The village’s rich history serves as a fitting backdrop for the Antiques Festival each year.  The festival features approximately 200 exhibitors through the village’s parks and has drawn crowds in excess of 10,000 for the last 15 years. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, rain or shine. A free parking shuttle will be available to bring attendees down to the village from the Malta Mall parking lot throughout the day.

The village originally was formed as a Methodist Church Camp in the 1860s. The Round Lake Camp Meeting Association of the Troy Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church was incorporated on May 5, 1868. A speakers’ stand, bookstore and tents were built shortly after and the first camp meeting was held on Sept. 1, 1868. Between 2,000 -8,000 people came per day, for the 10-day meeting.

The campgrounds grew over the years and turned into a destination for education, religion and arts. The as its popularity grew, the village went through a spate of development, featuring: the Arcade, a forerunner to the modern mall; the Griffin Institute, later called the Round Lake Academy; the George West Museum of Art and Archaeology, the third largest museum in the state; and the Round Lake Library, the second library in Saratoga County.

In July of 1921, the “Great Fire” burned the Arcade and 17 cottages to the ground. That land is now home to the village’s Rowe Park, where many of the vendors set up camp each year for the Antiques Festival. Many of the other large structures fell to disrepair or fire in the mid 1900s.

The National Register-listed auditorium remains as one of the most important of the village’s large structures and home to a massive 1847 Ferris Tracker organ, claimed to be the oldest and largest of its kind. Throughout the summer the village features organ concerts and programs which help fund the restoration efforts for the building.

When you walk around the village you can still see the influences of the church camp, similar to other Methodist church settlements throughout the northeast, including Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., and Chautauqua, N.Y.

The village is set up with a tangle of roads wagon-wheeling out from what was the central focus of the church camp’s life, the auditorium. The roads, although paved now, were originally created for horse and carriages, and their width has not grown.

Like Saratoga, Round Lake features Victorian architecture, complete with gingerbread, unique color palates and open porches, for the most part on a much smaller scale. The tents and tin houses (examples of which are still visible) were replaced with camp houses that over the years were converted into permanent residences.

Village Mayor Dixie Lee Sacks notes living in the village is a unique experience. “It’s such a strong community. The village truly is a way of life in itself.”

It was the town’s similarity to Oak Bluffs that led to the Night of Illumination, said Nancy Theissen, Antiques Festival Chair. After seeing an article about Oak Bluffs’ Night of Illumination in Cottage Living magazine, festival committee members decided to adopt the event.

The Night starts out with a gathering in the auditorium for an evening of songs. Each year, a ceremonial lamp lighter is chosen to start the ceremony. The chosen person lights the first lantern and the auditorium’s bells are rung, signaling for all lanterns to be hung up throughout the village.

Theissen noted last year’s night was well attended and she expects this year to be an even bigger success.