Inside the Abandoned Camp Haccamo, Penfield

This article was scraped from Rochester Subway. This is a blog about Rochester history and urbanism has not been published since 2017. The current owners are now publishing link spam which made me want to preserve this history.. The original article was published August 12, 2015 and can be found here.

     By       Snoop Junkie

Since 1955, Camp Haccamo has been a fun filled getaway for both adults and children with varying mental and physical disabilities. First established on     Panorama Creek Drive in Penfield

(just behind Panorama Plaza), Haccamo was free to the 300 plus campers per year who participated. But in 2009 camp organizers ended their relationship with the town of Penfield and moved to Rush, NY - while, oddly, leaving quite a bit of stuff behind...

   Haccamo was operated by the Monroe County Rotary which also ran the     Rotary Sunshine Camp

in Rush. Both camps were funded mainly with private donations, including $200,000 annually from Wegmans. But in 2008 Wegmans notified them that funding would be eliminated.

According to     this article

Wegmans gave the camps a one-time payment of $1 million as incentive to merge together at that time, and the land was put up for sale.

   As for our walk through, it was a beautiful early Sunday morning and we were ready to go to camp!

When arriving at the entrance, I couldn't help but notice how strange it felt that we were just off a main road in the heart of Penfield, yet I felt like we were so far away, isolated and cut off from society. It was definitely an unnerving feeling.

The 10 acre camp consists of 24 separate building units, including sleeping cabins and recreational buildings for activities such as music participation and arts & crafts.

   What struck me most about Haccamo, was just how much of it was left behind.

   It almost seemed as though this place was abandoned in quite a hurry. Mostly junk and worthless supplies remained, but also a number of pianos, bedding, a pool table, music equipment and other various items were left to rot in the elements.

   Moving through these rooms we touch nothing except what's under our feet. We don't want to cause any more damage then has already been done by who ever (or what ever) rolled through here before us.

   Many photos strewn about show us how these spaces were used - spaces that were once alive with activity.

   The building structures for the most part are intact yet coming apart at the seams slowly and surely. It's questionable whether or not much of this place could be salvaged or reused for anything at this point.

   From what we saw, it seemed as though this was a quite great place at one time for people with physical or mental hardships to go and enjoy themselves.

   There are many different social spaces...

   Games...

   Entertainment...

   Art...

   And music...

All of these activities are sure to make campers tire out. Let's see what the sleeping quarters are like...

   The layout of the camp is fantastic and the grounds are heavily treed to give the illusion (as I mentioned) that you're somewhere far off the beaten path.

   That being said, the youngster in me couldn't help but tremble a bit at the thought of a machete wielding hockey masked mad-man lurking in the brush, waiting to ward off any uninvited guests.

   The central building contained kitchen facilities as well as a great room for gatherings in front of a large cobblestone fireplace...

   Imagine the stories told and the camp songs that might have been sung here by the fire.

   ...or the massive quantities of baked beans and red hots served out of this place.

   Um, Scooby, I'm starting to get a bad feeling.

   Boy, the pool     does    look tempting. Wish I had brought my suit.

   The grounds are lightly maintained still, but it's really something to see how mother nature begins to reclaim her territory over just a few short years. The outer grounds contain an array of trails for hiking, and areas for various sports.

   Like mini golf!

   This building connects to a deck overlooking a large man-made pond...

   WITH a dock for boating - or doing cannonballs off of.

   Last I knew, the land has been for sale ever since the organization shipped out to Rush, but rumor has it that this site may in fact be revitalized to serve as working camp grounds once again! Not entirely sure about that though.

Maybe there's someone out there who can shed a little more light on this story - what's the status of the property, and why it was left the way it was?

Anyway, that just about brings us to the end of our Haccamo tour. As always, drop a comment below. And happy camping

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