Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Grand Opening of the $25 Million Lodge at Schroon Lake in Essex County

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the grand opening of the $25 million Lodge at Schroon Lake in the Town of Schroon, Essex County. The transformation of the Brown Swan Club into the Lodge at Schroon Lake is being supported by a $4.1 million grant through the Upstate Revitalization Initiative and will create 47 full-time equivalent jobs at the site, plus 30 seasonal positions. Additionally, the project aligns with the region's placemaking and workforce strategies by serving as a community anchor, celebrating regional heritage and architecture, and creating accessible employment opportunities for residents.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Thank you, Sonny, for the enthusiasm that we're feeling here today. You know I love the North Country. Not allowed to play favorites, but I do love the North Country and I've come here so many times as a child. Used to go all the way up to Lake Placid and tour Saranac Lake and do camping and went to Frontier Town and went to Santa's Workshop. And even as a parent, I took the kids at Santa's Workshop just at that age when they might not believe anymore. I think I got them all the way through their teenage years believing after they had a chance to see Santa's Workshop.

So, this is a place where you travel a little bit distance, but as soon as you see the brown and yellow signs, you're in a special place. And I've always felt that to my core. So, to the incredible team of four individuals, friends, still friends after this experience, which is quite amazing. To Sonny and Julie, thank you for having the courage to do something like this. This is not for the faint of heart, and to accomplish this in less than a year is nothing short of extraordinary. So, I want to applaud the two of you and your entire family. Let's give them another round of applause. Sunny and Julie. Andrea and Alan, thank you again. What a team you all make. I've got a lot of properties in the State of New York, so I'm going to put all of you to work. And I know you want to stay here and relax now; think you deserve it. We'll give you the weekend, but let's recreate the magic all over.

And we are also so fortunate to have great elected leaders here. I have a chance to work closely with you. Your fairly new State Assemblymember, Matt Simpson. Let's give him a round applause as well. And Supervisor, Meg Wood has joined us. Supervisor, thank you. Thank you. I told her I know a little bit about local government. I spent 14 years on a town board working with the supervisors, so I feel like I've never quite left that position because it really keeps you tightly immersed in local issues and knowing that those are the quality-of-life issues that people think about. You know, did the snowplow knock over somebody's mailbox, and you have to fix it. I mean, that's the world - I'm from Buffalo, I know about snow too. So, there's so many things that you can touch people's lives with at the local government level, and I have such an appreciation for people like yourself and of course, Shaun Gilliland, Chair of the Essex County Board of Supervisors. Shaun, you'll be hearing from him in a couple minutes, but we've been friends a long, long time, and you've done a great job here as well.

So, I just want to talk about something that is really important to me. The North Country, of course, but just tourism. I mean, this is an industry that is sort of overlooked, but you have to be intentional about it. You have to have the assets. We do. The lakes, the streams, the peaks, the charming hamlets, the character, the identity of the Adirondacks known around the world for these iconic images. But you also have to have the people behind it. And those who will invest in the opportunities, whether it's the attractions or the hotels and the restaurants and the soon to be ballrooms for all the people to get married and have graduations and celebrate life's milestones.

And so, we have the right formula here. We have everything people will want to see. And I was so proud to be able to showcase this area to the rest of the world with the World University games just last year. And it's something I helped recruit when I was Lieutenant Governor. They locked us on in a room together up in Lake Placid. I said, "We're not leaving here until all of you people from France and wherever they all came from -" I said, "We're not leaving here until you say yes," because this is a special place and we have so much more to do. There are so many more places. In fact, the hotel built right next door here was built for the 1980 Olympics.

So, we see the possibilities when there's an attraction, an asset, and then there's opportunities to create, yes, thousands of jobs. So, this is a $16 billion industry here, $16 billion. It's extraordinary, but I want to keep it going. I want to keep the investments strong. I want to make sure that we dust off and make sure that all of our small hamlets and communities have the charm that they've always once had.

And that's what we've been so focused on with our Downtown Revitalization Initiatives over in Ticonderoga, we just announced that a short time ago, but we have so much more to do. And the history behind this place. And everyone needs to know, you need to have a little booklet, a little book that tells the history of back in 1907? I was close. 1917, opened up as a place, a respite for people coming out of New York City for the summer. Like so many parts of the North Country, there wasn't air conditioning, and this is the place people came to just recharge and reconnect with their families. And then its incarnation as a religious place of refuge and comfort as well. And finally, this now retransition back to its original purpose, which is to connect families and friends and bring people together in a beautiful place of just relaxation and reconnecting with nature. And to be able to do extraordinary things, whether it's go out on the lake or just make marshmallows around a fire, it connects us to our childhoods, and that time of innocence and making sure that we pass on those values and traditions of family and community to our own children. So, they will, like individuals like Andrea, who've been coming here for 50 years - you don't even look that old. You sure you've been coming here 50 years? Okay, you'll pass it on to the next generation, and the generation, and the generation.

But along with passing on the tradition, it's also the responsibility, the responsibility we all have to protect the environment here because without the clean air, the waterways, the pristine creeks, streams. It's so beautiful here, but we all have a responsibility to protect it as well. So, I'm going to continue leaning hard into our responsibility, our moral responsibility to protect the environment for today's residents. And we have situations, or even the smoke coming in from Canada. The North Country was spared last week, but I'll tell you, I was in some of the toughest places. It was a frightening feeling for people.

And so, we're going to continue focusing on what we can do to protect people, our responsibility to protect the climate going forward, so we can keep amazingly magical places like this intact forever. So, this project, 36-acre hotel is a premier Adirondack getaway, great putt putt course. Let's talk about that. Did I just not? Okay. I have to tell you the story of the twig. I don't golf at all, but I do like miniature golf, and I just went up and wacked it and went around and this great hazardous course was almost impossible, and I almost got it in, almost a hole of one. So, I thought I could just tap it in very easily and I'd be a star. I mean, Par 2. I don't know what it was, and the twig got in the way. I mean literally, the twig blocked me from the great success, the glory of being the first person to be so successful. But I will make sure the twig is gone next time.

I'll be even better, but I just walk into the rooms and all the fun things that are here too. Yes, we have nature, but indoors on those sometimes-rainy days or those cold winters when you can just, you know, enjoy all sorts of recreational activities. So, this is just part of the transformation of this region. This is - people are going to look back at this day and say, "I was there, I was there to witness this magnificent campus and it's return to its former glory," but I'm going to say even better than that. It is magnificent. And what you're doing here today is changing people's lives, creating jobs, which is important to me, investing in a community that I care deeply about. And your legacy's going to endure beyond this time. And to all of you here, you're witnessing in real time the transformation of this community, this region, and it truly benefits the State as a whole.

So, I congratulate all of you. I'm glad we were able to invest a few dollars in this. You know $4 million isn't nothing, right? I'm sure it costs more than that, but sometimes the State can be a catalyst and show that we have faith in you, that we believe in this project and that's what I want to continue doing all over. The State of New York is giving sometimes the last mile that extra money that'll get you over the finish line during tough times. So, I am so proud to be here. I will come back anytime I'm invited, and this has been a real privilege for me, as the Governor of the State of New York, to see this firsthand on this really special day.

So, with that, let me bring up someone who loves this community with great passion. Shaun and I have known each other for many, many years, and I want to thank him for his public service. Let's give it up for the Chair of the Essex County Board of Supervisors.