughter, Katharine, and my three-year-old dog, Turbo), I marveled as what seemed like a dozen people wheeled in metal trunks, each six feet high, elaborately locked and immaculately gloss-painted in that distinctive orange shade. The next day when I mustered up the courage to peek inside, it was like a mad luxury scientist had exploded.
There was a saddle rack as tall as I am with two each of four different kinds of saddles (one oiled and broken in that you could try out on the life-size wooden horse body, and one brand spanking new that I wouldn’t touch if I were you). These are only their hunter jumper saddles. You get a different selection if you do dressage, which I guess I kind of knew.
People forget that Hermès started as a saddlery, and its heritage and all those swirly scarf patterns make more sense when you see them in this setting. What with the silks and bracelets and riding jackets and mannequins and rattan raised flooring and the two ceiling fans and the wicker club chairs and the ashtrays ($625 if you want one with gold leaf, which I do) and even a storage room and an elevated platform where equestrian manager Courtney Caverzasi and equestrian specialist Lauren Davis hold forth.
What a delightful surprise to find out that they are friendly and, gasp, helpful! And since they provide the two $75,000 prizes at the end of each week, all the important people seem to hang around the Hermès tent. So I guess you could say that I was a happy neighbor. Thanks girls!
Unlike the Hampton Classic, whose equally impressive outdoor retail mall has more of a crossover consumer appeal with brands like Fendi and Range Rover, here the big showstoppers were strictly horse. Giant tractor trailers, double wides, that open up mechanically are like complete stores. It’s like going through Alice’s little door in Wonderland and seeing there’s a whole world in there. Dressing mirrors, little sitting areas with persian rugs. Der-Dau boots had red carpeting, brass railing, a television, a fridge, upholstered chairs, the works. Of course I broke down and bought a custom-made pair of shoes, just wanting to have a legitimate reason to sit on their fitting throne. The display for Beval Saddlery had two dogs, Willie and Wylie, who came by to visit Turbo and play with the ball once each morning and afternoon, like clockwork. By the end of the week I had bought another dog, too—an eleven-week-old Jack Russell Terrier named Jetta.
It was all very pastoral. Overlooking the competition rings, where the horses jump so high that I found myself holding my breath sometimes, are two massive ski jumps, ten stories high, and the now extinguished Olympic torch tower, with scorch marks still visible. Both my cousin Annie and friend Amanda thought they were water slides, so next time watch out!
The nightlife scene in Lake Placid is a mixed bag, but they are definitely trying to keep up with the Joneses in the haute cuisine department—with mixed results. One tiny but ambitious restaurant, Liquids and Solids at the Handlebar, was noteworthy for its decor and food. Outside, they used twine to hang flattened pastel-painted coffee cans from what looked like a corral. They dangled at varying heights over two-by-fours with casual summer annuals. It’s a great idea I plan to steal soon. A warm panzanella salad with Cuban bread and mozzarella with arugula was worth going back for, and a potato “risotto” with bacon and cream was intoxicatingly earthy.
Less successful was the Brown Dog Café & Wine Bar, which appealed to Turbo and Jetta because a dog bowl indicated they were welcome at their outdoor seating. They aerated the white wine, something I have never seen before. “What does it accomplish?” I asked the waitress, who told me, “Well, really it is just so that we don’t pour too much in the glass.” What aerating white wine does accomplish apparently is take the chill out of already too warm wine, rendering it hardly satisfying at a 95-degree outdoor dinner. I disclosed that I was a journalist, F.Y.I.
When I said my foie gras Napoleon was undercooked (raw, really) the waitress told me the chef liked it that way and he came out and gave me a dirty look and they did not cook it any further. Then they presented the bill in a cigar box—cute I guess—with a pen and a pair of soiled reading glasses.
“Miss, there’s a mistake, someone left their reading glasses,” I told the increasingly resentful server.
“Oh no, they’re for you. To help you see the bill. It’s our specialty.”
Look, I’m all for a gimmick, but these glasses were smudgy and sandy, and my horns were up. So I asked, “Does anyone like me object to the implication that I need reading glasses—when I don’t—or express concern about not wiping them between customers to eliminate transmission of pink eye?”
When I left the chef gave me the finger, and I was a little bit relieved because up until then the whole event had all been a little too precious and perfect and I thought no one would believe me.