The 1925 Historic Three-View Map Preserved from the Inn at Buck Hill Falls

By Chris Robbins

In 1925, in conjunction with the planning of the new main wing of the Inn at Buck Hill Falls, the Buck Hill Falls Company commissioned a monumental painting to be installed over the fireplace in the new main lobby. This main community gathering area was called “The Exchange”.

The commission was for an elaborate three-view map, also known as a “Triptych”, illustrating Buck Hill Falls and its surroundings, its natural features and trails in the center, and the roads and large cities to the west and east on either side. The map was beautifully painted and filled with whimsical, charming details. The painting stretches twelve feet in length by four feet high, and it hung in The Exchange for more than 87 years.

In 2012, long after the Inn had been shuttered, John Styk, while on security patrol, noticed the map had been dislodged from above the fireplace by vandals. Knowing the importance of the painting, John carefully removed the map and placed it in storage for safekeeping.

In 2016, prior to the start of the Inn demolition by the Conservation Foundation, John Styk and I along with a group of volunteers, spent several months photographing the Inn and searching for historical documents and elements that could be saved for the community. We had many successes and numerous important artifacts have been reincorporated into the community. All the artifacts that were salvaged from the Inn were donated by the Inn’s owners’ Falls Road Funding. The Conservation Foundation raised money in support of these salvage and conservation efforts including the conservation of the Inn map.

We consulted with our in-house art experts, JR Robbins and Christopher Gaillard, who determined that the cost to fully conserve and restore the original map, due to the high level of deterioration and its large size would be far too expensive. They suggested an alternative to conservation. We would hire a fine art photographer to take high-resolution digital photographs of the map. The image could then be digitally corrected to reverse the many years of water and mold damage. The image would then be printed at the original, full twelve-foot size on heavy archival canvas utilizing a special fine art printer capable of layering the ink much like an artist would layer paint. The remastered image would then be further overpainted by an artist to faithfully reproduce the original three view image. The cost of this process, although expensive, would be a fraction of the cost of having the work fully restored by a fine art conservator.

An additional benefit of this process was that the Conservation Foundation would have a digital high-resolution image that could be reproduced on a smaller scale for marketing and fundraising purposes. Once complete, the community would be treated to a full-size reproduction which, for all intents and purposes, would appear hand-painted with all the vibrant color and detail of the original.

While the artists were re-creating the Inn map, I was able to construct a decorative frame from American Chestnut wood that we salvaged from the Exchange or lobby at the Inn. The American Chestnut that we salvaged holds special importance as the American Chestnut tree had become all but extinct due to the ravages of fungus and blight in the US in the 1930’s and 1940’s. The Tennis Tea lectern and the frames for the Murals in the Club Room were also constructed from this salvaged American Chestnut from the Buck Hill Inn.

In trying to determine a suitable location to display the map within our community there were several considerations. The map, when commissioned, was to be the largest and most important piece of art in the new Inn, and it was given the most prominent spot above the massive main fireplace of The Exchange. It seems only appropriate that the map should once again hang in the center of the community, but now in our beloved Tennis Tea.

The Conservation Foundation donated the Tennis Tea map to the Buck Hill Art Association in 2026. The Foundation retained the original unrestored Inn map to be hung in the front hall of Senior Lodge.