Mission and History
The Finger Lakes Boating Museum exists for the education and preservation of the boating activities and boat building heritage of the Finger Lakes.
In 1996 a small group of dedicated antique boating enthusiasts, motivated in part by a common concern over the rapidly dwindling population of locally-built wooden boats, committed to establishing a museum that would preserve the boating heritage of the Finger Lakes Region of New York State. The museum founders, all active in the "antique boat world," felt that a museum focusing on the impact that recreational and commercial boating had on the development of the lakes and tourism in the Finger Lakes Region would increase appreciation and awareness as well as help preserve these vintage craft.
The Museum Collection has now grown to more than 200 boats built by many of the 40+ commercial builders identified to date as having built boats throughout the Finger Lakes Region during the last century.
The museum currently has three floors of the historic former Taylor Wine Company's main building to explore with several exhibit spaces and a new wing renovated in 2015. Visitors can see canoes, rowboats, row outboards, outboard runabouts, inboards, hydroplanes, and sailboats. Many related artifacts and ephemera are also on display, including a 130' x 10' lake and nature mural and replica lake cottage. A 60' x 10' lake mural was also recently completed in the Inboard Motor Boat exhibit room.
Our main building also contains an active boat shop where visitors are able to see restoration projects underway.
Finger Lakes Boating Museum found its permanent home in 2014 on the South end of Keuka Lake just outside of the village of Hammondsport. The historic Taylor campus, 14 acres and 19 buildings, allows the museum to exhibit a good selection of the collection while maintaining room to expand in the future.
