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Rifle-ready aerating at Rosslyn (Image by virtualDavis, Fall, ’11)
“Mornin’,” Wes said as he pulled the pantry door shut behind him and greeted Griffin with a scratch behind the ears.
“Good morning,” I called back from the kitchen where I was scrambling eggs.
“You don’t want me to run that thing on the tennis court, do ya?” he asked, referring to the lawn aerator we had rented in Plattsburgh the day before.
Wesley Hackett had been working for us since the spring of 2005. He’d been a member of the contracting team that renovated the Lapine House, and then we rolled him over to work on Rosslyn. When our historic rehabilitation was complete (Is it ever complete? Rehab ad infinitum…) he stayed on as caretaker, quickly a becoming a jack of all trades who we relied upon heavily.
I’d wanted to revitalize our lawns, especially the front lawn where contractors had parked and pallets of material have been offloaded and stored throughout our endless renovation project. I was especially concerned about the compacted soil beneath the old ginkgo tree, the maple trees and the basswood.
But projects lead on to other projects, and it was the autumn of 2011 before we finally managed to rent an aerator to fill our lawns with small holes. The first step toward healthier grass and healthier trees.
“Good question, Wes. I didn’t think about that.”
The clay tennis court probably dated back to Sherwood Inn days. It was located northwest of the ice house and had long since been converted into a perfectly level lawn suitable for crocket and volleyball when the weather was nice and a grassy pond when rainy days stacked up.
“I was just thinking about the clay, you know?”
“You’re probably right. You don’t want to get bogged down in clay. Let’s skip the tennis court and focus on whatever else remains around the carriage barn and back around the gardens.”
“That’s what I figured. Just thought I’d check.”
“Thanks for asking.”
“Oh, and by the way… Do you think you could advance me $300? I mean, you’ll probably be paying me tomorrow anyway, so I could pay you back.”
The day the gingko leaves fell (Image by virtualDavis)
I’d finished cooking and plating my eggs and was headed into the morning room to eat.
“It’s just the simple fact that Elvin wants to sell me his rifle ’cause he needs the money quick. It’s worth $1,500 easy, but, like I say, he needs the money, so…”
“Planning to get back into the woods?”
“A little bit. You know, some.” When Wes first started working for us he hunted for deer each fall, but several times over the last couple of years he’d mentioned that he really didn’t do it anymore.
“I’ll talk with Susan, but seems to me that it might just make sense to pay you early since we won’t be here Friday.”
“That’d be perfect. Maybe before lunch? I told Elvin I’d come by during lunch if I could do it.”
I’ll change gears from Rosslyn boathouse and waterfront snapshots to a few garden harvest memories.
We had enormous luck with melons this season despite a slow start. Actually, our luck was mixed. We grew about thirty medium sized cantaloups, but the squirrels (and raccoons?) devoured them as they ripened, successfully gobbling up every fruit before we could harvest it.
We had better luck with watermelons which either enticed the wild critters less or were better protected by virtue of their hard, thick rinds.
And a half dozen heirloom varieties of eggplant (eighteen plants) produced a bumper crop. Although we’ve grown eggplant for three or four years with decent luck, this summer was something else. The plants exploded up out of the drought cracked soil, quickly rising above my knees and in many cases reaching all the way to my waist.
We harvested literally hundreds of huge, glossy, delicious eggplant for over three months. We ate them every day. We gave them away. We even learned how to preserve them for mid-winer enjoyment.
I grilled and froze eggplant and blanched and froze tomatoes. I even cooked up (and froze) a sizable batch of Khoresht-e Bademjan, a Persian eggplant stew which we’ll devour this winter when the garden is three feet deep in snow!
The “skinny eggplant” photo was taken before slicing and baking them for the Khoresht-e Bademjan. In addition to several long, slender varieties, we grew several large purplish black varieties and pale purple striped varieties. (I’ve previously grown white eggplants, but skipped them this year.)
The eggplant were added to the tomato sauce which I stewed down from these yellow tomatoes, white wine, garlic and minced onion. The house smelled divine!
It was a challenging exercise in restraint to prepare Khoresht-e Bademjan to freeze and eat several months later without allowing “taste tests” to become “chow time”! But most of the eggplant stew is now frozen and ready for a snowy day.
During the same post-workshop burst of enthusiasm for food preservation I explored preparing and freezing stuffed peppers. Turns out they’re better eaten right away. So I picked a half dozen of the biggest sweet peppers; stuffed them with minced chopped/sauteed mushrooms, onions, garlic, piñon nuts and quinoa; and slow-baked them for a delicious dinner. Ah, the harvest…
Of course, Adirondack Autumn isn’t all stormy weather and culinary experimentation. The same chill which revitalizes the heat-stupored mind and sweetens the apples, pears and grapes chills the ankles.
That’s right, fall is marked by a return to socks.
For the first time in months the end of September found me sliding my paws into foot mittens each morning, a subtle reminder, day after day, that retrains the brain into cold weather survival mode after a summer of wild abandon. A small detail you say?
Perhaps.
For you. But not for me.
This Adirondack autumn has remained relatively mild and dry, though we did have a rainy stretch in October that caused Lake Champlain‘s water level to rise rapidly. The rising water posed some challenges for the stone retaining wall we’ve been rebuilding along the northern half of our waterfront, ongoing repairs to damage caused by the 2011 spring floods. We raced to complete the most critical stone and mortar work while the water was still low enough for the tractor to operate on the beach. Given the massive stones used to build the stone wall in the 1800s, a tractor loader and backhoe are a big help! Unfortunately the rapidly rising water reduced the time we could rely on the tractor, and the crew finished the work by hand, relying on levers and pulleys and winches instead of steel and hydraulics and diesel to perform the feats of brawn.
Next week I’ll feature a few snapshots that capture the natural lighting change that is part of Adirondack autumn.
At first I thought it was a mushroom. So many have covered Rosslyn’s lawns in recent weeks. Small, delicate, off-white mushrooms that look as if they escaped from a fantasy story. Or droopy, brown capped mushrooms like you might’ve drawn as a child. And sometimes these round globe mushrooms emerge overnight. Some are small, lacrosse ball small, and others grow nearly as large as volleyballs. The day before there was nothing but soggy, green grass. And then, magically, a lily white ghost fungus appears. Or an armada of lily white ghosts…
This morning, while inspecting our young orchard with Griffin, I spied what I initially expected to be a newborn lacrosse ball mushroom.
My spirits (and vision) were inevitably soggy. It’s been raining for weeks. In fact, with a few rare exceptions it seems to have rained ever since we returned from the desert southwest in late May. I’ve shared with you the emotional roller coaster of the Lake Champlain lake level which after weeks of rising now [crossing fingers, arms, legs and eyes] appears to have crested.
I’ll save the water drama details for another post. The broken boat lift. The sunken dock. Our ski boat tethered to submerged docks at the marina. A vegetable garden better suited to rice farming. And I haven’t told you about the fact that Rosslyn’s basement flooded several weeks ago. And then again a week later. I may. In time. For now I’m cultivating amnesia. It’s been that bad, especially when the weekly weather forecasts promise more of the same. Rain, rain, rain.
So this morning, after feeding Griffin, I headed out to the meadow behind the carriage barn to check and see how the vegetable garden and orchard were surviving in the rain.
Short answer? Not well!
The garden is a swamp, eutrophying with thigh high weeds. It’s difficult to distingish eggplants and peppers and tomatoes from weeds. A swampy jungle. A miniature rain forest. For some reason the corn seems to be the least weed infested area, but the cucumbers and zucchini and melons and leeks are totally obscured in unwelcome and uninvited but thriving invasive foliage. The almost insurmountable task of weeding out the entire bed is trumped only by the fact that another 10 days of rain if forecasted before we’ll be able to get in and do much of anything. Enticing scenario.
Apple tree browsed by deer
And if that’s not discouraging enough, there are other surprises to be had in the orchard. I recently opted to remove all of the deer cages around the fruit trees. Several of the trees have literally outgrown their cages, but the main reason I removed them was to make ongoing weeding and pruning easier. I hadn’t detected any deer in the backyard since winter, and Griffin has been undertaking a twice daily (each morning and evening) urinary tour of the orchard and vegetable garden.
But it turns out I was overly optimistic.
The deer, too wise to fool, took advantage. A half-dozen young apple trees have been browsed. I’m optimistic that they will recover, but the damage is severe. They’ve eaten not only most of the foliage, but almost all of the new growth, and even most of the young scaffold branches.
Mysterious speckled egg upon closer inspection, shell broken.
So, with a heavy heart and frenzied fingers I begin to “stroll” through Amazon via my iPhone app, looking for organic deer deterrents. Distracted. Wandering. Then I discovered the mysterious speckled egg. That’s right, what at first eluded me as a mushroom born of too much rain, turned out to be a large eggshell. I say large, but in truth it’s only large for the sort of eggshells I usually see around the yard in the spring. Songbirds, robins, etc. I did see several beautiful sky blue robin eggs this spring, but this speckled eggshell was slightly larger then a chicken egg. The coloring is relatively accurate in the photograph: slightly off-white, maybe closer to café au lait than the white of a puffball, and speckled. Small brown markings dapple the surface. I assume the mystery bird had already hatched as the shell was empty, though only a small area of the underside of the egg was broken away. It was sitting in the middle of the grass, in the middle of the orchard.
What sort of bird hatched from it? Where had it gone. Was it safe and sound and dry? Or perhaps the shell was dropped here by a crow after a protein-rich brunch…
It occurs to me that it might be the egg of a duck, one of the many mallard families which congregate along our waterfront. Or a member of the family of mallard ducklings I photographed in our years earlier this spring. Or a merganser…
I don’t know, but something about this fragile symbol of beginning countered my damp spirits. And for that I am exceptionally grateful.
Wild Turkey Egg?
Guinea Egge, Turkey Eggs & Peafowl Egg
Many thanks to Katie Shepard for her sleuthing. She lead me to this comparison of eggs image which shows an egg that looks suspiciously similar to the shell I found. In the photograph, the brownish egg on the far left is from a guinea hen, and the egg on the far right if from a peafowl. But those two middle eggs are from turkeys. The larger turkey egg with well pronounced brown speckles is a ringer!
And given our high population of wild turkeys, even after the kamikaze turkey episode, it makes plenty of sense that this egg hatched a baby wild turkey. Just yesterday morning I startled four large turkey that were right next to our back deck, looking for breakfast among the zinnias.
“I look at it as an excavation, if you will,” says the architect. (New England Home)
The architect, Pete Lackey of Charles Myer and Partners in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is referring to “taking the long view” on renovation, specifically to reawakening the heart and soul of a building instead of willfully or inadvertently altering it.
I wanted to touch and smell and hear Rosslyn in order to understand her… I wanted to ensure that we wouldn’t impose our own will haphazardly onto those of the house… I considered it arrogant to impose our dreams upon Rosslyn without first trying to understand her dreams. I wanted to listen to the old house, to hear what she was trying to tell us. (Reawakening Rosslyn)
In our case, understanding Rosslyn involved literally and figuratively excavating the historic home. During the fall/winter of 2006 a local excavator began disinterring the western end of the ell (addition) in order to identify and resolve the cause of major water to the house. This project was interrupted by the arrival of snow and resumed in the spring. By then we had seen enough of the subterranean foundation problems to redefine the water remediation scope of work. But the time we resumed excavation in the spring of 2007, the scope of the project had already mushroomed.
Excavating the perimeter of the house revealed generations of alterations and revisions, and it disclosed three distinct underground, gravity fed sources of water entering the basement. All three were originally part of a cistern and rain water collection system most likely dating back to the construction of the house in about 1820. They had been long since abandoned, but the terrra cotta pipes still delivered an endless flow of water into the basement beneath layers of rubble, debris, etc.
Excavating Rosslyn's Basement, Winter 2006
The most affected area of the house — the basement beneath our current living room — required hand excavation of thousands of pounds of clay and debris which had collected over two centuries. Three other men and I spent a long weekend working long days with picks, shovels and wheelbarrows to remove the material. Exhausting! And profoundly fulfilling.
In both of these cases the excavation exposed problems and solutions. In many other cases, especially those in which the excavations were less literal, the history and mystery of Rosslyn compounded before clarity or resolution emerged. In many cases, I still have more questions than answers.
Between 1820 and 2006, Rosslyn had been modified and updated and neglected and abbreviated so often that the house had become a puzzle of disconnected parts. We wanted to rediscover Rosslyn’s continuity, her wholeness. By digging through her basement and walls and a vast archive compiled by the previous owner we gradually deciphered most of her mysteries, permitting us to rehabilitate her in a fashion consistent with her heritage.
This quest underlies much of the Rosslyn Redux memoir, and I dabble a bit with the idea of archaeology and — more precisely — the idea of “archaeology of home” to help chronicle this quest. At least as much of my energy went into analyzing artifacts (bricked up window apertures, wallpaper clinging to walls buried behind newer walls, cracking photographs of Rosslyn discovered on eBay, sketches and drawings of original moldings and window details) as it did into hiring and supervising contractors.
It is this journey as much as the renovation story which I hope to communicate in my story, and with a little luck, it won’t take you as long to read it as it took my bride and me to live it… No promises!
I’ve just concluded a Champlain Area Trails (CATS) board meeting on a high note. Or, to be more precise, a fellow board member finished the meeting on a high note by handing me this handsome painting of our boathouse during drier times.
Bill Amadon — Essex based gardener, trail builder and painter — has created several other romantic images that adorn Rosslyn’s walls, but the timing for this image couldn’t have better. After a difficult week of record-breaking Lake Champlain water levels flooding Rosslyn’s boathouse, Amadon’s painting reminds us of the structure’s past and future. Soggy today, this weather-worn icon will endure long into the future.
Today I noticed Amadon photographing the flooded boathouse before our meeting. I wonder if he’ll memorialize the flood with another beautiful painting. And if so, hopefully we’ll be able to look back on the history making floods of 2011 with nostalgia. But for now, we’re still struggling to get through the high water risks. This morning my bride and Doug Decker, the carpenter-turned-jack-of-all-trades-handyman who caretakes Rosslyn removed about 2,000 pounds of waterlogged driftwood, tree trunks and miscellaneous debris floating from our waterfront.
As we pack our bags for four days in the Utah desert, our feelings have been mixed. On the one hand, we welcome the escape from rain and flooding. On the other, we depart with heavy hearts, anxious with the knowledge that we won’t be here to intervene if the wind picks up and the waves begin to batter the submerged boathouse and shoreline. A 40-50 foot tree with a trunk almost 18″ thick lurks just south of the boathouse, too heavy and too entangled in shoreline brush to be removed. Heavy winds out of the south could dislodge the tree and heave it repeatedly against the boathouse. The damage would be grave. Or a heavy wind out of the east could further erode the banks that are already badly undermined and failing. Large trees are at risk of collapsing into the lake, and the pavement of Route 22 which runs above the bank is already cracking as the lakeside begins to collapse.
These are the worries. These are the anxieties. And yet we are leaving. Our trip had been scheduled long before the floods, and we’re unable to change or cancel them. And we’re both suspicious that the desert may be just the antidote to this soggy saga. So we throw ourselves upon the mercy of nature and our friends to preserve our property.
Doug will spend the days until we return on Monday evening working upstairs in the boathouse, finishing trim woodwork and oiling the fir beadboard. He’ll be able to keep a close watch on the wind and waves and debris. If circumstances threaten, he will attempt to remedy the problem by redirecting or removing logs. Or by resecuring materials that are loosened by the waves. If conditions worsen further, several friends have offered to come and help out. In short, our friends and neighbors are lending a hand. So we can depart tomorrow morning confident that those who care about us, those who care about the boathouse and property will intervene if needed.
Amadon’s painting provided just the confidence boost I needed to board the plane, a memory rekindled for what the boathouse looked like in the past and what it will hopefully look like again this summer. Thanks to all who’ve helped us through this experience!
When I stumble upon artifacts specific to Rosslyn or Essex or Lake Champlain or the Adirondacks I’m usually unable to resist collecting and showcasing them for others to enjoy. Often I can explain precisely why the artifact is of interest, but other times I’m unable to explain clearly, succinctly the appeal. Today’s discovery is fated to this latter purgatory I’m afraid.
1882 Harper’s Weekly: Children’s Excursion to Lake Champlain
This antique print appeared at auction but its purchase eluded me. It would have been nice to get a closer look, and to properly decipher the artist’s name (not 100% ineligible in this digital facsimile).
According to the auction listing, the page was pulled from the July 1882 issue of Harper’s Weekly, and the title offers a glimpse into the narrative it was illustrating.
THE “TRIBUNE” FRESH-AIR FUND—CHILDREN’S EXCURSION TO LAKE CHAMPLAIN
Harper’s Weekly, July 1882
This evocative antique drawing captures the hope and energy of a children’s book illustration, inviting daydreams of carefree country living along the shores of Lake Champlain.
There’s plenty to appreciate in this drawing. My eye is especially drawn to the vignette subtitled “At a bee swarming” and located near the center of the image. While the drama of finding and trapping a bee swarm (presumably to populate a bee hive) is the clear focus of this freeze-frame, it’s the background which leaps out at me. Do you see building boasting a sunburst ornamented pediment? The architectural illustration may or may not have been inspired by a visit to Essex on Lake Champlain, but it certainly appears likely!
Nor’easter Neige: boathouse, February 4, 2021 (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Nor’easter delivered 10-12” of fluffy powder to our stretch of the Adirondack Coast, and it sure looks postcard perfect. Or, almost postcard perfect…
Any idea what’s just shy of midwinter Adirondack Coast perfection? Look at the water beyond the boathouse.
It’s February and Lake Champlain is still wide open. No ice. It seems that this has increasingly become the new normal. Open water in February. It certainly does challenge skaters!
Nor’easter Neige: carriage barn and icehouse, February 4, 2021 (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
But, of course, rotating 180° and looking West the unfrozen lake vanishes and winter wonderland is assured. Time to strap on hbd cross-country skis and head out to Rosslyn’s fields and forests. Come along!
Crib Dock more and more exposed in front of Rosslyn boathouse. (September 12, 2016)
Whether you call it climate change, “nature’s sense of humor”, or something else, Lake Champlain’s water level is raising eyebrows. Back in 2011 we experienced the highest lake levels in recorded history. Five years later lake levels are flirting with the lowest record.
The highest recorded level at the gage in Burlington was 103.27 feet above mean sea level on May 6, 2011.The minimum lake level observed in Burlington was 92.61 feet above mean sea level on December 4, 1908. (Source: USGS Lake Gage at ECHO)
As of today (September 14, 2016) Lake Champlain is 94.07 feet above see level. Lake Champlain has dropped just over four feet since this spring’s not-so-high high, and an annual drop of about five feet (from spring to late autumn) is normal.
In other words, we’re unlikely to break the all time record for Lake Champlain’s lowest recorded water level, but it’s not impossible. And yet, record-busting aside, this is by far the lowest lake levels we’ve witnessed since purchasing Rosslyn, and by far our best chance to study the old crib dock extending out into the lake from Rosslyn’s boathouse.
Crib Dock Brainstorms
When we first imagined ourselves living at Rosslyn, we mostly daydreamed about the waterfront. And while the boathouse was the most enticing component of the waterfront, the former docks/piers interested us as well. We’re avid boaters, and we hoped that one or the other of the old crib docks would be recoverable so that we could enjoy convenient access to our boats.
Although neither of us can quite believe it, a decade has already snuck past since we first took ownership of Rosslyn. Ten years of gradual renovation, revitalization, rehabilitation,… And yet, many of the projects on our original punch list continue to be deferred.
For a variety of reasons restoring one of Rosslyn’s historic docks has eluded us so far. But this summer’s incredibly low water level has resuscitated our hopes that one day we’ll be able to transition from the aluminum docks we’ve been using to a refurbished crib dock pier. In recent weeks my imagination has been running wild, scheming up simple, practical solutions to the challenge of repairing a failing/failed crib dock.
I’ll post again with more detailed photographs of the crib dock in front of boathouse since it’s the most recently extant of the historic piers, and I will also find older photographs of the dock to better show what it used to look like. Until then I’d like to share some intriguing excerpts from a story produced by Brian Mann for NCPR back in December 1, 2014, How a North Country family harnessed an Adirondack river. Mann took an insightful look at a dam on the St. Regis River that was rebuilt by Wadhams resident and hydropower guru, Matt Foley, along with his brother-in-law, and nephew.
While the St. Regis crib dam is an altogether different beast than the crib dock in front of our boathouse, both are simple but sound timber and stone structures that post similar reconstruction challenges. I’ll share my current idea anon, but first I offer you several relevant riffs from Mann’s story.
Historic, Hyperlocal Crib Dam Rebuild
With the temporary coffer dam (on the left) diverting the St. Regis River, a local crew laid in a crib of tamarack logs stuffed and weighted with rock and boulders. (Source: NCPR)
This summer [2014], a family that owns hydro-dams in Essex and Franklin counties rebuilt the historic log dam [in St. Regis Falls] using local labor and materials. Using 19th century techniques, the Smiths and the Foleys preserved a dam that generates power and creates an important impoundment on the St. Regis River…
“We went to old books [Emmett Smith said]. We went to books from the turn of the century about how you build wooden timber crib dams.”
The last couple of years it was clear this structure needed to be replaced entirely after decades of floods and ice, partial repairs just weren’t cutting it any more. The family tried to find financing for a concrete dam, but that would have cost three or four times as much and the money just wasn’t there. So they went back to tradition, using native wood and stone…
Building the dam this way meant they could use local materials. But they could also use local guys. Crews from the North Country built the big stone coffer dam to divert the river while the log dam was rebuilt. They milled the big tamarack logs and hauled the rock…
Emmett says building this way was necessity. “Us doing it together and building this log structure in a traditional way is pastoral, but we didn’t do it this way for the poetry of it. It was a question of cost. This is the only way we could do it. This was the cheapest way we could do it. It had to happen now and the price of power is so low that this was the only way it was going to get done.”
[…]
There was a time when they did consider letting this dam go. There were so many hurdles, so many risks, and so little certainty of reward. But Matt Foley says rebuilding was important for the family and for the community of St. Regis Falls.
“This dam has a pond that’s six miles long with twelve dozen houses on it and big wetlands,” he says. “So in addition to our generating plant, the town people here have a vested interest in having a dam here.” (Source: How a North Country family harnessed an Adirondack river | NCPR News)
Takeaways
I’ve promised to share my current thinking (as well as some past/present photos) soon, but for now I’d like to close by highlighting a few points that resonated with me.
a traditional (i.e. “old school”) repair/rebuild would be preferable to a new dock;
even a quasi-traditional hybrid would preferable to replacing historic crib dock with a modern alternative;
local lumber, stone, and labor would be more historic, more aesthetically pleasing, more affordable, more positively impactful to the community, etc.;
pastoral and practical are not mutually exclusive; and
we’ve almost been convinced to give up hope of rehabilitating Rosslyn’s crib dock because there are “so many hurdles, so many risks, and so little certainty of reward”, but we’re not ready to abandon the dream.
I’m still brainstorming, and each time I settle on a possible solution, I’m beset with further challenges. If clever ideas are swimming in your heard, chime in! I’d love to learn from you.
Hroth Framing Windows in Icehouse (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Although sourcing and designing the new windows and doors started this summer, the order wasn’t finalized until late autumn. Rosslyn’s icehouse is a small building, but there were many details to dial-in before production could begin. Precise pitch of the roof (echoed in several windows) and structural integration with windows and doors (especially in the west elevation where the fenestration-to-wall ratio is atypical) were among the challenges that delayed the process. But once the deposit was paid our focus shifted to framing windows.
Icehouse Window Framing Plans with Notes (Photo: Hroth Ottosen)
Starting with the north elevation, the constellation of six windows — three small upper windows echoing the horse stall windows in the carriage barn and three, six-over-six double hung windows, templated from the majority of the windows in the carriage barn — has been framed in. Especial gratitude to Hroth and Eric for jumpstarting this process so that cladding, siding, insulating, electrical installation, etc. can soon follow. Window framing would normally be an exciting step toward natural lighting, but given the lengthy production time on our windows and doors, the rough bucks (window and door framing) will serve as opaque placeholders for a few months longer.
Video Mashup of Framing Windows
Time for a quick zip through framing windows — precisely the first six windows — in the icehouse.
Detail from Steamer Vermont Stereoview, photographed by S.R. Stoddard c. 1870
In the thirteen years since arriving in Essex (or perhaps it’s only the twelve years since purchasing Rosslyn?) I’ve succumbed to a romantic-if-frivolous obsession with local and regional artifacts. Sometimes I’m fortunate enough to document firsthand relics from Essex yesteryear or Lake Champlain yesteryear. Other times I’m afforded a mere glimpse.
That cinematic snapshot above, as moody as it is patinated, falls into the latter category. Like a still from a crumbling film no longer visible. A phantom. A memory. Men aboard the steamship Vermont. Serious, contemplative, well dressed gentlemen (and likely a few imposters) recline or stand solemn on the forward, upper deck as they sail across Lake Champlain.
Who are they? Where are they headed? What is their occupation, their task, their conversation? Who is their haberdasher?!?!
We know only that the photograph, a detail from two images arranged in the stereoview below, was captured by S.R. Stoddard (circa 1870s according to the auction listing). Fading mementos of forgotten travelers. Worn edges and sepia-tinged souvenirs. Formal calligraphy on bright orange cardboard.
Sadly another bidder beat me to this treasure. But others will surface in due course…
Here’s the original stereoview.
Steamer Vermont Stereoview, photographed by S.R. Stoddard c. 1870
Sometimes a trifle is all we need to smile inwardly and lift our spirits. A chuckle. The wink of wonder.
This auction item offered no specific insight into Rosslyn’s yesteryears, nor did it illuminate in any meaningful way our fair village or its environs. But the photo, auction title, and description beguiled me nonetheless. Smile, chuckle, wonder.
Essex Cottage
Let’s start with the title.
Vintage Snapshot Photo 1946 Buick Special Eight & Cottage Lake Champlain Essex NY
Perhaps as early as the late 1940s or maybe the 1950s a snapshot was inspired by a car and cottage in Essex. No people. No lake view or Adirondack panorama. Just a portrait of travel conveyance and travel accommodation.
Before dilating slightly why this otherwise mundane memento intrigued / enchanted / captivated me, let’s read the auction description.
Vintage 1940’s deckle edge snapshot photograph of a Buick Special Eight sedan parked next to a little vacation house or cabin, identified as being at Lake Champlain in Essex, New York.
If the missing deckle edge disappoints you, sorry. I cropped the image and lost the deckle. But if you share my curiosity about the period when Essex was a popular destination for “motor touring” (car travel), then you’ll understand Why this quirky photograph caught my attention.
Nostalgia
There’s an elusive longing that I feel when I look at this photograph. I am 50 years old, so the nostalgia is not firsthand. If the heyday of “motor touring” (and the motor courts and cabin/cottage communities that proliferated during that time) preceded my birth by a decade and more, then what exactly is it that tugs poignantly as if personally relevant and familiar, as if similar a reference point exists in my own younger years?
I’m not certain. On the one hand, I do think that the 30s and 40s and 50s and even the 60s are often romanticized in music and film and art and books. So maybe there’s a sort of inherited nostalgia by way of influences that I’ve experienced through pop culture, etc. even having lived a generation removed from the actual phenomena.
On the other hand there is a small sliver of overlap between my own personal lived experience and the vignette documented in this vintage photograph. It’s this overlap, I suspect, that compels my curiosity about Hillcrest Station & Cabins and Camp-of-the-Pines.
As Susan and I took Rosslyn’s reins in 2006 I found myself inexplicably, irresistibly fascinated with earlier chapters in this property’s history. An almost childlike curiosity kindled my questions and my investigation.
I learned early on that there had been several guest cottages on the property during the days of the Sherwood Inn, possibly located beyond the carriage barn and icehouse. These diminutive guest accommodations had long since vanished, but this only increased my wonder. Where exactly had the Sherwood Inn Cottages been located? Did cars have the ability to pull up to the cottages? Or did they park in a central park area and walk across the lawn? Fix they have running water (i.e. toilets and baths/showers)? Did they have electricity? What sort of design and architectural style? Did they complement or contrast with the home, boathouse, carriage barn, and icehouse? When were they removed? We’re the demo’ed or transported elsewhere?
I suppose my interest is more romantic than nostalgic…
1946 Buick
Let’s parse this nostalgia versus romance distinction.
The cottage in the image above resonated in the same way that the Hillcrest Cabins and Camp-of-the-Pines did for me. All of them harken back to a time when our home was an inn that included a few similar cottages nestled somewhere on the property. To date I’ve been unable to locate photographs of these cottages though I have searched.
While I do have a bit of an obsession with the various narratives and artifacts left behind by those who have come before us, I’m not obsessed with history per se. I love the details. The stories. The patina. The aged and neglected and forgotten detritus of life lived. I’m guardedly optimistic that I will find photographs, maybe vintage postcards, or maybe even a brochure, that will show me what the cabins at the Sherwood Inn looked like. Perhaps the cottage in this photograph stood at the Sherwood Inn? I can’t quite figure out how the perspective might align, but as my interest is largely romantic, it’s not a big leap to conjure this building into a corner of our property. Of course, that doesn’t make it true.
But there is another romantic element at work here as well. I could not have told you the make or model of the car in the photograph, and, frankly, I’m taking it on good faith that the person who listed this auction item titled it incorrectly. But the visual of a 1946 Buick Special Eight inevitably overlaps in my romantic imagination with our 1949 Riley RMB (photos below). I’ve mentioned this handsome automobile in the past, and it’s recently been front of mine again as I evaluate whether or not I should be matching it up with a new owner more passionately committed to its restoration and maintenance.
I’ll close by saying that I did initially bid on this auction, but I bowed out early. My early offer was immediately overshadowed by another. Separating nostalgic from romantic inclinations proved helpful. This distinction has become increasingly important to me as I disentangle the many motives that braided my life and Susan’s life together with Rosslyn’s life over the last 16 years. But I’m wandering afield, teasing a tangent, so I’d best abbreviate this thought for another post. Stay tuned!
In Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke writes, “everything is gestation, then bringing forth”. My daily munge, what others might refer to as daily writing practice or a journal, is my place and process for gestation. It’s a place where I scribble and doodle and scrawl.
Sometimes it’s five hours’ worth of writing; sometimes it’s five minutes.
Anything is fair game for the daily munge, any quotidian artifact that even fleetingly piques my interest. There’s no referee, no editor, no judgment. Not at first.
Like a sculptor’s studio where I can explore an idea that may or may not evolve into a finished work, the daily munge let’s me experiment and carve away and mash the rejects only to pick them up again later to try again. Sometimes a poem or a story or an essay is born; more often I create, curate and then abandon my words.
Very little ever comes out of the daily munge in the short term, and yet most of my completed storytelling and writing had its inception there. Gestation is critical. As is patience and perseverance. I’ve learned these lessons many times, and yet I’m forced to relearn them each time I initiate and complete a new creative project.
Although renovating Rosslyn involved more woodwork and plaster and masonry and paint than the average poem or story, it too was gestation. It too demanded patience and perseverance, more sometimes than my bride and I could muster. Or so it seemed, until at last we were able to bring forth a home, a revitalized historic artifact, a font of memories and stories and lives.
A time capsule, the daily munge preserved the highs and lows of three, almost four years spent renovating Rosslyn. A mosaic of artifacts and memories. A sometimes euphoric, sometimes angry and frequently confused or frustrated tangle of interconnected narratives. This is the material I’ve been exploring and sculpting into Rosslyn Redux. This is the clunky, unedited avalanche of dreams and disappointments and triumphs and compromises that sometimes sweeps me up and plunges me—gasping for air, somersaulting blindly—downward.
Today has been one of those days. I’m trying to remind myself, “everything is gestation, then bringing forth”. I am so damned ready for the bringing forth! Patience. Perseverance. Thank you.
