Glendorn (Clayton Glenville Dorn and Forest Dorn Summer Estate)

Since 1995, this rural retreat has been open to the public as a luxury restaurant and resort. There are seventeen cabins dating from 1916 to the 1950s on the 1,280-acre site adjacent to the Allegheny National Forest and seventeen miles of trails, a trout stream, and a large swimming pool. The complex was built by Clayton G. “Bondieu” Dorn and his son Forest, who founded Forest Oil Corporation in 1916, a company that forced water into wells presumed dry so they could retrieve the oil, which floated to the surface. Initially, the land held only a simple fishing cabin, but, in 1929, A. W. Schoenberg of Buffalo designed a redwood cabin like those in the Adirondacks with a two-story living room dominated by a massive sandstone fireplace. The redwood logs of the lodge are planed smooth on the interior but rounded on the exterior to simulate a log cabin. The shingled roof slopes steeply to accommodate snow loads, and has jerkinhead roofs and an eyebrow dormer on the facade.

Because Forest was in the lumber business, the cabin interiors have a variety of paneling, including pecky cypress, knotty pine, butternut, and chestnut. The estate can accommodate thirty guests in cabins built over the years by various Dorn children and relatives. Two architects from Buffalo, Olaf William Shelgren (1891–1972) and his son, Olaf William “Bill” Shelgren Jr., designed the most interesting cabins.