The first Bay View Camp meeting was held. Significance Statement Bay View is one of the finest examples of two uniquely American community forms, the Methodist camp meeting and the independent Chautauqua. Designed for the first purpose in 1876 as the country's only romantically planned campground, and adapted for the second from 1885 to 1915, Bay View constitutes an extraordinarily well executed ideal Victorian community which, because of its continuing corporate existence and, most important, the ongoing collective values of its membership, remains in an excellent state of preservation of both form and spirit. Bay View is a major monument of American religious, cultural, social and educational ideals embodied in an artistically shaped community plan.
Cottages are mostly Victorian and are beautifully maintained.
They sit with even setbacks on narrow lots, without fences and immersed in greenery, a clear evocation of the enterprise's communal purpose.