LAKE GEORGE — Fort William Henry is beginning work on the historic Carriage House, renovating the building into a new venue for weddings, meetings, performing arts, and more.

Sam Luciano, President of Fort William Henry, said the plans date back to before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Carriage House was always on our radar,” said Luciano. “It’s a wonderful, old, beautiful building that would be very difficult to reconstruct today. … We just stepped up our game with it, we moved it ahead of some other projects we plan on doing.”

The Carriage House has been utilized for many different purposes through the years, with Luciano saying it was a playhouse when he began working for the Fort in 1984, hosting performances such as ‘Bugs Bunny Follies’ and ‘West Side Story.’

The Carriage House was then used as storage for several years, before eventually being converted into a fitness center. Luciano said the House was used as the Fort’s fitness center for about 10 years, before it underwent slight renovations to become a meeting space.

After the renovations are complete, with an expected target date of May 2023, the Carriage House will become the Fort’s main venue for weddings, banquets, and meetings, Luciano said.

“We still have the Lake George Music Festival, we’ll still host them (at the Carriage House) in August. But that will become, really, our wedding venue, and our banquet hall, and meeting facility,” said Luciano. “That’ll be one of the bigger ones. It’s one of the biggest spaces we have now to be able to hold large events.”

After the renovations, the Carriage House will have a capacity of 460 people in theater-style seating, and 300 for banquets, according to a press release. This is over double the capacity of the White Lion, where the Fort had previously held weddings, Luciano said.

“Last year, our intent was to redo our restaurant, redo our kitchen, open up a full-service dinner operation, and have the banquets on a three-season porch that wrapped around the White Lion,” said Luciano. “When we got in the middle of COVID and the renovations, the supply line crippled us. … So at that point, we pushed up against our wedding season, and we couldn’t proceed with the three-season porch at the White Lion.”

Luciano said the Fort was receiving requests for larger weddings than the White Lion can hold, leading them to the Carriage House.

“We still have the three-season porch on our radar, but we stepped up the Carriage House, and that will become our wedding palace,” said Luciano.

And the Carriage House, which Luciano referred to as “beautiful,” appears to be an ideal location for weddings and other events. The Carriage House has an outdoor patio for indoor and outdoor events, both an indoor and outdoor fireplace, and windows providing an unobstructed view of Lake George.

“We put the elegance of a high-end banquet hall, but we kept the barn destination wedding feel,” said Luciano. “That’s why we didn’t paint the ceilings, we kept them the natural wood and stuff. So you get the best of both worlds.”

HBT Architects of Rochester designed the Carriage House renovations, while BBL Construction Services Inc. of Albany will conduct the renovations, according to the press release. The Carriage House renovations are just part of a much larger project for Fort William Henry, with Luciano detailing work on other buildings at the site.

“Over 36 guest rooms were completely renovated and built to a standard of one of the high brands,” Luciano said. “Guests will be able to use their phone for a key for the door. We did 36 rooms, and we renovated our entire bar area. We expanded our kitchen out by six feet, and we did 28 guest rooms in our Grand Hotel.”

The Fort is also renovating all 64 rooms in the Standard West Motel and 30 more rooms in the Grand Hotel, said Luciano. 

“So by the end of next year’s cycle, every guest room in the Fort William Henry complex – 195 of them – will be completely renovated,” said Luciano.

The Fort has also added outdoor attractions for guests and the public to enjoy, with Luciano detailing the addition of six fire pits.

“We also put in six fire pits right on the edge of the property that sit on a bluff overlooking the lake,” Luciano said. “The guests or any of the public can rent, sit out there, enjoy the views of the lake in any season, and we’ll bring you out packages of wine, cheese platters, s’mores, et cetera. Full food service out there.”

Luciano said the Fort’s goal is to be “a major destination in Warren County.”

“I think the fact that we’re able to have this 18 acres with vast lawns that have not been infiltrated by development is one big key. (Guests) can sit and enjoy the unobstructed view,” said Luciano. “We’ve got the Fort Museum that we introduced last year. … We’re putting in a new research center over there with augmented reality. 

“The plans of the future developments of this property is so unique to the northeast, that it will be the destination in Warren County.”

QUEENSBURY — Every veteran has a story, and Stephen Willette is determined to share as many of those stories as he can.

Willette is the founder and CEO of Patriot Images, a photography company that began the ‘Faces of Veterans’ series in 2019. The project displays photographs of veterans, providing a glimpse into the lives of those who have served.

“There’s so many stories that are left untold,” said Willette. “They’re stories of inspiration, they’re stories of patriotism. … I think that America, or the general populace, needs to hear those.”

Willette first began photographing veterans in 2018 for the Saratoga County Veterans Peer to Peer Mentoring Program. He said this opportunity led him to begin the Faces of Veterans project.

“When I was done with that, I said, ‘Well, I think I’m just going to continue this across all of New York State,” said Willette. 

Willette, a Schuylerville native, served in the Air Force for 16 years, from April 2001 to January 2017. He said the Faces of Veterans allows the opportunity for veterans to connect and share their stories.

He said it is important to share photographs and stories of veterans of wars such as World War II.

“The Vietnam-era veterans, they’re getting older as well. There’s a number of them that I have photographed that are no longer alive,” said Willette. “I’ve interviewed and I’ve photographed World War II veterans, and they’ve shared their stories with me, and I’ve been able to take the pictures and the stories that they’ve shared with me, and I’ve been able, in turn, after they died, to give it to their families.”

And the photos have also helped veterans open up and share their own stories with family, as Willette recounted a 2019 visit he made to the American Legion in Granville.

“It was just a regular photoshoot like any other one,” Willette said. “I had photographed a Vietnam-era veteran there, he was there with some of his family.”

A month later, Willette received a phone call from the veteran’s daughter.

“He went home afterwards, and he began sharing about his experiences,” said Willette. “His daughter just called me to say how thankful she was that he had that experience, and that he was able to come home and begin talking about his experiences there, that he’s never shared with his own kids.”

Faces of Veterans began as just a photography project, but expanded this fall with the launch of the ‘Faces of Veterans’ podcast.

The podcast is owned by Glens Falls Today’s parent company Spa City Digital, and is a separate entity from the photo series, allowing veterans the opportunity to openly discuss their experiences.

“The podcast is important because it is an outlet and it is an avenue, where veterans can get on there and they can share that,” said Willette. “And maybe it will open up the door for them to heal a little bit, to share more. Or maybe it will encourage a veteran that’s listening.

“Maybe not even in New York, maybe not even in the United States. But it might encourage them to share something, and to just begin healing from past wounds.”

This is in contrast to the photography series, which typically does not contain names or additional information besides the photos themselves, Willette said.

“When I photograph them, I don’t include names. I don’t include branch of service, time in service, anything like that,” said Willette. “I’ve always opened it up to where, if you want to get together at a later time, and you want to kind of share your story, then let’s meet, let’s talk. I’ve opened it up like that, and then I would share, obviously, their name, and more about them.”

Willette also said the podcast and photography series “fills the void” of camaraderie left once he was discharged. He said he asks every veteran on the podcast what they miss most about their service, with one common response.

“This will be a common answer if you asked any veteran what they missed the most, and that’s the camaraderie. They miss the camaraderie of the service,” Willette said. “For 16 years, I had the camaraderie, and then it was gone and I haven’t been able to find it elsewhere. This Faces of Veterans project fills that, but it also provides a way for me to continue to serve the veteran community.”

Willette’s goal is to travel to all 62 counties in New York State to photograph veterans, saying that he has visited 10 to this point. Willette, who currently resides in Queensbury, takes the photos free of charge, relying on donations to help assist in keeping the project alive. 

“It’s completely done out of pocket, and through donations, hopefully, of people that feel it to be equally as important,” said Willette. “We need those donations, because without the donations, the next photoshoot doesn’t happen.”

And those photoshoots will help Willette continue to “serve the veteran community,” one of the reasons he believes the project is so important.

“It’s the camaraderie, and it’s really just continuing to serve the veteran community,” said Willette. “Because I feel it’s important, and I feel it’s needed.”

LAKE GEORGE — Fort William Henry will honor and remember veterans both living and deceased for their service, and sacrifice, on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.

The event begins with the annual ‘Field of Flags’ ceremony at 10:30 a.m., with a special salute following at 11 a.m. The salute will take place on “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when the agreement to end World War I was signed in 1918,” says a press release from the Fort William Henry Museum.

An Italian buffet lunch will follow the ceremony at Tankard Taverne at Fort William Henry. Net proceeds of ticket sales for the buffet will benefit the Adirondack Vets House Inc. of Glens Falls, a non-profit home for homeless veterans, the release says.

Hundreds of American flags will decorate the front lawn at Fort William Henry, with each honoring the memory of a veteran. To honor a veteran, submit names to annaa@fortwilliamhenry.com. The submission should include the veteran’s first and last name, as well as military rank, branch, and period of service, according to the release.

Reservations for the buffet lunch are not required, but tickets can be purchased in advance at fortwilliamhenry.com/veterans-day-lunch.

Fort William Henry was constructed by the British during the French and Indian War. The Fort was “the scene of a bloody, three-day siege in 1757, after which the British surrendered to the French,” the release says. The Fort was burnt down by French forces, according to the release, and a replica was built in the 1950s and serves as “a living history museum and historic site.”