<P> Today, Lake George remains a tourist destination, resort center, and summer colony . A popular activity in the Lake George area is hot air ballooning . One of the nation's oldest gathering of hot air balloons occurs every September in nearby Glens Falls . </P> <P> Millionaire's Row is the nickname of a stretch of Bolton Road (now Lake Shore Drive) on the west side of the lake where millionaires built mansions for use during the summer months . Such notables as Spencer Trask and Robert Pitcairn built palatial summer homes here . Although sometimes called "cottages" by their owners, these grand houses typically had dozens of bedrooms and more than 20,000 square feet (1,900 m) of floor space . </P> <P> Millionaire's Row differed markedly from the more rustic summer "camps" built by other wealthy Adirondack summer residents such as William West Durant and John D. Rockefeller . Unlike the log and timber structures at the camps, the houses of Millionaire's Row were built of stone and masonry in the Tudor Revival, Georgian Revival and Italianate styles . </P> <P> Unlike their contemporaries in Newport and the Hamptons, which were built on tiny pieces of land, the cottages of Millionaire's row were mansions in the true sense of the word . They were often built on hundreds of acres of pristine lakeside wilderness . </P>

How did lake george ny get its name