  The Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment (STACEE) is a new
ground-based atmospheric Cherenkov telescope for gamma-ray astronomy. STACEE
uses the large mirror area of a solar heliostat facility to achieve a low
energy threshold. A prototype experiment which uses 32 heliostat mirrors with a
total mirror area of ~ 1200\unit{m^2} has been constructed. This prototype,
called STACEE-32, was used to search for high energy gamma-ray emission from
the Crab Nebula and Pulsar. Observations taken between November 1998 and
February 1999 yield a strong statistical excess of gamma-like events from the
Crab, with a significance of $+6.75\sigma$ in 43 hours of on-source observing
time. No evidence for pulsed emission from the Crab Pulsar was found, and the
upper limit on the pulsed fraction of the observed excess was < 5.5% at the 90%
confidence level. A subset of the data was used to determine the integral flux
of gamma rays from the Crab. We report an energy threshold of E_{th} = 190 \pm
60\unit{GeV}, and a measured integral flux of I (E > E_{th}) = (2.2 \pm 0.6 \pm
0.2) \times 10^{-10}\unit{photons cm^{-2} s^{-1}}. The observed flux is in
agreement with a continuation to lower energies of the power law spectrum seen
at TeV energies.
