WATERFORD — The new owner of the Lake House has been asked to search for a missing guest register that includes the signatures of Hollywood celebrities.
“We’ve not been able to find it. It may not be here,” auctioneer Tom Saturley said Thursday.
The register, along with the original Lake House sign and other artifacts were loaned as part of a 1996 sale of the house with the provision that they be returned to the Waterford Historical Society if the house became a private dwelling.
“Some very famous people stayed here,” Saturley said. According to published reports, celebrities such as Judy Garland, Claudette Colbert, Micky Rooney, Deanna Durbin and other stars stayed at the inn when they visited fellow star Rudy Vallee at his home on Kezar Lake in Lovell.
Michael, Suzanne and Heidi Uhl-Myers, who owned the Lake House in the 1980s and 1990s, donated the register, the sign which hangs on the front of the building, a cookbook written by Suzanne Uhl-Meyers and a selection of pictures, to the future owners of the Lake House.
According to the Uhl-Meyers’ letter to the Historical Society, the register was given to the Uhl-Meyers by an elderly man from Illinois. Under the terms of the agreement, if the Lake House became a private dwelling in the future the items must go back to the Historical Society.
New owner John DeLois of San Francisco said he intends to open a restaurant in the house in the future.
Lieselottee Willoughby, a trustee with the Waterford Historical Society, met with DeLois after the auction to welcome him to the community and to remind him to be on the lookout for the register. The Historical Society has the cookbook.
ldixon@sunjournal.com
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- The Lake House sign, which has been on the Waterford inn for many years, is on loan to any owner as long as the building is kept in use as a hospitality business. Otherwise the sign must be returned to the Historical Society.
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- Lieselotte Willoughby, a trustee of the Waterford Historical Society, talks to the new owner of the Lake House, John DeLois, about the missing guest register.
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