Lake Properties
Chautauqua Lake Real Estate Guide
Chautauqua Lake in Chautauqua County, is one of the most popular vacation home markets in the Northeast. We've created this website as a guide to the towns and cities which make up this beautiful region, and to show what we can do for you as Chautauqua's top realty team. Whether you're buying or selling a home, our local knowledge and expertise can help you enter the market with confidence, and get the most for your investment. For more information on our services, please browse our Buying, Selling, and Financing pages.
We specialize in the area surrounding Chautauqua Lake. Chautauqua County real estate including Ashville, Bemus Point, Cassadaga, Celoron, Chautauqua, Chautauqua Institution, Dewittville, Falconer, Frewsburg, Gerry, Greenhurst, Harmony, Jamestown, Kennedy, Lakewood, Maple Springs, Mayville, North Harmony, Stow, Westfield, and the surrounding Chautauqua County area. We not only sell real estate, but we can show you why Chautauqua County is our home.
We also offer quick, comprehensive access to the Chautauqua MLS, where new home listings are uploaded daily. In addition, our Featured Listings page highlights some of the area's best real estate deals. With its rich variety of stunning lakefront properties, historic old-town buildings, and affordable single family homes, Chautauqua has something for any buyer interested in upstate New York living.
To get us working for you in the Chautauqua area today, please contact us.
Chautauqua Area Information
Chautuaqua County is the western gateway to New York, located in the state's southwest corner, and bordered by Pennsylvania and Lake Erie. With Lake Chautauqua at its center, the county includes more than 1,500 square miles of beautiful lake-modelled terrain, a pristine state park area, and dozens of charming towns and small cities. Prominent communities here include the town of Chautauqua, Dunkirk, Jamestown, and county seat Mayville. With just 150,000 year round residents, Chautauqua County is as uncrowded as it is pretty, although the area also attracts tens of thousands of tourists each year.
Our climate is varied, parts being tempered by Lake Erie and parts at higher altitudes providing cool summers and snow cover for three major ski resort areas. Our average summer temperature is 77 degrees and our winters average 32 degrees.
Chautauqua Institution on Chautauqua Lake
Chautauqua is home to the world famed Chautauqua Institution and four other major resort and vacation regions, providing a wide variety of spring, summer, fall and winter activities. One can find boating, fishing, hiking, downhill skiing, X-country skiing, cycling, snowmobiling, Amish handicrafts, hunting, antiquing, concerts, and art shows to name a few!
Some say Chautauqua (shah tau' qua) is a Seneca Indian name meaning "Bag Tied in the Middle". A look at the map shows the name fits the lake. It is 17.3 miles long and boasts some of the best fishing opportunities in the country whether you're a novice or an avid angler. Bass, muskie, walleye, perch, and crappie are just some you will pull in.
The area's most popular tourist spot is the Chautauqua institution, a historic summer resort and seasonal education center in the town of Chautauqua. Comfortably situated on a 750 acre lakeside campus, the Institution includes a small village of 19th century houses, a hotel, churches, theatres, golf courses, beaches, and attractive gardens. Between May and September the Institution is teeming with activity, as roughly 7,500 summer residents and some 140,000 daily visitors take part in seminars, summer courses, theatre, symphony, and ballet. Founded in the 1874, the Institution gave way to a national network of Chautauquas focussed on adult learning and arts. In recent decades Chautauqua has become an ideal place to relax as well as pursue education, offering a fine selection of vacation homes and resort amenities.
Chautauqua Lake Real Estate
Here you will also find some of the most affordable housing in the country, as well as excellent schools and universities, museums, churches and a wholesome life style supported through agriculture, manufacturing, education and a cultural heritage.
For many of us who live in Chautauqua County, Chautauqua Lake is an important part of our lives in several different ways. It touches us politically, economically, and socially. It also touches us historically. One cannot tell the story of Chautauqua County and its people without talking about the lake, because the lake was determined, in large part, what that story is.
Chautauqua Lake was formed during the glacial period. Before that time, it is possible that the northern end of the lake, then only a river, drained into Lake Erie as the streams north of the dividing ridge still do today. Formation of the ridge, however, blocked the river's flow and elevated it high enough so that it joined with the southward flowing river and formed the 17-mile lake we know today.
Waters arising in Chautauqua County flow to both the Mississippi River and to the St. Lawrence.
Chautauqua Lake, lying southeast to northwest across the county at an elevation of 1,308 feet above sea level, is one of the highest navigable lakes in the nation.
Chautauqua Institute, a summertime center for study, inspiration, and relaxation, is a familiar landmark in American cultural history.
The French spelled the lake's Indian name several ways. Maps and reports by Jesuits and explorers who traveled through or near the region by the 1700s exhibit the individual versions: Tchadakoin, Tjadakoin, Chataconit, Shatacoin, Jadaxque, Jadaaqua. The Holland Land Company, on its 1804 maps, spelled it Chautaughque. The "gh" was soon dropped, but the final "que" remained until 1859 when it was changed to its present "qua".
The suggested meanings of this Seneca word are equally numerous: the place where one is lost; the place of easy death; fish taken out; foggy place; high up; two moccasins fastened together; and a bag tied in the middle. Several meanings refer to the lake's or the region's physical or climatic features; two refer to the lake's appearance; and two meanings come from Indian legends.
From above, the lake does resemble a long bag tied in the middle, and that is now the favored translation of Chautauqua. Whatever the correct meaning of its name, however, there is no disputing Chautauqua Lake's inextricable link to the people and the history of Chautauqua.
