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In the 1830's the Loch Ada area was part of what was known as the Singer property. The Singers were wealthy people who made a fortune in the sewing machine business. They had forged a union, through marriage, with the Proctor Family, a name famed in the household appliance industry, and together they used the 25 square mile area for almost one hundred years as their exclusive summer estate.

In the region where Camp Brookwood is currently located, the Singers built several mansions for their extended family to live in. Their stables are still standing on the Brookwood property today. The white building where Billy once had his shop at Camp Lokanda was the place where the family had their kennels. During the fall, the Singers and Proctors and their invited guests would go fox hunting around the lake, hence the existence of the horsepath as well as several stone and earth bridges along the way.

AND OFF WE'D GO... We would start our lake hike by walking to the west with our campers. The first place of interest we would come to was the summer home of a very nice family that had two sons who played Volleyball for the USA in the Olympics. If they were home, they would put on a little demonstration for the campers and would leave them with their mouths hanging open. One year they even came to work as athletic specialists at Lokanda.

Next we would come to "The Hunting Lodge." The owner of Pueblo Supermarkets, a huge chain in the southwestern part of the USA, had a large two story cabin on the lake. He would come up to Loch Ada by himself for just one week each year to rest and he would often lie on a small dock out on the lake where he would sun himself and think about the plans that he wanted to put into effect when he returned to his offices at the end of his vacation.

His sons used the cabin as a base for hunting during deer season. Once summer, when we needed more room for our staff, we rented the building and put four married couples into the cabin. They loved the bedrooms upstairs, the kitchen, and the huge fireplace in the living room downstairs.

The path would then take us to Frenchman's Cove, a narrow neck of water that ended at a beautiful gothic stone bridge and castle-like house that was once the gate-keeper's cottage to the Singer Estate. The gate keeper not only welcomed guests and tradesmen who came to make deliveries, but he also had an apparatus to raise and lower Loch Ada's floodgates should the lake get too much water from heavy thunderstorms in the summertime.

On the northside of Frenchman's Cove, we would skirt through the Loch Ada Gardens property. We never had to call in advance since the people who lived there were always taking hikes around the lake themselves and were constantly passing through Camp Lokanda. Whenever they passed by, we would wave to them and say hello.

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