Debar - From Then to Now

John Debar, a French-Canadian trapper, discovered the pristine, picturesque, remote pond, a mile long and a half-mile wide, on a hunting expedition in 1817.  His family of trappers eventually transferred the 50 some acres of property to Jim Bean, who ran a small hotel in Duane. Bean built a small shanty on the beautiful pond in the shadows of De Bar, Baldface and Loon Lake mountains.

In the early 1880’s Robert Schroeder, a red-bearded, pleasure loving son of a German brewer arrived in the northern Adirondacks on a hop-buying mission for his father.  He was attracted to the region by the quality of its hops, which consistently sold at the highest market prices. A business associate, Patrick Clark of Malone, brought Schroeder to De Bar Pond for a day’s trout fishing and he fell in love with it and purchased it.

His charm gained him a wide acquaintanceship and friendship in Malone.  People who were close to Schroeder classified him as eccentric; his moods were mercurial and unstable.  He was predictably unpredictable.  There was complete agreement that the mansion, which he constructed on DeBar Pond, was the talk of the North Country.

At the top of a knoll, some forty to fifty yards from the shore of the pristine pond, he built a cottage, as he called it, but it was anything but that.  His palatial home was constructed with his usual haste.  Not being satisfied with the local labor, he brought laborers in from New York and Brooklyn.  Unfortunately, the mostly wooden structure burned less than two years later.

Before the ashes hardly had time to cool, he gave the orders to build even a bigger mansion to replace it.  This time Schroeder decided to take every possible precaution to prevent fire, the nemesis of wooden structures.  This time he built two sections, one of frame construction to house his numerous guests and servants, the other made of stone to be his quarters.  He separated the two buildings with a huge masonry firewall 30 feet high, 10 feet at the base and 3 feet at the top.  An iron door provided passageway from the kitchen and servant’s quarters. The castle contained more than 60 spacious, high-ceilinged rooms with solid mahogany staircases and hardwood floors.  There was a library, billiard room, ballroom, conservatory, palm room and a paneled dining room.  The entrance hall had four large stained-glass windows with a Teutonic coat-of-arms and foot high initials that cost almost $4000.00, which he had shipped from Germany.  Most of the castle’s furniture was from Holland.  He installed double doors on most rooms, the outer made of heavy-gauge steel and the inter ones of either oak or birch.

Upon completion he brought is wife Anna, the daughter of the owner of the Hoffman breweries, to his estate. During this time he was also acquiring land, creating an empire of 2100 acres, in which he planted over 300 with hops.  This qualified as the largest hop yard in the world at the time.

Schroeder was known as an arrogant, impulsive and impatient man unwilling to take advice.  The story goes that a highly respected hop grower, Jerry Marlow from Whippleville, strongly urged him to sell his crop at the remarkably high price of $2.00 a pound.  The market glutted and he was forced to sell for $2.00 a wagonload.  This, and other family problems, including the death of his father and two practical brothers

who prevented him from tapping the family till, was the beginning of his downfall.  He had plundered his wife’s fortune and had also become ill, so he returned to Germany.  In his absence his wife exchanged the mortgage for building lots in Brooklyn, a deal that went bad.  Their furniture was sold at auction, the DeBar property was liquidated, and in 1910 Anna asphyxiated herself.  Robert followed the same fate on July 25, 1913.

The castle was deserted for about five years, when Berton and Herbert Reynolds and Clarence Briggs from Malone purchased the property. They, along with Howard Taylor, tried to raise silver foxes, the rage at the time, but that also failed.   By 1924 the castle had become dilapidated and vandals had looted everything they could remove.

In 1939 Arthur A. Wheeler of New York and Palm Beach became the owner.  He demolished the Castle, hired Henry Wood, a local contractor, and started construction of a $100,000, seventeen-room peeled log cabin, approximately 20 yards from the site of the old Castle.

The property changed hands twenty years later in 1959 when WWII Navy Pilot Farwell T. Perry took over and often came and went in his twin-engine seaplane that he landed on DeBar Pond.  In 1979 Mr. Perry sold the land to New York State reserving a 25-year use lease on the buildings and 25 acres of the property, which he sold to Barry Silverstein.

The lease is up on August 4, 2004 and the Department of Environmental Conservation will assume the responsibility of the property, which they have stated they have no funding or use for the buildings and would demolish them. As of March 5, 2004 no other decision has been forthcoming.

Historical background: THE HEYDAYS OF THE ADIRONDACKS

                                      By: Maitland C. Desormo

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