SARATOGA SPRINGS — Many businesses advertise themselves as “family owned and operated,” but Anne’s Washington Inn takes the concept to another level.

In 1943, hotelier Charles Russell purchased what was then the McCarty Hospital in Saratoga Springs for $7,500 and transformed it into the The Washington Inn. His daughter, Anne (Russell) Bokan ran the place for more than forty years. In 1985, Anne’s son and daughter-in-law, Joe Jr. and Kathleen Bokan, took over operations. Today, the couple’s oldest daughter Madeleine oversees the inn’s wedding and events operations with her toddler in tow. That’s five generations of family members who have sat on the inn’s famous front porch across 80 years of busy Saratoga summers.

If Anne’s Washington Inn feels more like a family residence than a resort, that’s probably because it was. Joe Jr., the current owner/operator, spent his childhood there with his five sisters.

“All of us ran the front desk, all of us made beds, all of us cleaned bathrooms; whatever it took,” Joe Jr. said. “As kids, we all grew up doing it.”

As the decades have gone by, not much has changed in the way the Bokans do business.  

“We all pitch in,” said Joe Jr.’s daughter Madeleine. “One day we’ll be in the rooms. One day we’ll be in the dining room, doing events, checking people in. It’s kind of all-hands-on-deck.”

Originally called The Washington Inn, the business was renamed in honor of Anne (Russell) Bokan in 2007. “It’s amazing to hear from longtime Saratogians. They’ll say, ‘Your mom was one of the first women to have a business in Saratoga.’ She really ran it. She’d always done it, but it never hit me. Back in the 50s, women were not running businesses,” Joe Jr. said.

There were a couple other reasons for the name change as well. Adding “Anne’s” made the inn easier to find in web searches. It also moved the business up the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce’s list of lodging establishments, which resulted in more referrals. In the first year following the name change, Joe Jr. said his sales went up 30%.

Nowadays, Joe Jr. said he leaves much of the marketing and public relations work to Madeleine. Although an heir to the inn has not been officially proclaimed, Joe Jr. said that his daughter may one day emerge as his successor. “She loves the hotel. She loves the people. She gets it,” he said.

“But he’s not allowed to retire anytime soon,” said Madeleine. “This place runs because of him.”

“I’m having too much fun [to retire],” said Joe Jr.

Anne’s Washington Inn, currently celebrating its 80th year in business, is open April through October. Events are offered year-round. Located on four acres of land off South Broadway, the inn is within walking distance of the Saratoga Spa State Park and the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC). For more information, visit www.anneswi.com.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Technology hasn’t yet advanced to the point that history buffs can simply hop in a DeLorean to explore the past, but it’s getting pretty close.

At the Saratoga Springs History Museum, artificial intelligence was used to generate more than four hours of audio content designed to help visitors immerse themselves in historic Saratoga. Ambient sounds and period-appropriate music abound in the museum’s new self-guided audio tour, which aims to transport museum goers back to the Gilded Age. 

“The stories we want to conserve in this museum are really important, and conserving them for a modern audience is definitely a priority,” said Museum Director James Parillo. “Trying to express this through artificial intelligence is something we really wanted to explore, and so far, I think we’ve created something really unique.”

The spoken part of the audio tour was created by simply feeding existing text into AI software; various male and female-sounding voices narrate the text seen on placards throughout the museum. But the rest of the tour’s soundscape is the result of AI’s more creative capabilities. This is most apparent on the third floor of the museum, where exhibits about the notorious Walworth family murder are accompanied by Haunted House-esque sounds of rainstorms, creaking floorboards, howling winds, and disembodied voices. (To fully capture the experience, headphones are recommended.) 

The audio tour was the brainchild of L.F. Leon, the museum’s director of communications. AI allowed Leon to create narration without having to hire someone to spend hours in a recording studio. The AI software, Leon said, also allows its user to own all of the material it creates. Classical music and jazz tunes heard throughout the tour were acquired from copyright-free sources.

As for ensuring historical accuracy, since all of the spoken audio was simply adapted from existing text, the information has already been verified by the museum. In other words, there’s no risk of AI simply making something up, as it sometimes is known to do. (That said, the AI narrators did seem to struggle a bit with the pronunciations of a couple Saratoga-specific names, such as Travers and Adelphi.)

QR codes stationed throughout the museum link visitors to a webpage that contains all of the audio tour files in numerical order. No app is needed. Each exhibit or item in the museum with a corresponding audio file has a number next to it, and the files can be played in any order. The audio tour also has the added benefit of allowing people who may not be physically able to climb the museum’s stairs to experience all of the exhibits auditorily from the ground floor. 

Visitors can experience the new audio tour for themselves at the Saratoga Springs History Museum, which is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $15 for adults, $12 for seniors, and $8 for students. The museum is located at 1 E Congress Street in Congress Park.

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STILLWATER — Saratoga PLAN (Preserving Land and Nature), a nonprofit land trust, held an open house event at Dock Brown’s Lakeside Tavern on Tuesday to share three potential site options for Snake Hill, a 32-acre forested dome on the eastern shore of Saratoga Lake.

The hill, located in Stillwater, was purchased in December by Saratoga PLAN from Stewart’s Shops for $1 million. Now the nonprofit must decide what to do with their acquisition.

The first of the three options would be to simply preserve the land, allowing no public access. Staff would work to maintain and improve native species and biodiversity, minimize invasive species, and protect the water quality. The only human imprint would be a small parking lot that would allow staffers to access the hill.

The second option would allow limited public access to the property via pedestrian trails. Only small groups participating in Saratoga PLAN or partner programs or volunteer initiatives would be granted access to the hill. These group activities would be focused on environmental education. In addition to a small parking lot, picnic tables and a loop trail would be added to the land. This second option is the one preferred by Saratoga PLAN. 

The third option would open Snake Hill to visitors during daylight hours. Added to the property would be a parking lot, picnic tables and benches, and a loop trail. This option would result in staff being focused primarily on visitor safety and minimizing any visitor impact on the land’s species and biodiversity. Should Snake Hill become a popular destination, increased traffic and parking could become a problem, along with potential damage to the habitat caused by visitors.

“A lot of you know Snake Hill better than any of us,” said Saratoga PLAN Executive Director Rob Davies at the open house event. “You know details about this land that we don’t, and that’s why we’re here. We want to hear from you.” Regardless of what ultimately happens to Snake Hill, Davies said that the land would be protected “forever.”

Snake Hill, currently closed to the public, rises 200 feet over Saratoga Lake. It is the site of Saratoga County’s only documented rattlesnake hibernacula, hence its name. The snakes are believed to have been hunted to extinction more than 150 years ago. Snake Hill’s native name, Torwarloonda, means “hill of storm.” According to Michael Gaige, a consulting ecologist and Saratoga PLAN advisory council member, the hill’s “abundant fossils, folded layers, and relative isolation from other similar structures make it a geological anomaly.” 

Additional information about the three site options is available at SaratogaPLAN.org/snakehill. The community can also share their feedback via this web address. The deadline for submitting feedback is Friday, September 13. Saratoga PLAN said it would hold another community event in the fall once plans for Snake Hill had been further solidified.