Once upon a time—starting in about 2005 or 2006 and concluding about a dozen years ago, if memory serves—I was on the board on Historic Essex (formerly Essex Community Heritage Organization, ECHO). Todd Goff, a fellow director, Essex neighbor, and friend, took it upon himself to correct me, differentiating for me “historic preservation” from ” from “historic rehabilitation”. I no longer remember the context, but I expect I was updating him in 2006 or 2007 on our progress in the early days of our mushrooming renovation project. Armed with a keen mind (and master’s degree in preservation), I respected Todd’s knowledge and appreciated his clarification. I expect that I used renovation, restoration, and preservation interchangeably in those days, never stopping to consider the profoundly important differences.
I most likely had not used the historic rehabilitation at all prior to that point, and learning more about it opened my eyes, ignited my curiosity, and kindled my imagination. More on fanciful end of the spectrum anon. For now I’d like to delineate for you historic rehabilitation as I understand it. (And please note that if you, like Mr. Goff, are able to advance my instruction, please advise in the comments below. Thanks in advance.)
J.C. Coatsworth Residence (Antique Postcard)
Preservation vs. Rehabilitation
Less stringent than historic preservation, historic rehabilitation emphasizes maintaining the historic integrity of architectural heritage while balancing its relevant functionality for modern day use.
Both preservation and rehabilitation are sensitive to the imperative of preserving the historic character and value of a resource, but modern functionality weighs more heavily in the case or the latter. When an architecturally significant resource is abandoned or in advanced stages of disrepair, both approaches are viable means of saving and revitalizing the resource. Likewise, both can be complex, painstaking, lengthy, and expensive processes. In fact, sometimes the scope exceeds the means and/or justification for revitalizing a property, and all too often valuable architectural and cultural heritage is indefinitely neglected and eventually lost.
The potential for integrating modern functionality (and therefor relevance) into an historic property can be the difference between its recovery or it neglect.
Sherwood Inn (Antique Postcard)
Defining Historic Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation is defined as the act or process of making possible a compatible use for a property through repair, alterations, and additions while preserving those portions or features which convey its historical, cultural, or architectural values. (Source: U.S. National Park Service)
In short, historic rehabilitation (rehab) is the process by which an historic property is returned to a state of usefulness while maintaining its historic character. Starting out with a comprehensive analysis of the cultural and/or architectural heritage ensures a solid foundation for planning the entire rehabilitation process. Drawing upon the collaborative expertise of diverse professionals, rehab must be tailored to the unique character and historic significance. Ranging from minimalist repairs and overdue maintenance to more involved intervention such as modification to ensure structural integrity, installation and/or removal of windows and doors, and even construction of non-historic additions.
Boathouse with Coal Bin on Pier (Antique Postcard)
Rosslyn’s Historic Rehabilitation
From those early days as Rosslyn’s newest stewards, when Susan and I were still running on dreams, optimism, and a totally unrealistic sense for the magnitude of the project we’d undertaken, our twin objectives were to preserve the immense heritage we’d inherited while ensuring that our new home was a functional, energy efficient modern home attuned to our needs and lifestyle. Todd helped me understand that what we were undertaking was indeed an historic rehabilitation, and that paradigm shift that he initiated catalyzed a shift in my thinking not only about our revitalization of these four historic buildings, but indeed the entire ethos underlying our pivot from Manhattan to Essex and own own personal reawakening. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
Boathouse with Ruins of Pier in Foreground (Antique Postcard)
Essex, NY in 1876 (Source: OW Gray Atlas of Essex County)
Where in the world is Rosslyn? If you’re not too terribly averse to a verse, here’s an introduction writ small (wrapped up in a tidy micropoem.)
Up in the Adirondacks
at the foot of the foothills,
where Champlain's sweet waters
refresh, render respite,
and sooth worldweary souls,
a sanctuary sings
welcoming melodies.
(Source: Where's Rosslyn?)
Poetry not your preference? Pity! 😉 Let’s try this.
Beginning to zero in on where in the world Rosslyn is? If neither the poetics of place nor encyclopedic brevity are helping much, let’s try a map or two. Maybe I can narrow your focus a little further with this line drawing that I created with Katie Shepard for our community blog, Essex on Lake Champlain back in 2015. (If you click on the map it’ll open a window where you can download the unfuzzy PDF complete with a key explaining each of the numbers in the map.)
Essex Architecture Map, July 2015 (Source: Essex on Lake Champlain)
Enough with the old school black and white (and sepia with faint rose highlighting). It’s time for technicolor!
So, where in the world is Rosslyn? Train your eyes on the three docks/piers extending out into Lake Champlain. The middle one is the ferry dock. (See the ferry heading to Vermont?) The smallest of the three man made peninsula’s is Rosslyn’s dock house (aka “boathouse”). Armed with that little insight, perhaps you can find the same property on the two maps above? (Hint: the boathouse wasn’t yet constructed in 1876 when the map at the top of this post was made.)
Heck, it still enchants us despite constant maintenance and seasonal flood worries. And the boathouse hammock is a mini vacation!
Head inland from the boathouse and you’ll discover Rosslyn itself, tucked next to two massive trees, a ginkgo and what I believe is a silver maple (Acer saccharinum). In fact, I’m sitting in the top right room on the second floor right now. Perhaps if you swoop in a little lower you’ll catch me jotting this blog post.
A little further left of the house are the carriage barn (lower) and ice house (upper) which offer up all sorts of mysteries. But those for another day. Unless you remember three curious artifacts I shared with you a while ago… (Source: Essex Aerial View)
Hopefully this helped orient you. Yes, a Google map might be more precise and quicker, but sometimes Rosslyn Redux and the art of homing aren’t particularly precise or quick. Besides, a thin veil of privacy keeps the snoopers away. Or at least adds a little challenge to their quest. But if you’re looking for a little more clarity on where in the world Rosslyn is located, I suggest you check out this hopefully helpful hub: “Where’s Rosslyn?“
It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Feature: luna moth (Photo: Geo davis)
Yesterday I made a passing reference to coder jargon when I said that “the bug is beginning to feel like a feature”. (See “Yesteryear or Yesterday?“) I’m not a coder. Never was. Never will be. But I like the way coders think (and sometimes the way they talk.) You may be familiar with the acronym INABIAF or the phrase, “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature“. Its use long ago jumped the software programming border, and today you’ll hear it bandied about in all sorts of curious contexts. Yesterday’s post, for example…
An adage too often deployed, too often stretched and distorted, tends to become overly generic. Tends to lose its oomph. I’m guilty, of course. But unrepentant. Chalk it up to poetic license. Or digital graffiti. Or wanton disregard for the sanctity of jargon?!
Today I’m doubling down. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
What, you ask, is not a bug? Certainly some of the spunky snapshots I’ve included in this post are bugs. And insects, though I forget what delineates the two.
When a Bug is Not a Bug
So many transfixing bugs at Rosslyn, and so little call for their vibrant mugs. Today I change that.
But what do these fetching flyers have to do with wonky tech talk? I’m working on that. First let’s detour a moment for more versed expertise on the aforementioned phrase.
WE’LL NEVER KNOW who said it first, nor whether the coiner spoke sheepishly or proudly, angrily or slyly. As is often the case with offhand remarks that turn into maxims, the origin of It’s not a bug, it’s a feature is murky. What we do know is that the expression has been popular among programmers for a long time… (Source:WIRED)
This article by Nicholas Carr(@roughtype) handily takes up the INABIAF backstory including a bridge deeper into software speak.
A standard joke is that a bug can be turned into a feature simply by documenting it (then theoretically no one can complain about it because it’s in the manual), or even by simply declaring it to be good. “That’s not a bug, that’s a feature!” is a common catchphrase. (Source:The Jargon File)
More insightful, I think, is the embrace (or at least tolerance of) ambiguity.
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature is an acknowledgment, half comic, half tragic, of the ambiguity that has always haunted computer programming. (Source:WIRED)
Of course this flies in the face of the stereotypical assertion and aspiration of most coders who express a quasi cultish obsession with purity and absolutes and confidence in the incorruptible virtue of science.
In the popular imagination, apps and other programs are “algorithms,” sequences of clear-cut instructions that march forward with the precision of a drill sergeant. But while software may be logical, it’s rarely pristine. A program is a social artifact. It emerges through negotiation and compromise, a product of subjective judgments and shifting assumptions… (Source:WIRED)
This. From ambiguity to social artifact. Indeed. Pristine aspirations achieve by people-powered processes and resulting in people-powered products. The blurring of reality and circumstance, the possible filtered through the inevitable. Subjectivity and uncertainty and inexactness.
It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Feature: rosy maple moth (Photo: Geo davis)
Of Bugs & Ambiguity
Yesterday’s bug reference was a lightheartedly dismissive counter to concerns (anticipated but not advanced) about the ambiguity of unreliable, shapeshifting time in my Rosslyn deep dig. While pouring over a decade and a half of detritus that has accrued during our custodianship of this beguiling property I’ve witnessed time’s tendency to blur and become elastic. Memories and even events themselves can become unmoored from their chronological anchors.
And I was subtly resurfacing an even larger consideration of time and timelessness across the span of Rosslyn’s two centuries. In the case of the capriciously altered boathouse images — a blurred, patinated, age and wear accelerated photograph of relatively contemporaneous provenance — one’s first impression might be to judge the artifact as a time capsule. A voyeuristic glimpse into an earlier time on Rosslyn’s waterfront. Scrolling down through the three images might dissolve the ambiguity despite the absence of dates.
While grappling with our Rosslyn adventure, I’m struck not only by the ambiguity of time but also of memories and perspectives and opinions. On the one hand, there’s disagreement among the cognoscenti about Rosslyn’s architectural lineage. Colonial, Greek Revival, Federal, Georgian, or an amalgam of two of more architectural periods or styles? On the other hand, Susan and my memories about notable chapters in our own Rosslyn record frequently diverge. Countless conflicting recollections surface in our conversations. When certain things happened. Why they happened. If they happened at all!
It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Feature: bumblebee (Photo: Geo davis)
It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Feature
I’ve meditated on wavy glass window panes provoking perspective shifts and even paradigm adjustments. I see these flowing lenses as inviting insight as well as intoxication, delivering discernment as often as distortion. And what to make of the potent clarity of art and poetry that can sometimes better translate what facts and artifacts, expertise and authority overlook? Watercolors, for example, can reveal truth more lucidly than photographs. Hand renderings can articulate architecture’s poignance and prowess better than AutoCAD.
Carr’s conclusion invites us to wonder wider about the possible merits of buggy artifacts.
The programmer’s “common catchphrase” has itself become a bug, so trite that it cheapens everything it touches. But scrub away the tarnish of overuse and you’ll discover a truth that’s been there the whole time. What is evolution but a process by which glitches in genetic code come to be revealed as prized biological functions? Each of us is an accumulation of bugs that turned out to be features, a walking embodiment of INABIAF. (Source:WIRED)
And that, friend, is a piece of the puzzle that’s been captivating me for months. My information gathering and analysis and synthesis are rigorous but glitchy. For a long time I aspired to purity, to algorithmic precision. But often yesteryear and yesterday have bled into one another. Often juxtaposed memories mingle and morph, contradictions converge, and dissonance dithers then dissolves. Fragments reveal what we may have missed in the moment. Curiosity and creativity have emerged from the years of quiescence. I’m less and less called to chronicle the past, to husband our history, Rosslyn’s history into some sort of encyclopedic epic. I find myself more and more compelled to reassemble the fragments with an eye to where I am headed rather than where I’ve been. I’m reveling in the playful possibility of reimagining and repurposing these ingredients into a sculptural collage; no, a three-dimensional poem; no, a montage-mobile almost imperceptibly gyrating in the rhythmic breathing of a slowly awakening breeze; no, a lakeside sanctuary braided out of found fragments, aromatic melodies, spring starts, and autumn harvest; no,… A buffet of indecision!
Back to bugs. I offer you three flying features: a luna moth (Actias luna), a rosy maple moth (Dryocampa rubicunda), and a bumblebee. Perhaps, for now, these will suffice.
Rosslyn boathouse when re-roofing was 50% complete in the summer of 2010
Last summer (June-July 2010) our biggest concern with Rosslyn’s boathouse was restoring the roof. It’s hard to imagine that a year later our biggest concern is saving the building, pier and waterfront from finally-receding-but-increasingly-rough Lake Champlain flood waters! What better way to distract our anxieties than to look back on drier times?
The cedar shingle was suffering from many years of neglect. Covered with moss and rotted completely through in many areas, it was possible to watch clouds passing overhead (and fireworks) by standing in the second story and looking through the rot spots in the roof! Friend and former neighbor Michael Leslie headed up the project of stripping the expired shingles, rebuilding the rotted beams, sub-roof and related trim including the window overlooking the lake. The following comes from a blog post last July as we rounded the halfway mark.
The hardest part of re-shingling Rosslyn dock house is now behind us. Special thanks to Michael Leslie, Jerry Spooner and Jim Spooner for their progress so far.
In a bizarre twist, David Hislop asked me yesterday, “What’s the story with the dock house?” Hmmm… The story? Well, that’s what I’m writing: Rosslyn Redux. Coming soon to a digital download near you. 😉 Turns out he was referring to the roof. “People are asking why you’re re-roofing it AGAIN.” Again? Apparently a half dozen people have asked him this question. Easy answer. We’re not. It hasn’t been re-shingled since the early/mid 1980’s, but after a quarter century of rain, snow, ice, sun and wind, many of the shingles have rotted through and the roof is leaking, especially the southern exposure. We’d known that we would eventually have to strip the old shingles, but we had delayed as long as practical. Let’s hope the new roof lasts as long as the old one!
Although the re-roofing project took considerably longer than anticipated (this formula has become the rule rather than the exception during the process of renovating Rosslyn), it was worth every second when the beautiful work was complete. And doubly so last winter when snowstorms battered the little structure and again this spring when rain lashed at the roof. For the first time since buying this property in the summer of 2006 my bride and I could stop worrying about the boathouse that seduced us half a decade ago! The foundation had been restored. The structure had been restored. And now the roof had been restored. Life was good…
Perhaps we were too pleased? Perhaps hubris slipped into our homeowner psyche’s? Perhaps. Or perhaps nature’s far more powerful and far more fickle and unpredictable than we can possibly imagine. I’ve commented elsewhere that nature is a formidable foe and a loyal friend. I genuinely believe this, and yet this spring has reminded me that a boathouse built on a pier in the waters of a lake is not natural. It is a valuable architectural artifact. It is an indulgence. But it is not natural. And despite my resolve to balance my lifestyle with healthy stewardship of the natural environment, I never before stopped to contemplate how unnatural this structure really is. Although I’d likely discourage construction of a new albeit similar structure in fragile habitat like Lake Champlain, I never once stopped to consider Rosslyn’s beautiful boathouse a violation of nature because it already existed. It’s part of the architectural heritage of Essex, NY. In fact, we felt a responsibility to restore the boathouse. Indeed I still do, despite my newfound recognition that it contradicts my conventional bias.
Life is complex, and contradictions are everywhere. I don’t pretend to know all the right answers, nor even very many of them. But I’m beginning to suspect that the silver lining of Lake Champlain’s destructive flooding this spring is that I’ve been forced me to recognize and grapple with the contradiction in preserving Rosslyn’s boathouse despite the potentially adverse environmental impact. It has reminded me that conviction is handy but not infallible, that conviction must be balanced with questioning and humility.
So, I’m finally flood proofing my optimism! I’m still soggy and still anxious about the waves rolling through the interior of the boathouse and crashing against the rapidly eroding bank supporting Route 22, but I’m beginning to see that the glass is half full after all. And Lake Champlain? It’s still overfull!
Rosslyn boathouse in distance, upended 16′ dock section in foreground
“Hey!” I looked up toward Route 22 and saw C.G. Stephens climbing over the guardrail. “Need a hand?”
It was the first time since our boathouse and waterfront had been submerged that anyone had offered assistance.
“Thanks. I really appreciate it,” I answered. I wanted to run up the hill and hug him, tell him how good it felt to be asked. But I didn’t. I was waist deep in thirty eight degree lake water, propping a portable dock up on the stone terrace to keep it from floating away. “Actually, I’m pretty good now. But thanks.”
Two sections of aluminum docking had gotten twisted and battered by waves and floating logs, and this morning the larger of the two had been knocked over the lowest stone retaining wall and lay upended on the submerged beach. Because the water’s now over my head on the beach and my waders only reach up to my chest, I had to work carefully from the terrace above the beach, slowly hauling the dock back up, waves and gravity working against me.
Before recovering the docks I waded through the boathouse. We’re no longer able to shut the main door because the water has swollen the bottom half too much to fit in the doorjamb. The water’s now thirteen inches deep inside, covering the first step and part of the second step leading up to the second floor. The two louvered doors leading out to the pier on the lake side had been battered all night by the waves, and the hinges were ripping. The temporary fastener we’d used to secure the doors was gauging the waterlogged wood. I released the doors and opened them wide, holding one side back with a rope and the other side back with a large stone. Now the water is surging through the inside of the boathouse, still tugging the doors against their restraints, but hopefully the damage will be less severe with them open.
C.G. and I stood on the bank for a few minutes, talking about the water level, the flooding and the beautiful morning. He said goodbye and headed back up to his big pickup truck idling on the shoulder of the road.
“Thanks for stopping,” I said as he left.
I took a few photos and headed back up to the house to find my bride.
“I’ve just had one of those Ah-ha! moments,” I explained. I told her about C.G. stopping and offering to help. “I finally realize what’s been bugging me; nobody’s offered a hand.”
I’ve been practically morose for the last few days as Lake Champlain water levels climbed and climbed and climbed. I assumed it was just an emotional reaction to watching our dreams and hard work getting swallowed up by floodwaters. An investment under water. After all, it was the boathouse that had pulled my imagination ever since I was a boy. It was the boathouse that had seduced us and won our hearts each time we visited the house with our realtor. It was the boathouse which had provoked a disproportionate amount of anxiety during renovation, which had posed three years of permitting and engineering and construction challenges, which had drained our coffers and strained relationships with contractors. It was the boathouse that most represented the lifestyle choice which compelled us to leave Manhattan and begin a new life in Essex. It was the boathouse which starred in recent memories of swimming and waterskiing and windsurfing and kayaking with our nieces, nephews, family and friends. It is the boathouse that is celebrated by local artists in exhibition after exhibition. It is the boathouse that adorns postcards and book covers and brochures and newspaper articles over the last hundred years. It is the historic boathouse that was resuscitated by the inspiration and perspiration of so many people over the last few years. Obviously watching the water swallow it up is unnerving. And waking up in the middle of the night, hearing the wind, worrying that the waves will unleash a floating log like a battering ram against the walls or the columns or the railings…
But three words, “Need a hand?”, illuminated the lightbulb for me. Literally hundreds of friends and strangers have stopped to photograph the submerged waterfront and boathouse. Emails, Facebook messages, Twitter tweets and photographs have flooded in. Sincere condolences and flip observations have lightened the mood. Even a few aesthetic and philosophical reflections have attempted to reframe the scenario. “But until C.G. stopped, nobody’s offered assistance. Is that strange to you?”
My bride listened. She agreed. She’d noticed the same thing.
“And, CG, though I’ve known him for at least twenty years, maybe more, isn’t even a particularly close friend. He’s more of an acquaintance, not somebody I would’ve bothered with a request for help.”
Susan told me that on Friday night over pizza at Dogwood, one of her closest friends had dismissed the flooded boathouse with a cavalier, “Oh, you can always rebuild it.”
Right. We can always rebuild it.
Rosslyn boathouse with Kestrel
Only, we can’t. Rosslyn’s boathouse is historic, built most likely in the late 1800s. It is a part of the historic architectural heritage of Essex, NY. History can not be rebuilt. It can be replaced with a facsimile.
Only, in the case of Rosslyn’s boathouse, it probably could not. Having been through the complex, multi-authority permitting needed for our original rehabilitation of the boathouse, I can say that if it were dismantled beyond repair, it is very likely that we would not be granted permission to rebuild it. New structures of this sort in the Adirondack Park have been disallowed for many years, and depending on the degree of damage to the structure, rebuilding is not a foregone conclusion.
And even if it were, the time, labor and material resources alone would be prohibitive. Flood insurance has not been an option. It is a boathouse after all. And even though there is absolutely no historic precedent for Lake Champlain to flood this high, insurance does not offer the safety net that it might for our house or carriage barn.
And then there is the human capital that it took to rehabilitate this structure. Mine. My bride’s. Several engineers. Between three and four dozen contractors, carpenters, laborers, painters and landscapers. Literally thousands and thousands of hours. Sweat and patience and dreams. People working in some of the most challenging conditions — forming and pouring concrete in freezing water; steel construction in snowy, windy winter; roof shingling and copper flashing in scorching summer — to save and restore a building that has greeted Essex residents and visitors for well over a century.
In other words, we can’t “just rebuild it.” And the notion that a close friend who witnessed Rosslyn’s rehabilitation from beginning to end wouldn’t see that surprised us both.
Why the self-pitying post?
Actually, it’s not self-pitying. Or, hopefully it’s not. I realize I’ve flown pretty close to the woe-is-me frontier, but I’ve tried to stay out of the No Fly Zone. I’m not asking for pity. Frankly, I’m not asking for a hand. Not yet. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and my psychic energy focused like a laser beam on dry, windless days until Lake Champlain’s water level drops two feet.
We’re resilient. A boathouse is a luxury, a folly, a non-essential, but we’re confident and optimistic that our funny little building on a pier in Essex will endure the flood, take on a handsome weathered patina and slip soon into the realm of “Remember when…”
So, if this isn’t a self-pitying post, what’s the take-away? If you’re a corporate speak aficionado, the take-away is empathy trumps apathy. Every time. And consider offering a hand when your friends might need it, even if you think they’ll decline, even if you’re not sure how you can help. Intention needs no translation.
On that note, if you’re anywhere near Essex, NY or Westport, NY consider offering a hand to the Old Dock Restaurant, Essex Shipyard & Rudder Club, Essex Marina, Normandie Beach Resort, Westport Marina and Camp Dudley. All of them are coping with Lake Champlain flooding, and even if they decline your offer of assistance, I suspect they will be genuinely flattered that you offered.
And, to close on a less preachy note, here are some of the more unique messages that I’ve received over the last few days:
“Global warming.” ~ Charlie Davis
“People pay a lot of money to have an indoor pool… I hope it’s heated.” ~ Michelle Rummel
“I got some great photos with the ducks swimming by, though. It’s all in the name of art…” ~ Catherine Seidenberg
“So sorry about your boathouse! Those pictures were so beautiful and so sad!” ~ Elena Borstein
“Maybe you can start your own ferry service – is it time to ski to Charlotte?” ~ Bobbi Degnan
“I suppose the bright side is that you can fish inside it…” ~ Paul Rossi
“I am all for starting a nice water taxi service, the Venice of the Adirondacks…” ~ Linda Coffin
“Still a beautiful boathouse even underwater.” ~ Matilde Busana
“Let’s all move to Flagstaff!” ~ Chris Casquilho
“I always thought it would be cool to live in that boat house with the lake and all… never quite meant it so literally though…” ~ Kevin Cooper
“Sad. But maybe there’s a children’s book there?” ~ Amy Guglielmo
“George is using him mind control on the lake. Watch it recede as he uses his awesome powers.” ~ Kathryn Cramer
“Heck, Catherine and I canoed through your boathouse today… We were very careful!” ~ Tom Duca
