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Chris Craft – Rosslyn Redux

Rosslyn Redux

Tag: Chris Craft

  • Meadowmount and Rosslyn

    Rosslyn Boathouse, by Steven Rochen
    Rosslyn boathouse photographed from Essex ferry dock (photo credit Steven Rochen)

    What a pleasure to discover on Monday morning that the newest friend of the Rosslyn Redux Facebook page was Steven Rochen. Who you might ask? (Though, if you’re a Meadowmount School of Music alum, you probably already know!) Mr. Rochen first crossed my radar back in February of this year when I happened upon an interesting photograph of Rosslyn’s boathouse. The following was originally posted in “Rosslyn Boathouse in August 2005“:

    Another Rosslyn boathouse sighting, this time discovered via Google Earth. The photo was taken by czechsteve on Panoramio.com on 2005/08/12 which is approximately one year before my wife and I purchased Rosslyn. The wooden Chris Craft on a mooring between our boathouse and the Essex ferry dock belonged to our neighbor, but he has since replaced it with a sailboat which is visible in more recent photographs.

    If you go click through to the original photo and enlarge it, you can see the degree of disrepair that we inherited when we took ownership and began restoring this stately old maritime structure.

    I have contacted the photographer to suggest a title because the image is currently untitled.

    Update: Today is Wednesday, February 2, 2011 and I’ve just heard from the photographer:

    I have added a title to your boathouse picture. Thanks for your input – I have seen that boathouse for many years (I’ve been coming for summers in the Adirondacks since I was a teenage student at the Meadowmount School of Music coming from Texas to study violin.)

    Was the boathouse there in 1980? I don’t remember when I first saw it from the ferry crossing but I have always enjoyed seeing it – that is why I took the photo years ago…I can’t wait to see what you have done…

    All best wishes! Steven Rochen – a.k.a. czechsteve!

    Wonderful response. I’m excited to have made the connection, and I’m hoping that I may one day have the chance to meet Steven Rochen and give him a tour of the boathouse which has intrigued him for decades.

  • Rosslyn’s Redneck Yacht Club

    Rosslyn’s Redneck Yacht Club

    Redneck Yacht Club

    I challenge any red blooded American who’s spent a little time in the country to dislike Redneck Yacht Club from Craig Morgan‘s 2005 album My Kind of Livin.

    Can’t do it! Redneck, city slicker, suburbanite, exurbanite, whatever… If you give this energetic summer anthem a second or two you’ll be hooked. Scoff if you need to. Turn up your nose if your tastes are too refined for the Redneck Yacht Club. But I’m gambling that the next time you hear it pumping out the window of a slow-passing pickup truck you’ll smile. And hum the chorus. And admit to yourself that it’s a pretty catchy tune.

    Here’s a little taste of the chorus. Try to read it without singing/humming the melody. Just try!

    Basstrackers, Bayliners and a party barge,
    strung together like a floating trailer park,
    anchored out and gettin loud.
    All summer long, side by side,
    there’s five houseboat, front porches astroturf,
    lawn chairs and tiki torches,
    regular Joes rocking the boat. That’s us,
    the redneck yacht club.
    (CowboyLyrics.com)

    See what I mean? So, your Chris Craft tastes don’t feel comfy with a song about Bayliners and party barges… So what? Stop judging and start bobbing your head!

    I did.

    You see, for the first year (or two?) that my bride and I were renovating/rehabilitating Rosslyn, Redneck Yacht Club played on always-on WOKO again and again. I don’t remember for sure, but I may have scoffed outwardly (and hummed inwardly) the first time I heard the song. But not the second. I laughed. I sang along. I went out and bought the album! Several years later, WOKO is no longer the default radio channel at Rosslyn, but I still hear the song from time to time. And when I do, it transports me instantly to the days of demolition, of surprises (mold, rot, bad electric, bad plumbing) and a mushrooming scope of work. It also takes me back to a house full of laughing contractors, rambling stories, off-color jokes and meals shared on sawhorses and upturned compound buckets.