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There’s a very special place on Saratoga Lake that you may have driven by and not noticed, or perhaps it’s been years since you have been there.

And no, it is not a lake house or famed dining spot. It is a place where faith and family meet. It’s 

St. Isaac Jogues Chapel on Route 9P, it’s just a stone’s throw from the lake and it has been attracting the faithful since 1952. (To see more photos use this link: https://evangelist.org/photos/galleries/2023/aug/02/st-isaac-jogues-chapel/)

“There’s a spirit there that you can’t describe, (the faithful) just love that chapel,” said Father Robert Hohenstein, who has been saying the 10 a.m. Sunday Mass there since he retired eight years ago. “They are so dedicated to it. A lot of those people have been coming there since they were little kids, their whole life. They either lived on the lake or have a place on the lake that they go to in the summertime. It is just something that has been passed on from one generation to another generation.”

Butch Russell, who along with his wife, Judy, maintain the chapel — with a lot of help from their friends — that is open from Memorial Day until the first week of November or as the faithful say in Saratoga, “until the snow flies.” For Butch, who grew up in Stillwater and has been worshiping with Judy here all of their lives, the chapel brings a sense of comfort.

“Saratoga Lake has had a lot of campers over the years and people come to Mass and they have their shorts and sandals on and their T-shirts on and that’s the way they come to church,” Russell said. “There are a few that do dress nicely, obviously, but it is a very uncomplicated place where people bring their families all the time. A lot of children show up every week to this day, which makes it really, really nice. The parents feel comfortable ... I say it all the time, ‘You are all welcome, come in.’ They say ‘How much should we give at a summer chapel?’ and I say, ‘You give whatever you feel like giving or don’t give anything at all because you are here to witness the Gospel and enjoy your day.’ ”

The chapel with its unique seating arrangement — it has no center aisle, just long pews in the middle and two aisles on the sides flanked by smaller pews, which Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger likened to a 747 when he celebrated Mass there — was originally a mission of St. Peter’s Church in Stillwater. After St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s joined together to form All Saints on the Hudson, the chapel became a mission of the new parish. Father Hohenstein said that Father Thomas Morrette, former pastor at All Saints, couldn’t get a priest one Sunday and “he was going to close the chapel and called me the night before and wanted to know if I had a Mass and the rest is history.”

Legend has it that St. Isaac Jogues — there is a large statue of him behind the altar and in front of the chapel — passed through the area on his travels and perhaps even one famous movie star who was visiting his equally famous crooner friend at the time. 

“Bing Crosby had a place on Saratoga Lake and, of course, Bob Hope was a great friend of Bing Crosby’s,” Father Hohenstein said. “When Bob Hope and his wife would come up to visit Bing Crosby on Saratoga Lake, Bob Hope’s wife, Dolores, was very, very Catholic. She was there around the time the chapel was built and helped support it even and went to Mass. That is one of the stories that they tell about one of the people that was way back in its history that attended Mass there.”

The people that come to Mass every Sunday are from all walks of life and generally find out about the place through word of mouth. 

“When Father Morrette was there and we took a little collection up, we spent $1,000 or whatever it was, for a new sign out front. We put a new sign up and people see it now because it reflects at night time,” Russell said. “Saratoga Lake has changed from a summer place to people who live there year round now. I call (the large houses) ‘McDonald Mansions’ and a lot of those people come to Mass every week. It is nothing to see Bentleys and Corvettes and BMWs in our parking lot.”

Russell and his wife, who bring the bulletins from All Saints and return the offertory from the chapel back to the church, are usually the first people that attendees encounter. 

“My wife and I prepare for the Mass, we get there early like Father Hohenstein does and we actually mark out (the parking spaces) so people can park and not park on one of our neighbors’ lawns,” he said. “We greet everybody that walks in. We have a whole host of people, family members as we call them, that show up early with us and they help park the cars and greet everybody. 

“Everybody knows everybody else’s name so when you walk into church you automatically have this good feeling that you’re seeing your friends and you walk in and you are ready to receive the word. Afterwards there is another large group that works with us after Mass to clean up the chapel and pick up everything. Every week we leave there, the church is as clean as it was before anybody went.”

Russell has no shortage of volunteers.

“There’s a number of people that constantly want to help all the time. There’s a group of people that show up in the spring time a couple weeks before we open and they’ll clean that place from top to bottom and it will be immaculate to start our season off,” Russell said. “And there are different people over the years who have done a lot of work with me to keep the place running and keep the place going.”

Ed Nash, who does maintenance at Corpus Christi in Round Lake where current All Saints pastor, Father George Fleming, is also pastor, helped Russell rebuild the bathroom and the pair are going to rebuild part of the sacristy this year. Another parishioner, who is semi-retired, recently brought in truckloads of ground-up asphalt and has resurfaced the road and parking lot around the chapel. 

The “Gardening Club” plants flowers and perennials and spreads mulch to keep the outside spotless while Kathy Dugan bakes four-to-five dozen cookies every week for an after-Mass treat. A pair of siblings, a girl, 8, and boy, 11, take up the collection every week “so you have all this going on with all the children being directly involved. We have three altar servers and they fight to see who’s going to serve because they all want to serve Father Hohenstein,” Russell said. “He has been with us since he retired and he feels the same way as we do, it is a family there. He stands out front and talks to everybody out there and gets invited to all their parties, he is like one of the family.”

The chapel, which brings in 125-to-150 people every week for Mass and after-Mass refreshments, is a unique gem that everyone in the Diocese should experience.

“I call them my ‘chapel family,’ my wife and I both refer to them as that. If one of our regulars is having an anniversary or birthday, Father will announce it from the altar and it’s a spirit where everybody is comfortable with everyone else,” Russell said. “Everybody knows everybody now even though we are from different walks of life. We have some very wealthy business people that come every week and fill their envelopes every week.  They love the spirit of the place. Then we have a lot of people like my wife and I, just blue-collar workers who are retired, and just want to give back to our community of Catholics that means a lot to us.”

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