Tag: Cossayuna New York

The Farm Backstory

As we hurtle toward completion of the icehouse rehab, I catch myself in barn reflection. Again. Yes, I consider the icehouse a barn. And, yes, migrating my books and artifacts and works in progress from a bedroom-turned-office (aka study/studio) in our home into the almost renovated icehouse is enthusing me beyond reason. It’s also catalyzing reverie and rumination into my farm backstory. Let’s dig a little deeper?

Undoubtedly my affinity for barns is rooted, albeit subconsciously at times, in early to mid 1970s recollections of a tumbledown farmstead tucked into a wooded holler in Cossayuna, New York.

The Farm in Cossayuna, New York (Painting: Louise Coldwell)

The painting above, made by my godmother, Louise Coldwell, has hung above my study/studio fireplace for the last 15 or so years. In this façade of the first home I remember, the two small windows at the top, right were my bedroom. Below my bedroom, the dining room. To the left of the entrance doorway, the living room. My parents bedroom was above the living room. I say, “the first time I remember”, but there were others. An apartment in Manhattan and another in Bronxville. Also, overlapping, a house in Glens Falls and another in Lake Placid. Itinerant years when my parents were still primarily living and working in New York City and then orchestrating a shift upstate. I’ll sit down with them to try and map out these years and lodgings. I muddle these memories in part to offset the fact that The Farm stands out for me. I’m not 100% certain why, but it is the first home the main impression on me, a home that still conjures poignant flashbacks.

Recently I’ve been sifting through memories and mementos of those few-but-formative years, and I’m coming to suspect that my association between barns — especially old, weathered, rural farm barns — and “home” (as well as “homing” and basically all matters related to “homeness”) is intrinsically rooted in my early childhood adventures at The Farm.

Omnipresent: OMC and The Farm (Photo: Geo Davis)

Note the painting, partially cropped, in the photograph above. For a decade and a half this is what I saw when sitting at my desk, if I turned away from Lake Champlain to look at the fireplace. And if you allow your eyes to drift down to the cluttered mantle above the fireplace, you’ll see a black-and-white photograph.

That’s me as a shaggy, bowl-cut youngster, with OMC, a family friend and neighbor when we were at The Farm. He was also my godfather and, in many respects, a surrogate grandfather. The initials stand for Old Man Coldwell, a nickname he used to sign the pottery he made (including the enormous bowl featured in this post: “Generosity of Friends: Lemons from Afar”).

Memories of The Farm and OMC overlap for me. Not always, but often. His presence and guidance, his physicality — apparent in this photograph — and his wonder-welling words. Our time together was guided by adventure. Riding an old tractor through a field to round up a cow that had gotten out. Riding an old tractor through a field to round up a cow that had gotten out. Walking to a distant meadow where he kept a rowboat and fishing rod ready on a pond bank. Squatting among strawberry bushes hunting for the largest, ripest fruit. Harvesting honey from a hive and eating it, thick and warm from a spoon. Massaging clay and squishing it through my fingers when he and my mother were potting…

At The Farm with OMC circa 1974-5

My parents’ friendship (and eventual falling out) with OMC remain intertwined with their memories of The Farm as well. I’ll inquire what if any memories they might share. Until then, I’ll loop back to the property itself.

My parents, living and working in New York City, had purchased an 1840s farmhouse on 85 acres in Greenwich, New York five months after getting married. I was born less than two years later. Although The Farm served primarily as a weekend getaway for the next five years, it dominates the geography of my earliest childhood. A stream of nostalgia gilded memories flow from this pastoral source: exploring the time-worn barns, absent livestock except for those conjured up by my energetic imagination and the swallows which darted in and out, building nests in the rafters, gliding like darts through dusty sunbeams; vegetable gardening with my mother; tending apple, pear and quince trees with my father; eating fresh rhubarb, strawberries and blackberries; discovering deer and raccoons and snakes and even a snapping turtle. (Source: The Farm)

Bucolic. Burnished, no doubt, by time’s spirited sentimentality.

I weave The Farm in Cossayuna (aka “The Farm“) into a conversation, a blog post, a social media update. Why? Not sure. Maybe the omnipresence of The Farm as a defining point of reference in my own life? (Source: Preservation by Neglect: The Farm in Cossayuna)

I’ve explored elsewhere the overlap between my lifelong fascination with barns (and barn vernacular) and my early memories at The Farm. The chicken or the egg? Which came first?

Woven into the earliest tapestries of my childhood are fond associations with barns. (Source: A Barnophile of Bygone Barns)

I wander my patchwork memory map and wonder, wandering, wondering, where is the margin mocked by tides and waves, the littoral boundary of fact and fiction, fluctuating with wind and moon? What was The Farm? And what have I imagined into it?

I inevitably distort history, omitting and abbreviating and emphasizing, distilling the vast landscape of data into vignettes. These accrete gradually, revealing the narrative design of my story. (Source: Remembering and Recounting)

Are these memories of The Farm in Cossayuna accurate? Reliable? Are they actually defining details in my life, reliable anchors tethering my current contemplation of homeness?

“Life is not what one lives, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.” — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Living to Tell the Tale (Source: Remembering and Recounting)

This rings true to me. We are our story. Our stories. And The Farm, embedded inextricably into my attraction to Rosslyn, has provided a sort of scaffolding for many of my homing initiatives since about 2005.

As I bring this meandering meditation to a close, it’s worth noting that I’ve shared images of The Farm over the years. Always the farmhouse, never the barns. Peculiar that I don’t have any images of the barns. I’m almost certain that I took a few photographs when I visited within the last decade, but I haven’t managed to put my fingers on them. I will keep looking, but in the meantime, I’ll ask my parents if they might have an old photograph or some other representation of the outbuildings at The Farm.

June 5, 2023
Old House, New Home
Old House, New Home (Source: Geo Davis)

I’ve lived much, perhaps even *most* of my life in old houses. With the exception of late middle and high school, 3/4 of college, briefly in Santa Fe (1996-9), and briefly in Paris and Rome, my homes have been within old houses. And, come to think of it, some of my boarding school years were in old homes too. And yet each new home was revitalized — and revitalizing — when it became my personal (or familial) residential oasis. Old house, new home.

Hyde Gate, Essex, New York (Illustration by Kate Boesser for All My Houses, By Sally Lesh)

With Rosslyn becoming our place of residence, starting in 2006 and fully by 2008, this old house, new home combination took on new levels of significance. The oldness of the house wasn’t just evident in the architecture and design, the building materials and dated/failing mechanicals, and the time-earned gravity that many enduring old buildings exude. All of these were in evidence with Rosslyn, for sure. But there was something more.

Rosslyn’s history included a notable human legacy: lives lived and recorded; stories told and retold; images made, circulated, and collected. Rosslyn’s backstory as a prominent presence along Merchants Row; built by one of the two founding families in Essex; plus the iconic boathouse attracting the eyes of generations of photographers, artists, travelers; the years spent as a local enterprise (restaurant and watering hole, vacation accommodation, and boating regatta hub); and well documented home and preservation subject of George McNulty who helped catalyze Essex’s recognition in the historic register;… Rosslyn was an old house, new home with an outsized history. This was new to Susan and me.

The questions. The advice. The judgement. The memories and stories and artifacts. The responsibility. The stewardship. The pride… It’s been an adjustment. A learning curve. A deeply formative journey. A privilege.

The Farm in Cossayuna, New York (Painting: Louis Coldwell)

Old House, New Home
```
Once upon a time
this handsome old house 
became our new home,
and along with it
almost two hundred
years of backstory,
lives, styles, and lifestyles.
I try to gather
into a basket 
or a tapestry, 
a moving picture
or a singalong,
the colorful threads,
the adventures, and
the text textured tunes.  
```
October 20, 2022
Preservation by Neglect

Preservation by Neglect: Carriage barn and icehouse, 2006 (Source: Geo Davis)

I’ve flitted around the topic of preservation by neglect on this blog for too long. I suppose that I’ve felt less comfortable putting my thoughts into writing than gabbing with friends similarly drawn to old buildings and artifacts. There’s a question of humility toward a topic better left to more scholarly authorities on historic preservation. And, to be perfectly candid, my appetite for preservation by neglect is perhaps a little unorthodox.

However, I’m currently resuscitating several blog post “orphans” — drafts initiated but left incomplete and unpublished over the years — that reveal some of the influences on my perspective of preservation by neglect, so it’s time to provide at least a perfunctory introduction to the idea. You may already have noted that many/most of my posts tend to tilt toward the lyrical and even the rhapsodic (i.e. “Icehouse On Ice“) rather than the historic, architectural, etc. Given this proclivity, how best to encapsulate and clearly communicate the idea of preservation by neglect? Why, defer to those better versed, of course!

What is Preservation by Neglect?

Time for me to get out of the way.

“Preservation by neglect,” is a term used to describe the way an old building is preserved by disrepair, thus the building’s original or historic features aren’t marred by a building owner that looks to make changes to an old building that are perceived as insensitive. — Elizabeth Blasius (Source: Historic Preservaton is Dead)

Pretty straightforward, right? Preservation by neglect generally refers to historic preservation of a building or area that happens accidentally, mostly because no active effort is made to alter, update, or demolish the structure(s).

Neglect can lead to a measure of preservation by default when there is no active maintenance or development pressures, and the countryside persists with very little change. This neglect can occur as a result of little or no economic pressures that would otherwise cause land values to increase and properties to be renovated. But the problem with accidental preservation by neglect is that it is not true preservation; it does not permanently protect resources from changes… — Robert Stanford (Source: Reading Rural Landscapes: A Field Guide to New England’s Past)

Limited economic means and population stasis or decline are frequently at the root of preservation by neglect, effectively reducing even eliminating the incentive to alter the existing built environment and potentially allowing for the possibility of permanent preservation in the future.

While I certainly don’t advocate preservation by neglect and prefer actual preservation, I’d rather the neglected buildings remain than be demolished. Particularly in downtown areas, there is a constant reminder of the past, the building’s important contribution to the streetscape, and what could be if the building were restored. If you tear down every empty building, then what? […] most importantly, there’s a loss of character and a sense of place. At least with the buildings remaining, there’s hope. Hope that they’ll be restored. Hope that downtown can be revitalized. Hope that the community’s uniqueness and pride can be retained. — Terri Fisher (Source: T Squared’s 4 Square)

Preservation by neglect is not necessarily a goal, nor is it a realistic solution for historic preservation, but in some cases it is a bridge from past to present that would have been lost given typical pressures from development, fashion, safety, etc.

Although sometimes considered a conservation strategy, this invests it with a greater degree of intention than I suspect is usually the case. Often historic buildings deteriorate because they are no longer necessary or desirable, or they’ve become too difficult or expensive to maintain, or conditions have become too precarious or dangerous to attempt renovation. Entropy. In some cases this inevitable natural deterioration resulting from human inaction can help protect a building from alteration, demolition, etc. that might otherwise permanently alter, damage, or eliminate the underlying architectural or cultural heritage. In essence, these forgotten properties, are spared by virtue of being too far gone for convenient rehabilitation. Their neglect has in some (but certainly not all) cases lead to eventual preservation. (Source: The Farm in Cossayuna)

In short, when active preservation (intervention with intent to historically preserve) is not a viable option for historic buildings and other architectural or cultural heritage, deliberate or inadvertant neglect, even when allowing the assets to continue deteriorating, is often an effective way to maintain the historic integrity and character of the property. Sometimes he best way to preserve a property is to simply do nothing.

Preservation by Neglect: Icehouse, 2006 (Source: Geo Davis)

Rosslyn’s Icehouse

Although an argument might be made that at different points in time all four of Rosslyn’s still extant buildings were subjects of preservation by neglect, significant efforts were made to preserve the home and the boathouse. Fortune more than anything seems to have safeguarded the carriage barn while so many other outbuildings vanished over the last century. But the icehouse is in my estimation the best example of preservation by neglect as I’ve explained in a previous post. Here’s the most relevant excerpt.

Although various reasons likely underpin the icehouse’s endurance, and the attentions of previous owners are no doubt high on this list, I would suggest that one of the reasons we’re now fortunate to undertake a purposeful re-imagination of this building is that it’s been preserved for more than a century, in large part, by neglect. First and foremost it wasn’t demolished to make way for other needs (such as the clay tennis court that adjoins its west and northwest flank). And it wasn’t adapted into a chicken coop or conjoined with the carriage barn or… It served a limited functional purpose for at least two previous owners that I’m aware of (one as part of honey-making accommodations and another as a woodworking shop), but the building wasn’t irretrievably bastardized to fulfill its temporary needs. (Source: Icehouse On Ice – Rosslyn Redux

I’ll sidestep the temptation to dilate previous comments by offering a couple of tidy clarifications on the most obvious risk with preservation by neglect.

Preservation vs. Demolition by Neglect

Inevitably neglect, extended neglect flirts with loss of the building(s). For this reason it is not a suitable preservation objective except when no other alternative is viable.

There is a fine line between preservation by neglect and demolition by neglect. A building that has been mothballed, or closed up with a tight roof and closed windows, locked doors, and a solid foundation, will remain a viable part of the streetscape through years of neglect. However, the minute the roof starts to leak, the windows are broken, or the doors are kicked in, demolition by neglect sets in. The building’s demise is heartbreaking to watch and is often the result of an equally sad situation such as bankruptcy or death of the owner or crime in the neighborhood. The final result is often a mandate from the municipality that the neglected building be demolished because it is hazardous to passerby. — Terri Fisher (Source: T Squared’s 4 Square)

And in even more straightforward terms:

In many urban areas, disinvestment has lead to the preservation by neglect of much of the historic fabric. When left for too long, this lack of interest becomes demolition by neglect and the structures are damaged beyond repair. — Rachel Royer (Source: Preserving Historic Character and Materials: An Analysis of Rehabilitation Projects of Habitat for Humanity)

In short, if historic preservation is the objective, preservation by neglect is at best a highly risky means to the end, and the risk is slow, irreversible demolition.

An Unorthodox Twist

I mentioned at the outset a somewhat peculiar penchant for preservation by neglect. My time and energy are dwindling so I’ll again draw on the post cited above.

The idea [of preservation by neglect] is baked into my love for and efforts toward rehabilitating old buildings, and it’s in many respects more compelling to me than the finished accomplishments of a preservation project. [Perhaps] it’s akin to my penchant for wabi-sabi. In my perspective there is profound beauty in the imperceptibly slow entropic forces revealed in aging, even failing, man-made artifacts. (Source: Icehouse On Ice – Rosslyn Redux

Don’t misunderstand. Susan and I have dedicated an monumental effort to preserving (actually rehabilitating) Rosslyn over the last sixteen years. The last thing we wanted was entropic victory! But in general, in the world at large, I find myself absolutely fascinated with the inevitable lifecycle of human artifacts. And I am almost always in favor of celebrating the imperfection and patina of longevity rather than masking the passage of time with inauthentic, ersatz makeovers. More on this another day.

Poetic Preservation by Neglect

In closing, I touched on the idea of initiated-but-neglected posts in my introduction. The overlap with the focus of this post intrigues me.

The earliest iteration of this originally somewhat melancholic reflection is nearly a decade old. Like many blog drafts it became an “orphan”, put aside for a day when my time was more abundant or my melancholy was less crowding or my thoughts were better gathered or… As with my poems, I frequently launch into a draft with the passion and clarity of purpose propelling me. And then, something stalls. And the initial foray falters. Or, at the very least, the seed for what I envision writing is cast aside indefinitely.

Often enough I circle back, allowing the persistent relevance of the idea, the recurring urgency to undergird a certain confidence that I might be on to something. That I need to revisit the seed, germinate it, nurture it. (Source: Icehouse On Ice – Rosslyn Redux)

And so it is that I fall back on my more poetic inclinations, more than content to leave the scholarly opining to my more academic peers. For me, the almost uncanny parallel between my creative drafts, too often neglected and often totally abandoned, and historic buildings kindles my curiosity. Hopefully yours, at least a little, as well.

September 16, 2022
Preservation by Neglect: The Farm in Cossayuna

The Farm in Cossayuna, New York, circa 1975 (Painting: Louise Coldwell)

Although long overdue, toooooo long long overdue, today I’d like to introduce The Farm in Cossayuna. Or reintroduce it, for those of you who’ve been with me for a while. I refer to it often, and yet I don’t usually contextualize my reference in any sort of useful manner. It’s as if I unconsciously assume everyone knows what I’m referring to when I weave The Farm in Cossayuna (aka “The Farm“) into a conversation, a blog post, a social media update. Why? Not sure. Maybe the omnipresence of The Farm as a defining point of reference in my own life?

This upstate New York farm property figures prominently in the childhood memories underpinning my Rosslyn obsession. It was also my first experience of preservation by neglect. And judging from my most recent visit a decade ago, it looks likely that this once-again-woebegone holding may be depending upon the mercy of preservation by neglect once again. But I’ll flesh that out in a moment. First let’s fill in the backstory a little bit.

One of the first (if not the first) mentions of The Farm on Rosslyn Redux was back in May 31, 2011 when this blog was still young.

My parents, living and working in New York City, had purchased an 1840s farmhouse on 85 acres near Greenwich, New York five months after getting married. I was born less than two years later.

Although The Farm served primarily as a weekend getaway for the next five years, it dominates the geography of my earliest childhood. A stream of nostalgia gilded memories flow from this pastoral source: exploring the time-worn barns, absent livestock except for those conjured up by my energetic imagination and the swallows which darted in and out, building nests in the rafters, gliding like darts through dusty sunbeams; vegetable gardening with my mother; tending apple, pear and quince trees with my father; eating fresh rhubarb, strawberries and blackberries; discovering deer and raccoons and snakes and even a snapping turtle. (Source: The Farm)

And a few months later on September 29, 2011 I returned to the same theme.

My idealized notion of a country house had its roots in a small farm that my parents had bought in Washington County while still living in New York City in the 1970s. Initially a getaway for my recently married parents trying to balance life and careers in New York City and later, albeit briefly, a full time residence, The Farm underpins my love for countryside and provides my earliest childhood memories.(Source: Abandoning City Life)

Sadly, I don’t know when this farmhouse was originally built but it was ours four about seven years. My mother confirmed this afternoon that they sold The Farm in 1977. And yet forty five years later I’m still dusting off memories and drawing upon The Farm’s wellspring of influence for my homing projects.

Preservation by Neglect: The Farm

If we contemplate The Farm in Cossayuna through the lens of preservation by neglect, there are at least two timeframes to focus on: the period prior to 1970 when my parents purchased the property, and the period after 1977 when my parents sold the property. Both are interesting, and I’d like to touch briefly on both.

But first let’s refresh the idea of preservation by neglect. Although sometimes considered a conservation strategy, this invests it with a greater degree of intention than I suspect is usually the case. Often historic buildings deteriorate because they are no longer necessary or desirable, or they’ve become too difficult or expensive to maintain, or conditions have become too precarious or dangerous to attempt renovation. Entropy. In some cases this inevitable natural deterioration resulting from human inaction can help protect a building from alteration, demolition, etc. that might otherwise permanently alter, damage, or eliminate the underlying architectural or cultural heritage. In essence, these forgotten properties, are spared by virtue of being too far gone for convenient rehabilitation. Their neglect has in some (but certainly not all) cases leads to eventual preservation.

The painting of The Farm in Cossayuna at the top of this post was made and gifted by Louise Coldwell, a next door neighbor and family friend. In my memory, that is the home I remember. Perhaps from the years of looking upon the painting, and perhaps because the romance of a house, a person, a view seems to win out when rendered in a painting versus a photograph.

But when my parents purchased the property it probably looked a bit more like this black and white photograph (if you can use your imagination to pull three years of renovation away from the image.)

The Farm in Cossayuna, New York, circa 1973 (Photo: Gordon Davis)

I believe that the photograph was taken in 1973 by my father. The miniature portico over the front door has been removed (and replaced with an eagle) by the time the painting was made. But otherwise things look pretty similar. The near chimney looks like it could use a repointing (my memory takes me to a chimney fire in this small stone stack) and the roof’s ridge beam shows some sagging, especially on the right side. But all told, the house looks pretty good. My memory fails me in providing a proper assessment of the home’s condition when my parents purchased it, so I’ll see if I can tease it out of them. What I do recollect is the condition of the barns. They were in rough shape even then, though I’ll save those memories (and a few photographs from my 2012 return to the property) for another post focusing specifically on the barns. Spoiler alert: one of the large barns had to be torn down when I was still a baby…

But let’s fast forward almost three decades and take a look at the house, albeit from a different angle, when I returned with my parents and an old neighbor in 2012.

The Farm in Cossayuna, New York, Autumn 2010 (Photo: Geo Davis)

Following a community cider day at the one time home of Louise and Dwight Coldwell, we were fortunate to be offered a ride and an introduction to the new owner of our old house. Wilbur McIntyre, a dairy farmer who lived a couple of doors away, took us down the long wooded driveway to see the home and barns. We met the adult son of the owners and were invited to look around. Ostensibly undergoing some maintenance, the main door to the exterior had been removed and a blanket hung in its place. Chickens pecked around on the floor inside what had been our dining room once upon a time. We abbreviated our inside visit and returned to the yard noting some changes like a small pond that had been dug at the far end of the home. The barns, to my satisfaction, were still standing and in remarkably fine fettle for utility buildings clearly neglected for many decades. There’s something about a well built barn, even as nature punishes it relentlessly day after day, year after year.

In some respect the outside of the house looks virtually unchanged. The sag in the roof is still visible, and there’s an even more pronounced sag in the single story addition at the far end of the house (the location of our kitchen in the 1970s). Inside the house appeared to be in a state of advanced disrepair, but for all I know we might have caught a thorough rehabilitation effort in the early phase. Perhaps today the interior is bright, sturdy, inviting, and the chickens are back outside in the yard.

The Farm in Cossayuna

I’ve talked elsewhere about the curious pull this house exudes upon me, but for now the matter at hand is how this property — neglected before and after my parents’ short stewardship — has endured so admirably, so unmuddled by “makeovers” and ill conceived additions. The existing addition I’ve already noted predates my parents’s purchase, and it is perhaps an architecturally unfortunate departure from the simple colonial bones of the house, and the windows were clearly replaced at some point, perhaps also prior to the period my mother and father loved this little home in the woods. In short, this property appears to have endured more neglect across the decades than preservation, and yet it endures. It affords a gentle optimism that even the inhospitable winters and the relatively moist year-round conditions are nevertheless allowing for this one-time farm to exist another year, another decade, perhaps another century.

During this last visit to The Farm in Cossayuna Susan and I had already undertaken the brunt of Rosslyn’s ambitious 4+ yearlong rehabilitation. Work on the grounds was ongoing, and the 2011 floods had devastated the boathouse and waterfront, so we were once again working against the odds. In addition to salvaging the boathouse after about three months under water, we need to rebuild stone wall terracing, replant gardens, lawns, and trees. Rehab ad infinitum!

Rosslyn, no longer being preserved by neglect, was now being historically rehabilitated with intention and determination. And to this day, our commitment has not wavered. The current boathouse gangway repairs and the icehouse rehabilitation project are only the two most current efforts to ensure that our stewardship of this historic property allows it to be enjoyed for generations to come. And yet we are well aware that our good fortune, the longevity and endurance of this stately property, is due in no small part to preservation by neglect, much as…

December 7, 2022