Stables Taproom

The Stable is a 8,184 [another place says 4,800] square foot U-shaped frame barn with flanged shingle detail and a refurbished cupola built in 1909.

The Stable is presently in use as Hex and Hops’ brewery and in the spring of 2022 will include a tap room with plans for the later addition of a dining room.

The Stable, originally known as the McGibbon Stable, was constructed as a barn with an attached woodshed and housing for workmen. It consists mainly of 2 stories but includes a one-story wing.

The Stable is a large frame barn on a U-shaped plan, with attached woodshed. The stable sits on a uncoursed, uncut rubblestone foundation; walls are wood shingled and the roof is asphalt. The center section of the stable is crowned by a wooden ventilator with a simple weathervane above a central clipped gable. Fenestration is varied and includes windows, doors, garage doors and stable doors.

History: In 1908 the Village of Saranac Lake expanded its corporation boundaries and extended Park Avenue from the northeast edge of the Park Avenue subdivision to the sanatorium property line. What had been a little-used service entrance to the sanatorium, passing a group of well-worn outbuildings, suddenly became the most accessible entrance, visible from the Village’s most exclusive neighborhood. Wood and coal sheds, barns, a laundry, a crematory (probably for medical waste, not for the disposal of human bodies) and other buildings considered unsightly were torn down and replaced by up-to-date facilities that lasted the life of the institution.

The process of building the stable was described by Dr. Trudeau: "Every department had to grow to match the growth and development of the others, and in 1909 the old barns and sheds were all pulled down and a pleasing modern structure, with every convenience for stables, wood-sheds, and coal-sheds was built on land which had been acquired and donated by Mr. D. Lorne McGibbon at a cost of $5,000.

In addition, a legacy of $25,000 was given to the Improvement and Contingency Fund from the estate of Miss Hilda Tiffany, sent by her father Louis C. Tiffany "in accordance with a wish expressed to him by Miss Tiffany.” Miss Lilla C. Wheeler made a gift of $1,100 to the same fund.

The new building . . . embodies in one attractive though simple structure, stables, barns, carriage house and woodshed, and rooms for the men overhead, and is a most useful, sightly and necessary addition to the plant of the institution,” wrote Dr. Trudeau.”