Caretaker's Forecast: Lovely Overall, but Stress Likely

By KRISTIAN CONNOLLY
COOPERSTOWN

One person is an aspiring meteorologist, a recent Cooperstown Central School graduate who loves her hometown lake and is now a third-year college student at SUNY Oneonta. The other person, also a self-professed lake lover, is a bohemian musician and artist who has spent nearly the last eight years traveling around the world before now preparing to settle into his self-described “golden years” in a recently purchased home in central France.

You might wonder what these two people could possibly have in common. The answer: Each was a live-in caretaker of a beloved, and popular, village park on the lake this past summer.

But Emma Panzarella, 21, the caretaker at Three Mile Point, and Jamie Panzer, 65, the caretaker at Fairy Spring Park, came to their lakeside responsibilities in very different ways.

For Panzarella, the connection was born out of service as a lifeguard for the village for a number of summers, and having the suggestion made to her when the Three Mile Point caretaker position became available in the summer of 2023. With her family—her parents and two younger brothers—already nearby, living on the lake during the summers was an ideal way to continue the transition out of her parents’ house and into living on her own. The stipend for the summer, the free housing, and having her own place for being able to spend time with friends after hours made the decision to pursue the caretaker job pretty easy.

Panzer, who grew up in Maryland, had a connection to Cooperstown via a friendship he’d made a number of years ago while living and working in Austin, Texas. Panzer was in France this spring when it was suggested to him by village Zoning Enforcement Officer Chris Deville that he consider caretaking for the summer. For Panzer, with a house-buying process not going to be completed until later in the summer, the idea of a few quiet months on Otsego Lake, with a paycheck and no-cost housing, sounded like a pretty good gig and a way to manage the transition into the major life change he was about to undertake.

Panzarella and Panzer sat down recently, outside of their respective caretaker cottages, to talk about their experience. Among the common themes to arise as the Labor Day holiday and the end of the season approached? The challenges and stress from being “on” seven days a week, and more or less around the clock; appreciation for the lakeside-park setting as a “home” for the summer; animals in the parks; and baseball teams.