Welcome to Chautauqua, My Happy Place
- andreasachs1
- 6 days ago
- 6 min read
By Bobbie Lewis / Detroit
In high school, I learned about Chautauqua as a movement that sent influential speakers on a variety of subjects out to small towns across the country, where the people had little access to higher education or culture. It was an important factor in civilizing the frontier, as the expression then went.
I had no idea Chautauqua still existed until 2013, when I read an article in Moment magazine about the relatively new Everett Jewish Life Center in Chautauqua. The Chautauqua Institution, it turns out, has been in the same location in Chautauqua, NY, on the shores of Lake Chautauqua between Erie, PA and Buffalo. NY, since 1874.
“We have to go,” I said to my husband, and we did, spending one week as guests at the Everett Jewish Life Center, which operates a five-room bed-and-breakfast in addition to providing a busy schedule of speakers and films. We returned for a week in each of the following two years –and in 2016, there was a sign on the porch saying they were looking for a new “host couple” for the bed-and-breakfast.
We applied, were hired, and have spent our summers there ever since (except for 2000, when the entire season was cancelled during the COVID epidemic). Our duties are to welcome incoming guests, get them settled in their rooms, shop for breakfast and then cook, serve and clean up. In return we get to spend more than nine weeks in paradise.
We know the Chautauqua Institution as an idyllic island of sanity in an insane world, where people are polite and friendly and the intellectual atmosphere is at once relaxing and challenging.
More people are aware of Chautauqua now than then because of the horrendous attack on Salman Rushdie there in 2022. That altered the atmosphere on campus somewhat; we now see a lot more security staff, and one often has to go through a metal detector before entering the Amphitheater, the main lecture and performance venue.
But even that has not changed the sense of Chautauqua as a respite from the world. It’s evident the moment you drive through the gates (yes, it’s a gated community during the summer): the Victorian houses, most with spacious porches; the spectacular gardens overflowing with greenery and blooms of every hue, the quiet streets almost devoid of cars, where kids can safely ride their bikes; the central plaza which functions as a town square.
Chautauqua grew out of three uniquely American movements: the camp meeting, the lyceum (where small Midwestern towns brought in speakers on a variety of topics) and the Sunday school.
One of Chautauqua’s founders, John Heyl Vincent, was a Methodist minister determined to use modern methods in Sunday school. He believed that leisure provided a great opportunity for personal growth and improvement–and what better “classroom” for such work could there be than a natural setting?
In 1872, Vincent met with Lewis Miller, the superintendent of Sunday Schools for Akron Ohio, to arrange to teach his new multi-disciplinary approach to the study of religion. Miller was passionate about education and suggested to Vincent that they set up their teachers’ program in the woods. He suggested a place called Fair Point on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in western New York. Local Methodist ministers had built a camp meeting there in 1871, for which Miller was a trustee.
Vincent saw the potential of the site for a national assembly lasting 10 to 15 days. He planned to bring in “the best talent in the country” and to combine recreation and pleasure with study. He put together a program featuring speakers that included well-known preachers, college presidents, artists and journalists – a few of whom were women -- and advertised it through the Christian press and Sunday School journals.
The first Chautauqua Assembly opened on August 4, 1874 (and that date is now observed in Chautauqua as “Old First Night”). Between two and three thousand people attended. There was a morning worship service, followed by a lecture or sermon. A break at midday provided time for rest or recreation. More classes and lectures were held in the afternoon and evening, along with performances by brass bands and singers. This program developed into what is now known as Chautauqua’s “four pillars”: religion, education, entertainment and recreation.
The entertainment offered at the earliest Chautauqua was a wholesome counterpart to the popular burlesque and vaudeville offerings of the time. An enterprising partner in the Redpath Lyceum Bureau put together a travel plan for Chautauqua-style entertainers to visit towns in the Midwest – the traveling Chautauquas I had learned about in high school. By the 1920s dozens of “daughter Chautauquas” had started; a few still exist, including one in Michigan and one in Ohio.
A day at the Chautauqua Institution in 2025 would feel familiar to Miller and Vincent. There’s an ecumenical worship service every morning, with top-tier visiting clergy. The service still has a Protestant feel, though Catholic priests have been chaplains since 2015; in 2019, Sharon Brous became the first Jewish clergy in that role.
There are two major lecture series, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and the rest of the day is filled with a variety of classes, lectures, films, book reviews and discussions. There’s a small beach at Chautauqua Lake, and a boat dock; there’s a fitness center with a gym, pool and tennis courts, and two golf courses across the road from the main campus.
The list of past and present speakers reads like a who’s who of American leaders in politics, business, journalism, the arts and science. Several US presidents have spoken there, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Bill Clinton.
There’s a whole part of the campus dedicated to training up-and-coming artists in instrumental and operatic music, dance, theatre and fine arts.
Every day the Amphitheater (known locally as “the Amp”), which seats about 4,000, hosts stellar entertainment, from the resident Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra (established in 1928), the Music School Festival Orchestra, a variety of visiting classical and popular musicians, dance recitals and more.
There’s way more than anyone can do in a day, and choosing from among the many options can be challenging.
The Chautauqua population in any given summer week ranges from 2,000 to more than 5,000. While the year-round population is only about 300 to 500, many nine-week visitors have second homes there; the climate in western New York in July and August is much more comfortable than that in Florida or Texas, or even New York City. Many more visitors come for a week or two.
A stay at Chautauqua is not cheap. A weekly gate pass, which grants entry into the grounds and to the morning’s keynote lecture and evening’s entertainment, costs about $700 per person – though when you divide that by the number of lectures, concerts and other presentations, the price per program seems quite reasonable. (A season’s pass is much less than nine weekly passes.)
For accommodation, weekly visitors can choose from a variety of hotels, apartment and house rentals starting at less than $1,000 for the week depending on the size and condition of the building. Newer buildings have central air and elevators; many vintage buildings have window A/C units and show their age.
Chautauqua’s “denominational houses” provide an option for reasonably priced housing. They were started as a way of providing Sunday school teachers and other parishioners with an alternative to boarding houses and hotels, like the beautiful Victorian Athenaeum Hotel, which opened in 1876.
The oldest denominational house is the Baptist House, built in 1890. Others are run by the Disciples of Christ, Presbyterians United Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Unitarian-Universalists, Quakers, and the United Church of Christ. A few years ago, an African-American Heritage House opened, which doesn’t take in paying guests but provides interesting programs. There's a Christian Science Reading Room and also an LGBTQ organization that doesn’t have a house.
It's not too early to start planning your 2026 Chautauqua vacation!
For more information about Chautauqua Institution, visit www.chq.org.
Philadelphia native and long-time Detroit resident Bobbie Lewis retired after a career in public relations and communications for nonprofit organizations. A graduate of Antioch College, with master's degrees in journalism and administration from Temple University and Central Michigan University, she is an award-winning contributing writer for the Detroit Jewish News. Since 2017, she has spent her summers at Chautauqua Institution as co-host (with her husband, Joe) of the Everett Jewish Life Center in Chautauqua.
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