When it was built by H. C. Rickerson in 1924, the seven-story Hotel Alpine was the tallest building in Saranac Lake; and remained so until DeChantel Apartments was built on Church Street in the early 1970s. As a business, it vacillated between good times and bad and became the property of the Village -- more than once -- for nonpayment of taxes. It was the Village that sealed the building's doom through condemnation proceedings. Declared a decrepit firetrap, it was demolished in 1978. At that time, it housed two popular bars and a number of residential tenants. Today it is a parking lot at the northwest corner of Bloomingdale Avenue and Broadway.