The unique mountain scenery of the Ausable Lakes encompassed 28,000 acres of Township 48 of the Totten and Crossfield Purchase.   Plattsburgh lumbermen held the rights. David Hale was employed  as caretaker, he allowed the guides to keep their camps and continue their guiding livelihood on the property. Hale had operated a small sawmill at the outlet of the lower lake since 1857, the year after the state-funded dam had burst flooding the AuSable valley. When William Neilson and other men of means from Philadelphia, who had camped with guides on the lakes, heard of its imminent sale to a lumber company in 1886, they quickly subscribed the purchase price among themselves and, in May 1887, the Adirondack Mountain Reserve was incorporated to preserve this largely uncut region around the lakes. The AMR also allowed the guides to continue their trade; the property was not to be closed to the hiking public. By 1890 several AMR shareholders had built cottages near the hotel on land purchased from Beedes. The Keene Heights Hotel Company was formed mostly from AMR stockholders, but, in March 1890, just before the sale, the hotel burned. Even though the 600 acres was the prime purpose of the sale, the new owners did rebuild immediately, and that 3 story Victorian structure stands today facing Giant Mt., one of the last of the grand Adirondack hotels still in use. It was the new building which inspired a new name, St. Hubert's Inn for the patron saint of hunted deer, which soon spread to the entire community (and post-office) there at the head of the valley. Tennis Courts, a casino for bowling alleys, and a golf course were among the improvements by 1902. The forest fire of 1903 which blackened Giant and other nearby mountains discouraged patronage. The St. Huberts Inn Association went bankrupt in 1904, closing the hotel. The reorganized entity which operates the hotel today for its members and guests, as well as holding title to the AuSable Lakes region, open to the public for hiking but not hunting or camping, is the Adirondack Mountain Reserve -- AuSable Club.