August Lodge Owner Creates An Idyllic Retreat For Visitors To Cooperstown Hotel

February 5th, 2012 by Saiful

Originally from New York City, August Lodge owner Steve Stegman discovered the Catskill Mountains county of Otsego when he came first came up as a student at the State University College at Oneonta. While traveling around after college, he worked in Taos, New Mexico as a ski instructor. It was during a visit to Taos that his future wife, Jamie, from Texas, took a class with him. Eventually, they moved back to Otsego County.

A few years ago, Stegman and his family went on a ski vacation in Stowe, Vermont. The idea of a luxury lodge on the vast hillside acreage he owns near the tiny village of Hartwick Seminary, just minutes from Cooperstown Dreams Park, was something Steve had been contemplating for awhile, but when the family came back from their both energizing and relaxing vacation in the Green Mountains, he was determined to make his dream come true. Recently, Steve had sold his pest-control business in Oneonta, NY, so it was the perfect time to start a new business.

Once back at Hartwick Seminary, the Stegmans and their architect friend Lee Marigliano began the long process of dealing with the Planning Board, and then the intense job of constructing what came to be a [state-of-the-art

They named The 25-room August Lodge after their son, and they named Sidney Room after their daughter. The establishment opened its doors to tourists from all over the world that summer. Many of those tourists come to visit Cooperstown for the baseball attractions.

The lodge was almost completely booked that first summer.

Adirondack-style wooden architecture and furniture feature prominently at the lodge. There is a bench [made

pastoral One could imagine a scene from “The Sound of Music” appearing in the meadow.This scene is not a dream, however – there is a hard-nosed business plan standing behind the entire undertaking.

Cooperstown has a large baseball-tourism draw, based on the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown Dreams Park, Historic Doubleday Field, and other venues. Youth-league baseball attracts families to Cooperstown every summer by the thousands.

The lodge can host three hundred twenty-five families during a thirteen week season in its twenty-five rooms.

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For more information about a perfect Cooperstown vacation, visit August Lodge and Spa.

You can also view the “Welcome” video for The August Lodge and Spa.