Discovering Kayuta Lake

Kayuta Lake was not our first choice for a vacation/retirement place. We (especially my husband) love the Adirondacks and have dreamt of owning some property on a lake close to the high peaks where we will build a home to spend our golden years in. After meeting several realtors in almost a week of whirlwind househunting (rather, mostly lot-hunting), our dream seemed unattainable. Nothing grabbed us. The truly desirable ones were out of our reach, and it was not even at the height of the real-estate bubble. "Not that many choices in your price-range", one realtor said. And then she spoke the unthinkable. "What about outside the park?"

And so we looked. After visiting several unattractive camps, some on small lakes, one off the Black River, we were ready to admit defeat. Then, Elise begged us to check out one more place which she found on another realtor's listing. Finally rescinding, she took us to Kayuta Lake.


As seen in this google earth map, Kayuta Lake is long and narrow. An artificial lake formed by a dam along the Black River in Oneida county, it is about 461 acres in area, surrounded by the towns of Forestport, Remsen and Boonville and Alder Creek. It is fairly shallow, with the mean depth only 9.5 ft, the maximum of about 20 feet seen near the dam.


The camp was small and needed attention. The lot was big and wooded with an unbelievably long waterfrontage. And this view just blew us away. And that was the end of our search and the beginning of our adventure.