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It’s Friday, friends, and I’d like to offer you an ever so slightly nostalgic nod to a post I published in September 2022 shortly after receiving a gift from our neighbor, Emma Paladino. I titled the update Melancholy Boathouse, and it featured this black-and-white photograph.
Yesterday I posted this achingly evocative image on the Rosslyn Redux Instagram feed with thanks to our neighbor, Emma, who gifted the vintage photograph postcard to us. It was a gift to her from Michael Peden who, in turn credited his father, Douglas Peden, as the photographer. Here’s an excerpt from my caption.Source: Melancholy Boathouse – Rosslyn Redux)
At the time I knew that I’d seen the photograph before, but I couldn’t dredge the memory out of my gray matter. So familiar. Melancholy, yes, but also touching on something sentimental that I couldn’t quite identify.
Half a year later, I’m able to explain the poignance that Douglas Peden’s photo invoked.
I had seen it before. During our earliest visits to Rosslyn, when we were still trying to talk ourselves out of making an offer, when we were still convinced that we couldn’t justify the immense undertaking (and risk)…
Douglas Peden’s Boathouse Photo in Rosslyn Bedroom
The yellow bedroom circa 2004 or 2005. A large format version of that remarkable photograph hung over the fireplace. It took stumbling across it while reviewing old photos to realize why I had recognized it last September.
Douglas Peden’s Boathouse Photo in Rosslyn Bedroom
It made an impression a decade and a half ago.
Douglas Peden’s Boathouse Photo in Rosslyn Bedroom
In the snapshot above, Peter is trimming the top off one of two Greek revival columns deconstructed and salvaged back in 2006 when we rehabilitated Rosslyn’s dining room. Although our vision was to repurpose these bold design elements, to upcycle them some way, somehow, it wasn’t until undertaking the icehouse rehab (after postponing it indefinitely 14 or 15 years ago) that this capricious concept presented itself: use them in the icehouse!
Why, you might well ask, would we need two imposing columns inside the diminutive icehouse? While the question is reasonable, perhaps *need* is not the most appropriate evaluation. After all, adaptive reuse of a utility building originally constructed to fulfill a highly specific (and outdated) function obviously doesn’t *need* handsome embellishments for structural support. And yet the opportunity to re-integrate these historic Rosslyn elements into an otherwise utilitarian barn has presented a whimsical challenge that at some level echoes the unlikely marriage of work space and recreation hub we’re imagining into existence with this newest rehab project.
And soon enough, you’ll be able to witness the capricious way in which this pair of columns (and an understated entablature) not only help support the loft where I’ll be composing these daily dispatches in coming months, but also define and frame a spatial transition from the more intimate entrance and coffee bar into the loftier main room of this small building.
Offcuts from Re-tuning Columns (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Those geometric discs above are actually offcuts from Peter’s column re-tuning. while it’s easy enough for me to conjure these quirky concepts, and similarly viable for Tiho to translate my ideas into drawings, it is left to the alchemy of Peter and other finish carpenters to ultimately morph busily s and plans into reality. Thank you, Peter!
Tuning, Haikus
Re-tuning columns salvaged from a dining room, once deconstructed.
Sometimes a few fingers full of words best communicate a notion nebulous enough to wiggle free of prosaic paragraphs. And other times image, sound, motion speak sounder than words. So I conclude with two haikus, the more familiar variety above, and a quirky mashup below. Enjoy.
During an extended rehabilitation, renovation or even restoration, one is liable to lose track of important details. Too many small details whizzing past too fast and for too long. The brain falters. Memory fails. Photos and lists and other archives, no matter how methodically updated, fail to contain everything.
And when the dust settles questions ferment into mysteries. One such mystery is an irregular hole in the northern exterior brick wall outside the kitchen. The bricks and mortar are old, and pockmarks are more norm than exception at Rosslyn, but the size, and depth of this hole suggest that it was intentionally bored, not the result of spalling or a rifle shot.
I put the question to Jason McNulty, son of the previous owners, and periodic visitor and Rosslyn demystifier. He considered, then suggested that he hand a hunch. He would dig through old photos and get back to me.
Today he did.
Jason emailed me the photograph above with the following explanation.
I took a few minutes to investigate the mysterious hole in the wall that we noticed beneath the kitchen window. I dug out the pictures that I had taken back in 2004, and I found two pictures of the area in question. Both were taken at a bit of a distance, and… [the camera’s] resolution wasn’t sufficient to get a crystal-clear image of the area. But, it really does look like the railing surrounding the steps into the basement does penetrate the wall in that area. ~ Jason McNulty
Although the photo is dark and a little blurry, it does indeed appear to solve the mystery.
The old basement access was removed and sealed early in Rosslyn’s rehabilitation in order to eliminate cracking that was resulting from ongoing water damage to the foundation. The roof valley directed a large volume of water into this area, hyper saturation the ground and creating freeze-thaw strains each winter.
[pullquote]The doorway and stairway were eliminated and the metal pipe railing slipped from my memory.[/pullquote]
We stabilized this compromised corner by closing the exterior, sub-grade doorway (basement access) as well as another interior doorway which provided access from the oldest portion of the house into the ell. And a large concrete ballast was poured into the northwest corner of the basement to provide necessary buttressing to ensure that no further structural shifting will occur.
In the process, the doorway and stairway were eliminated and the metal pipe railing slipped from my memory. Seeing Jason’s photograph jogs my memory and confirms his hunch. Another mystery solved. Thanks, Jason!
Tucked into a meadow surrounded by forest, the tennis court was starting to show a quarter century of soggy springs and icy winters. The net drooped, but we decided not to tighten it and risk breaking the rotten netting. Besides the droop better accommodated our rusty tennis skills.
The twelve foot tall fence around the court sagged along the north side. A tree that had fallen across it a few years before had been removed, but the stretched steel mesh retained the memory. Several young maple trees grew along the crumbling margin of the court and protruded inside the fence. Towering maples, oaks and white pines surrounded the court on three sides, lush with new foliage that whispered in the wind. Birds and squirrels chattered in the canopy. Ants paraded across the court’s puckering green surface, and a pair of small butterflies danced in a rising and falling gyre. Tasha sniffed around the perimeter of the court, her obligatory inspection as head ball girl for our sylvan Roland Garros.
We started to volley back and forth, balls collecting quickly on both sides of the net. It felt great to be hitting a tennis ball again, and – like every spring – I vowed to spend more time on the court, perennially optimistic that a solid tennis game was within my reach.
The sound of our rackets making solid contact with the fresh balls encouraged us and prompted Tasha to abandon the grasshopper she had been badgering. She headed out onto Susan’s side of the court and started to lunge at balls, attempting to catch them in her mouth. We tried to be more creative in our placement, trying simultaneously to avoid hitting her and to protect the nice new balls from her slobbery maw.
Soon enough she discovered that she could simply take her pick from the balls that were collecting beside the net, and she plunked down in the middle of the court to enjoy a new chew toy.
“Maybe we should have brought the hopper of old balls, so it wouldn’t matter if she chewed them…”
“Home run!” Susan cheered, sending a ball soaring over the fence into the woods. Excited, Tasha got up and padded over to the fence where she stood, looking for the ball in the woods.
Soon, enough balls had vanished over the fence that we headed out to see how many we could recover.
“Hey, come check out this snake!” I called out to Susan after startling a small garter snake in the tall grass near the woods.
“Tasha, come! Grab her. Don’t let her get close to it!” Susan’s words came like machine gun fire as she sprinted toward me. “It might be poisonous!”
“It’s just a garter snake,” I said. “Tasha’s fine.”
“Are you sure it’s not a rattlesnake? Where is it?” she asked, next to us now, grabbing Tasha by the collar and pulling her backward, away from the grass where the snake had already vanished.
“It’s gone.”
“Gone? Where? Why didn’t you keep your eye on it?” Susan hustled Tasha back toward the tennis court.
“Relax. It was a garter snake, Susan. It’s harmless. Nothing to worry about.”
“How do you know? What if you’re wrong?”
Tasha shags a tennis ball
When I returned from the woods with most of the balls, Susan had our tennis rackets tucked under her arm. Tasha was leashed.
“I’m ready to go,” Susan said.
“Because of the snake?”
“No. I’m just ready. I’ve played enough tennis.”
“Okay.”
Susan asked me to walk ahead, checking for snakes. I laughed, then obliged, walking a few paces with exaggerated caution.
“Stop!” I bellowed, freezing and pointing into the grass ahead. “I think I see one…”
“That’s not funny,” said, repressing a smile.
“Wait, do you hear that rattling noise?”
Susan laughed. Tasha pulled at her leash, excited, ready to help me search for snakes.
“Well, you never know,” Susan said. “Tasha’s a city dog. She might try to attack a rattlesnake.”
“Because that’s what city dogs do?” I laughed.
Tasha, our twelve year old Labrador Retriever, enjoyed bark at wildlife, maybe even an abbreviated mock charge in the case of deer, but she had little interest in tangling with animals, birds or snakes. Frogs intrigued her more, briefly, until she realized they were not toys. A sleepy cluster fly could entertain her for five or ten minutes. But Tasha would leave rattlesnake attacking to younger, more aggressive beasts.
Today’s dispatch delves into a puzzling enigma, maybe even a genuine mystery.
Shortly after purchasing Rosslyn in the summer of 2006 friends were touring the house with us when their young son blasted through a doorway.
“Do you think this house is haunted?!”
His optimism was palpable. He related in quick chronicle what he’d discovered during his solo inspection of the house. On the third floor, he assured us, there are hidden doors and secret passageways. Mystery and intrigue percolated in his proud delivery.
He was correct. Small doors and mystery access panels in the backs of cupboards and closets opened into dark attic soffits. However, years of renovation would eventually reveal that these were simply entrances to otherwise inaccessible passages (ie. space behind the point where rafters met knee walls) that permitted service to electric, plumbing, etc. Practical. But slim on mystery.
Shortly thereafter, multiple contractors assured us that the house was probably haunted. Two centuries of living (and, inevitably, at least some “expiring”) within these walls *must* have resulted in a few lingering spirits. Certainly Rosslyn was haunted, right? Right?! Again, a blend of dread and intrigue. But over the yearslong renovation, they gradually abandoned their soothsaying as uneventful days (and not a few evenings) dispelled their early convictions. Mystery anticipated; mystery dispelled.
The Warmth of Your House
Verum Archaeologiam
Across the sprawling inquiry I call Rosslyn Redux, I’ve gathered many posts into a category I call “Archeology of Home”. It’s a moniker I usually use in a quasi metaphorical sense, but not always. In fact, there have been plenty of instances in which we’ve quite literally disinterred and studied artifacts that have informed our understanding (and appreciation) of home.
Sometimes the excavation is figurative, exposing ideas and memories and stories and memories that, when scrutinized reveal what underpins my/our ideas of homeness. In either case, analysis (and sometimes creative exploration) or both real relics and those that exist in the realm of concept have deepened and affirmed our relationship with home.
Today I have an intriguing outlier to share. It’s archeology of home in the layered and often complex sense. And it invites inclusion in my intermittent what-makes-a-house-a-home series: does mystery make a house a home?
Ute Youth, Uintah Valley, Utah (Photo: John K. Hillers, Powell Expedition, 1871-1875)
Concealed Artifacts Considered
While drafting a post that revisits my enduring curiosity about (and reference to) The Farm I asked Katie to remove an old black and white photograph from its frame in order to scan it. Here’s our slightly abbreviated dialogue.
Katie, I’m hoping… you might be able to help me with the photo that I’d like to accompany this post. If you look at the B&W snapshot attached you’ll see a photo of me as a small tyke with an older man. I’m hoping that it may be easy to remove the image and scan it at high definition… Thanks!
I scanned this photo for you. Did you know there were some other photos behind this one in the frame? I scanned everything in case you were interested…
Oh, what a find. You have no idea how moved and intrigued I am by your totally unanticipated discovery. I received this photo from my parents when they were preparing to downsize their Rock Harbor home a year or two before selling it. I imagine they must have repurposed an older frame that contained the images and information you’ve come across. The man in the photo in “Upper Volta” (newly independent from France as of 1960 and then renamed Burkina Faso in 1984) is my uncle Herman Gail Weller, my mother‘s older brother. He was in the U.S. Peace Corps, living in Africa (Ghana and later Liberia, if I recall correctly) in the 1960s when this photograph was apparently taken. No idea about the Ute news clipping and photo. I’ll reach out to my uncle to see what I can find out. What a fascinating layering of history. And what a wild surprise! Thank you, Katie.
I’ll return to the “older man” (aka OMC) when I publish the relevant post soon. But that youthful photograph of my uncle offered a subject for my inquiry.
Uncle Herman in Bobo-Dioulasso, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), 1967
Herman in Burkina Faso
I sent out an email (with scans of the photos, etc.) to my mother and my uncle. Circuitously the following message made its way back to me.
“The pictures came through on the email from George that you forwarded to me. The pictures were huge compared to the font size of the text. So I had to scroll back and forth and up and down. ….. Of course that was me in Bobo-Djou… in a market. The blankets were called “Mali blankets,” at least by expatriots. Most expatriots that I met in West Africa prized Mali blankets. My beard was nicer in red (then) than in white (now).
The width of each strip in a Mali blanket was the width that a typical loom created. When I traveled to Bamako, Mali one Christmastime, I saw weavers sitting on the sidewalks along the modern paved highway, each with his loom cords tied to the base of a modern street light.
Ah-ha! A few more details in Herman’s notes on reverse of photo.
Caption from Uncle Herman’s Photo in Bobo-Dioulasso, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso)
Another uncanny aside: that Mali blanket hung in my bedroom as a tapestry during my teens. Also a sword from Herman’s West Africa years!
Ute Youth
And what about the handsome fellow with his dog appearing earlier this post?
So far no recollection from Herman to share on this one. Did one of my parents place it in the frame? Someone else. When? Why? The mystery endures.
Let’s take a look at the other artifacts, which at least explain something about the Ute youth, if not its provenance.
Citation for Photograph of Ute Youth by John K. Hillers
This documentation from the Smithsonian Office of Anthropology, Bureau of American Ethnology, Collection is affixed to the back of the photo of the Ute youth. If too blurry for you, here’s the gist.
Neg. No. 1537
Tribe: Ute
“Indian boy and his dog.”
Uintah Valley, eastern slope of the Wasateh Mts., Utah.
By John K. Hillers, Powell Expedition, 1871-1875.
I’m unclear how the Ute youth photo with documentation (above) happen to be located together with the article (below), but the caption (also below) suggests that the image may have been used to illustrate the compelling news clipping.
Ute Caption and Article
Also resonating subtly but pleasantly, the recollection that my maternal grandmother (mother to my mother and Herman) often mailed us news clippings that struck her as individually relevant and appealing. Perhaps she came across and clipped the article, and then sent it to my mother or my uncle?
Perhaps the trappings of home and the lives they echo, albeit sometimes a faintly fading echo, are among the mysteries that make a house a home?
Afterward
The lead image on this post is a dedication, a mystery dedication, that adorns a cardboard panel at the back of the frame. For whom? From whom? Well, we know their name, but who are/were they? I have absolutely no idea, but the sentiment is uncannily appropriate for the current context.
“May the warmth of your house be equal to that of your heart.” — Gerry and Marc Gurvitch
Appropriate, for sure. And perhaps it’s worth gathering well wishes wherever and whenever we come across them.
Rosslyn Rapture (Sculpture: George McNulty, Illustration: Geo Davis)
Perhaps the sub theme for today’s post should be derivative content? The image above is a digital watercolor derived from an edited and altered photograph of the bronze figure sculpted and gifted by George McNulty. My poem below also re-examines the sculpture, also reimagines the bronze figure, also seeks to illustrate why, how this gift from Rosslyn’s previous owner continues to affect me.
Rosslyn Rapture, Poem
No homunculus this alchemist's art, this sculptor's artifact.
No bronze bauble this daily reminder of progeny and forebears.
But rapture itself, ecstatic, triumphant, lifted with gratitude.
This marbled, mantled rhapsody appeases my meandering mind.
— Geo Davis
Baby, No Baby?
In my previous post, I recounted a conversation I had with Jason McNulty about a bronze baby that was present in the sculpture’s upheld hands.
When I gave George McNulty’s son, Jason, a house tour a few year after completing our renovation, he immediately spotted the sculpture.
“What happened to the baby?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” I responded, confused.
“The man was originally holding a baby up in the air,” he explained.
It had never even occurred to me that there might have been another part of the sculpture, a part now missing. A baby. That’s what he’s lifting up and celebrating.
I explained to Jason that we had not removed the baby. We had never even seen the baby. Aside from the addition of a marble base, this is exactly how the sculpture looked when it was gifted to us by Jason’s father.
Probably his father had made two versions, Jason suggested, one with a baby, and one without. Or perhaps the baby was cast separately and conjoined afterward. (Source: Rosslyn Rapture: A Bronze Sculpture by George McNulty)
Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to dig through old photographs, searching for evidence of the figure holding a baby.
I’ve now realized what I must have previously forgotten (or overlooked). Apparently I’d seen both versions — with and without baby — years before.
There are indeed two versions of the sculpture as Jason suggested. And if you look at the photograph above, you’ll see McNulty‘s sculpture *with baby* on the left side of the mantle above the fireplace. You may need to zoom in a bit, but the darkly, silhouetted figure clearly holds a baby high in the air.
However, our version of the figure, as you can see in the photograph below, holds no baby. Hence my fanciful notion that the figure, a metaphorical, stand-in for the homeowner, is holding aloft — in adulation and gratitude — a magnificent abstraction. Rosslyn rapture!
Rosslyn Rapture: Bronze Sculpture by George McNulty
It’s worth noting that the hands of the figure above betray no evidence that a bronze baby was cut out or ground and sanded off at some point.
George McNulty’s Bronze Sculptures in Entrance Hallway
The photograph above shows Rosslyn’s entrance hallway about the time we began looking at the property in 2004 or 2005. If you look at the top of the bookshelf, on the right hand side of the photograph, just short of the far end (ie. near middle of photograph) you can just barely make out the sculpture with baby, similar to the one on the mantle piece above. Here’s that same view from the opposite angle.
George McNulty’s Bronze Sculptures in Entrance Hallway
The sculpture is clearly visible in this photograph of the entrance foyer along the north wall.
Now comes the exciting part. Reviewing my early photographs from visits to this house when we were still considering whether or not to purchase the property (as well as in the photographs that Jason McNulty generously gave me taken during approximately the same timeframe) the bronze sculpture appears in both of the locations here documented: on the bedroom mantle, and on the foyer bookshelf.
But I remembered another location: George McNulty’s basement sculpture workshop.
George McNulty’s Bronze Sculptures in Workshop
Perhaps you’ve noticed the sculpture (with baby) just left of the G. McNulty, Sculptor sign that is propped against the back wall?
Here’s a slightly different angle, zoomed in a little tighter…
George McNulty’s Bronze Sculptures in Workshop
In both of the two images above, and there’s some thing else that might catch your eye. If you look directly to the left of the sign, I’ve described, you will see a head. And behind the head? I believe that squinting a little bit and looking closely, you’ll see the empty arms of a second sculpture with no baby.
And, so it would seem, Jason McNulty was correct. Two versions were made. So I will choose to imagine our figure holding high, not a baby, but the glorious abstraction of HOME.
Kudos to Troy for knocking out three custom copper covers for the icehouse vents plus a copper sleeve for the boiler exhaust. Bravo!
New & Old Copper Covers (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
In the photo above Pam is holding one of the new copper covers (on the left) next to one of the old copper covers (on the right). This is a design we created about a decade and a half ago for the house, and, in an effort to maintain consistency with the icehouse, we templated the new vent covers off the originals. But, time has patinated the old copper covers leaving us with a dilemma.
Accelerate the aging process or allow them to age naturally?
I definitely want to accelerate the weathering/oxidation process. I’ve used several different products in recent years to patina copper, and the first consideration is how to approximate the hue of the old copper covers. Ranging from verdigris to brown/bronze, the key is to favor the latter. Although the copper will eventually pick up some green and gray tones, we’ll opt for a patinator in the brown/bronze range so that it looks more like the earlier example we templates.
We’ll need to buff the new copper covers with fine steel wool and then clean them up with acetone before applying the darkening solution with a sprayer (rather than a brush, resulting in a more consistent, natural finish) slowly allowing the metal to change into a less salmon colored, less shiny patina. We’ll likely need to repeat the patina solution repeatedly until the copper covers darken sufficiently.
Time for a progress report on the garapa paneling that will soon embellish the icehouse bathroom. We started out gently easing the edges, but several iterations later we’ve settled on a full roundover. Here’s why…
Garapa Edge Profiles v1.0 (Photo: Geo Davis)
Roundover Rewind
Because the garapa upcycling backstory helps illuminate the decision to edge these boards with a diminutive roundover, let’s rewind the time machine. The garapa we’ll be installing in the icehouse bathroom as paneling began service at Rosslyn back in 2008 as decking, and it served admirably for almost a decade and a half, enduring summer feasts and foot stomping fêtes, winter snow and ice, and all manner of wear-and-tear. Last summer we deconstructed the deck, not because it was failing, but because the TimberSIL substructure was kaput.
Grading Garapa for Upcycling (Photo: Tony Foster)
After dismantling the old deck we sorted out the best garapa decking boards for upcycling; “cherry picked” and inventoried the best-of-the-best material to ensure sufficient linear footage for adaptive reuse in the icehouse; and then began the painstaking process of trimming, re-dimensioning, planing, and grooving the edges that will be conjoined with garapa splines during installation.
A little over a month ago Peter experimented with several profiles. He started by just barely breaking/easing the edge two ways: sand paper and a single pass with a hand plane at 45°. Too subtle. He eased slightly more and then a little more. He also tried a subtle v-groove (two micro-chamfers), and we finally settled on a full roundover. Both the chamfer and round over details were achieved with a handheld trim router and a super small round over bit.
Garapa Edge Profiles v2.0 (Photo: Geo Davis)
Why Roundover?
Why did I make this decision? Because the garapa is repurposed, it is charactered and irregular. Preserving this patina is important to the finished look we’re endeavoring to achieve. A subtle wabi-sabi story is being told not only in the varied lustre and texture of these boards, but also the handworked (ergo slightly irregular) dimensions. When installed there will be some variability in the thickness of the boards. The roundover will create a shadow line while accommodating the slight inconsistency from board to board, and the quarter round profile will be less severe than the 45° chamfer would have been. I’m hoping that it will all come together with a a subtle horizontal linearity that creates cohesion for the well worn wood.
Tony Roundover Edging Garapa (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Well Worn & Well Worked
It’s worth noting that the age and patina were showcasing with this upcycled lumber has only been made viable through the guidance of Hroth, Peter, and Pam and Tony’s devoted attention and immeasurable hard work over many months. I joke with Tony that he’s investing lots of love into transforming this material. From debris to centerpiece. In the photo above he’s roundover edging boards that he’s literally been working and reworking since last September or October. That’s a LOT of love!
What essays give you is a mind at work. — Robert Atwan (“Return of the Essay“)
This possibility provides the seed for today’s consideration.
Essaying: A Mind at Work (Photo: Geo Davis)
Observing a Mind at Work
Imagine being able to observe the inner workings of a person’s mind while they compose an essay. While they try to compose an essay. Essaying is, after all, a trial. An attempt. An endeavoring toward some coalescence of idea(s) and words capable of infecting a reader with the same wonder and possibly even the same conclusion(s) as the author.
Imagine being able to eavesdrop in the mind of an essayist sifting memories and sorting experiences; distilling spirits from the fruits of life; alchemizing diverse inputs in the hopes of discerning a cohesive structure; deciphering data to reveal a design; disentangling a narrative from the muddled mess.
Although my notes didn’t wander into the realm of “voyeurism”, it comes to mind. Let’s conveniently sidestep the unseemly side of voyeurism (ie. sexual connotations) that definitely does NOT apply in the present context, but let’s preserve the notion of observing. The voyeurism of a mind at work. Interpolation into the curiosity and yearning; the mixology of memory or massaging of notions; the eureka arrivals and the labyrinthine dead-ends; an intimate perspective on the sculpting of ideas, the attempt at synthesizing and conjoining and creating a mental map that guides us to the hidden treasure.
There is nothing more exciting than to follow a live, candid mind thinking on the page, exploring uncharted waters. — Phillip Lopate, “Reflection and Retrospection: A Pedagogic Mystery Story” in To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction (New York: Free Press, 2013), p. 43.
At the time as I was reading Tiberghien I wrote in my notes, “This memoir really involves an opening up of my skull…” A touch melodramatic in retrospect. I went on to extend this metaphorical laying open with an introspective inventory and assessment of the previous four years which we’d poured into rehabilitating Rosslyn. My decision-making, Susan’s decision-making, our collective decision-making. The way that we were living, adjusting to a more-or-less completed home revitalization. An internal dialogue and a revisiting of conversations spanning about four times longer than we’d allotted at the outset, running dialogues with contractors, family, and friends about the outsized project we’d undertaken (and at last survived!) Contemplating a landscape of memories, considering how our quest to catalyze this adventure from beginning to end had become a journey that neither of us really had anticipated.
I’m still — thirteen years after first wrestling with the idea of essaying — relying on the navigational tools of essay to help me sort through this Rosslyn chapter. “A mind at work”… “exploring uncharted waters.” Again. For the first time. A mind endeavoring to make sense of circumstance. Trying to connect the dots, to find meaning in a catalogue of events, victories, disasters,…
What began with restoring a house into a home as a way to reboot our lives became a collective journey shared by many, not just Susan and me. Everyone that worked on this +/-4 year long adventure. And our families. Our friends. Our neighbors.
And although this project long since evolved beyond the capacity of an essay, many of the blog posts are composed as essays. It’s an intertwined collection of essays and poems and field notes nominally held together by a central subject, Rosslyn, but really sprawling into something else, a sort of three dimensional mosaic. A mind at work. The story of a house, yes, but more so, the story of our relationship with home.
Call it a 184-day streak. Or call it dogged determination. Either way I have 181 days to go until I reach my goal. And with each new post, each small victory, I am growing more and more confident that I will accomplish my mission of 365 posts, one complete year of daily updates beginning on August 1, 2022 and concluding on July 31, 2023.
So how to commemorate this midpoint milestone? With 6 months down and 6 months to go, it feels momentous enough to pause and praise my good fortune. But should this benchmark be acknowledged with a celebratory salute? A solemn ceremony? A toast, my first spirited sip after 31 days of teetotaling? (Yesterday marked the conclusion of my 7th or 8th, maybe even my 9th “dry January”.) Or perhaps a decadent dessert after a sugar free month? (For some sadomasochistic reason I’ve decided in recent years to add a sugar fast to alcohol abstention during the month of January, a timely recovery after the excesses of Thanksgiving-through-New Years…) A new month (ie. rabbit-rabbit) ritual transcending the delicious dinner I shared with Jim and Mark two nights ago at Juniper?
Slow Cooked Whole Rabbit: cumin, blood orange and smoked paprika glazed, corn tortillas, chimichurri, salsa fresca, refried beans (Source: Juniper at Hotel Vermont)
Maybe a romantic romp with my bride who suggested, upon retrieving me from the airport yesterday, that we celebrate a belated anniversary to compensate for the one we missed this past autumn when she was unwell. 17 years of marriage and 21 years together. I’m incredulous even as I type these numbers. Neither seems remotely possible. But my 50th birthday seemed similarly inaccurate this past spring, and I’m obliged to accept it.
Or how about we honor the 200th anniversary of Rosslyn’s front façade, ostensibly completed in 1823? (Apparently 3/5 of the building — the two window portion to the north of the entrance, as well as the entrance itself — was completed in 1820. The remaining 2/5, including the two windows to the south of the entrance and comprising the dining room downstairs, a guest bedroom and Susan’s study on the second floor, and another guest bedroom on the third floor, was most likely finished three years later in 1823, fulfilling the the architectural promise of this classic Federal home with Georgian and Greek Revival elements.
An auspicious confluence of milestones and anniversaries. I’m choosing to interpret this is a good omen even as I nevertheless acknowledge that I’ve meandered from my original mark, hoisting the flag at my halfway point, mid-journey in my post-a-day quest. I recall an earlier waypoint in this quest, an update I published on October 10, 2022 when I was still just shy of halfway to where I am today.
Yesterday marked ten weeks of old house journaling. Every. Single. Day. Two months and ten days back at the helm of this wayward, meandering, sometimes unruly experiment I call Rosslyn Redux. I emphasize the daily component of this benchmark because it’s been an important part of the goal I committed to at the end of July. (Source: Old House Journaling)
Then as now my emphasis on everyday journaling remains a top priority.
Over the last few years, Susan and I have scrutinized our hopes and expectations with Rosslyn. We have reevaluated our plans as they originally were in 2006 when we embarked on this adventure and as those plans evolved during the decade and a half since. It’s been an extended period of introspection, evaluating our current wants and needs, endeavoring to align our future expectations and goals with respect to one another and with respect to Rosslyn, and challenging one another to brainstorm beyond the present.
There’s no question but that our impromptu quarantine at Rosslyn during the spring and summer of 2021 catalyzed some of this soul-searching. But so too have the many life changes in recent years. Our gradual shift toward Santa Fe as our base and Essex as our getaway rather than the other way around. The loss of Susan’s mother. My parents’ retirement near us in Santa Fe. Our nephews and nieces growing up and expanding their orbits far beyond Rosslyn. A perennially postponed but driving desire to collaborate on a smaller, efficient, creative lakeside home of a different DNA altogether, an unrepressable will to imagine into existence the sort of slow cooked (albeit shapeshifting) and highly experimental homestead we originally envisioned in 2003-5 when we first began to explore our Adirondack Coast homecoming. And there is that hiccup in our 2006 original timeline, our 2-4 year vision for homing at Rosslyn until we’d managed to reboot and reground, until we were ready for our next adventure. Those naive expectations were eclipsed — willingly and joyfully — within the first year or two.
So what does this have to do with my daily Rosslyn updates?
Everything.
In committing to this daily practice last summer I was acknowledging that I had some serious work to do. In order for us to constructively sort through out collective vision for the future, to determine whether we’re too fond of Rosslyn to proceed with plans for designing and building the lakeside retreat we’ve conjured over the years, to honestly assess our willingness and our readiness to hand this sanctuary over to another family, both Susan and I are undertaking the sort of “deep work” that will hopefully enable us to make some decisions. I’m talking about 100% honest, prolonged consideration. Rosslyn has quite literally been a part of our family, and not just our nuclear family. Can we untangle her? Are we willing to let her go? Can we joyfully pass the privilege on to new custodians? Or are we not yet ready?
For me this daily practice, digging deep into sixteen and a half years of living and loving Rosslyn, is my time and place to work through these questions. To sort it all out. To find peace and confidence in my convictions. And six months in, I believe that I’m on the right path. Not all the time. There have certainly been some tangles and tangents that got away from me before I realized what was happening and reined them in. But the constant conversation — *internal* as I study, reflect, and compose these installments as well as *external* as I share these updates and then interact with many of you — is reinvigorating and reawakening Rosslyn from her comfortable slumber (and me from mine!)
So this midpoint milestone is a profoundly significant benchmark for me personally. It’s the tangible representation of my germinating confidence and clarity. It’s the measurable mean between a conflicted outlook and the conviction I’m hoping to discover over the next six months. In a real sense, it’s a halfway point toward the sort of rehabilitation that we’ve been undertaking with Rosslyn’s buildings and grounds since 2006, only in this case the journey is profoundly personal. Instead of historic architectural rehabilitation, it is restoration of my innermost wonder, my romantic dreams, and my idealistic hopes. With passion reawakened and a map forward becoming more apparent each day, I’m tempted to see this benchmark as the sort of celebration enjoyed upon finally reaching a base camp, a lofty peak viewable in the distance foreshadows the ambitious ascent ahead but also offers a majestic affirmation of the reachability and proximity of the summit. Today marks just such a halfway point, an opportunity to appreciate the accomplishments so far, and an incentive to forge ahead.
In some respects, the most significant icehouse rehab alteration, at least to the exterior and surroundings, is the grade change north and west of the existing building and the new hardscape that will integrate this area with the rest of Rosslyn’s lawns and gardens.
Icehouse Hardscape Collage (Credit: Geo Davis)
In the collage above, an interesting perspective captured with a drone (a view unlikely to ever be witnessed in typical, non-drone circumstances) portrays the icehouse from the northeast some thirty feet or so up in the air. Perhaps a bird’s-eye view or a squirrel’s-eye view.
Overlaid across the photograph (with no implied correlation between the location of the drawing and the photo it marks up), the simple line drawing offers some rudimentary plans and relationships for further site work, finalizing slopes and grade changes. In addition it generally maps out the locations of stone edging/walls and stone steps that will be constructed out of locally quarried limestone that was salvaged from existing deconstructed foundations and cisterns during our 2006-8 home renovations as well as a more recent discovery of an old stone cistern while replanting the evergreen hedge along the northern perimeter of Rosslyn’s front lawn. In other words, these new hardscape features will be reimagined out of repurposed materials likely dating to the 1800s when the original homestead was constructed. New hardscape with an old history.
At the outset of this sprawling experiment I call Rosslyn Redux I needed a way to describe the vision (as much for myself as for visitors to the About page.) So, in the springtime of this journey I settled on the only real point of clarity: Rosslyn Redux would be the story of a house. I anticipated some of the interwoven elements (my still new marriage, our lifestyle changes, NYC-to-Essex pivot, etc.) that inevitably would find their way into the pages.
Rosslyn, November 8, 2004 (Photos: Jason McNulty)
Here’s a snippet from that early attempt to define my intentions.
Rosslyn Redux is the story of a house and the idiosyncrasies (and absurdities) of renovation, marriage and North Country life…
With 20/20 hindsight I’d likely replace “house” with “home” or “historic home”. Or even “homestead”. But in those naive early days I did not yet understand how profoundly my notion of home and “homeness” would evolve through my relationship, indeed Susan and my relationship, with Rosslyn.
In fact, with the benefit of time and perspective, there’s plenty that I would change in this preliminary vision, but for the moment let’s just dig a little deeper into the relationship and distinction between house and home.
Rosslyn, November 8, 2004 (Photos: Jason McNulty)
Old House, New Home
Per various accounts it looks as if the first phase of Rosslyn’s construction was completed and the property was occupied circa 1820. Records vary, and the succession of additions and alterations likely accounts for some of the confusion. But however you look at it this historic house and property is a couple of centuries old. at the heart of our journey was an effort to transform this old house into a new home.
Actually, in rereading that last sentence, I’m feeling uncomfortable with the idea that we have transformed Rosslyn. Certainly there is/was an element of transformation, but one of the lessons that we’ve learned with and through Rosslyn is the importance of reawakening a home rather than turning into something different from what it already was.
Rosslyn, November 8, 2004 (Photos: Jason McNulty)
Reawakening Home
Much of our early design and architectural brainstorming involved identifying and removing previous owners’ attempts at transforming Rosslyn. Layers of makeovers and alterations were carefully, slowly peeled away until we could simplify and integrate the design back into a cohesive whole. Cohesion and integration. Guiding principles for us even now as we undertake the adaptive reuse of the icehouse.
Aside from the somewhat arrogant and hubristic potential in setting out to transform Rosslyn, we’ve discovered that attempting to overlay newness, fashion, trends, and so forth onto four impressive buildings that have withstood the tests and temper tantrums of time misses many opportunities to learn from (and through) Rosslyn’s. It also preempts the potential for us to change and grow, allowing Rosslyn to inform and broaden and deepen our understanding of homeness.
Rosslyn, November 8, 2004 (Photos: Jason McNulty)
In other words, reawakening Rosslyn has been an opportunity to reawaken ourselves. (Still working on this idea, so I’m hoping for your forbearance as I learn how to better articulate this.)
In closing, I recommend a short film by Ann Magee Coughlin that I rewatched recently. Her story of a house is different from ours, but the richness and texture of history that can coalesce within an old home resonates with me in the context of our efforts to reawaken an old house as a new home.
