It’s Friday, friends, and I’d like to offer you an ever so slightly nostalgic nod to a post I published in September 2022 shortly after receiving a gift from our neighbor, Emma Paladino. I titled the update Melancholy Boathouse, and it featured this black-and-white photograph.
Yesterday I posted this achingly evocative image on the Rosslyn Redux Instagram feed with thanks to our neighbor, Emma, who gifted the vintage photograph postcard to us. It was a gift to her from Michael Peden who, in turn credited his father, Douglas Peden, as the photographer. Here’s an excerpt from my caption.Source: Melancholy Boathouse – Rosslyn Redux)
At the time I knew that I’d seen the photograph before, but I couldn’t dredge the memory out of my gray matter. So familiar. Melancholy, yes, but also touching on something sentimental that I couldn’t quite identify.
Half a year later, I’m able to explain the poignance that Douglas Peden’s photo invoked.
I had seen it before. During our earliest visits to Rosslyn, when we were still trying to talk ourselves out of making an offer, when we were still convinced that we couldn’t justify the immense undertaking (and risk)…
Douglas Peden’s Boathouse Photo in Rosslyn Bedroom
The yellow bedroom circa 2004 or 2005. A large format version of that remarkable photograph hung over the fireplace. It took stumbling across it while reviewing old photos to realize why I had recognized it last September.
Douglas Peden’s Boathouse Photo in Rosslyn Bedroom
It made an impression a decade and a half ago.
Douglas Peden’s Boathouse Photo in Rosslyn Bedroom
Rosslyn Rapture (Sculpture: George McNulty, Illustration: Geo Davis)
Perhaps the sub theme for today’s post should be derivative content? The image above is a digital watercolor derived from an edited and altered photograph of the bronze figure sculpted and gifted by George McNulty. My poem below also re-examines the sculpture, also reimagines the bronze figure, also seeks to illustrate why, how this gift from Rosslyn’s previous owner continues to affect me.
Rosslyn Rapture, Poem
No homunculus this alchemist's art, this sculptor's artifact.
No bronze bauble this daily reminder of progeny and forebears.
But rapture itself, ecstatic, triumphant, lifted with gratitude.
This marbled, mantled rhapsody appeases my meandering mind.
— Geo Davis
Baby, No Baby?
In my previous post, I recounted a conversation I had with Jason McNulty about a bronze baby that was present in the sculpture’s upheld hands.
When I gave George McNulty’s son, Jason, a house tour a few year after completing our renovation, he immediately spotted the sculpture.
“What happened to the baby?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” I responded, confused.
“The man was originally holding a baby up in the air,” he explained.
It had never even occurred to me that there might have been another part of the sculpture, a part now missing. A baby. That’s what he’s lifting up and celebrating.
I explained to Jason that we had not removed the baby. We had never even seen the baby. Aside from the addition of a marble base, this is exactly how the sculpture looked when it was gifted to us by Jason’s father.
Probably his father had made two versions, Jason suggested, one with a baby, and one without. Or perhaps the baby was cast separately and conjoined afterward. (Source: Rosslyn Rapture: A Bronze Sculpture by George McNulty)
Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to dig through old photographs, searching for evidence of the figure holding a baby.
I’ve now realized what I must have previously forgotten (or overlooked). Apparently I’d seen both versions — with and without baby — years before.
There are indeed two versions of the sculpture as Jason suggested. And if you look at the photograph above, you’ll see McNulty‘s sculpture *with baby* on the left side of the mantle above the fireplace. You may need to zoom in a bit, but the darkly, silhouetted figure clearly holds a baby high in the air.
However, our version of the figure, as you can see in the photograph below, holds no baby. Hence my fanciful notion that the figure, a metaphorical, stand-in for the homeowner, is holding aloft — in adulation and gratitude — a magnificent abstraction. Rosslyn rapture!
Rosslyn Rapture: Bronze Sculpture by George McNulty
It’s worth noting that the hands of the figure above betray no evidence that a bronze baby was cut out or ground and sanded off at some point.
George McNulty’s Bronze Sculptures in Entrance Hallway
The photograph above shows Rosslyn’s entrance hallway about the time we began looking at the property in 2004 or 2005. If you look at the top of the bookshelf, on the right hand side of the photograph, just short of the far end (ie. near middle of photograph) you can just barely make out the sculpture with baby, similar to the one on the mantle piece above. Here’s that same view from the opposite angle.
George McNulty’s Bronze Sculptures in Entrance Hallway
The sculpture is clearly visible in this photograph of the entrance foyer along the north wall.
Now comes the exciting part. Reviewing my early photographs from visits to this house when we were still considering whether or not to purchase the property (as well as in the photographs that Jason McNulty generously gave me taken during approximately the same timeframe) the bronze sculpture appears in both of the locations here documented: on the bedroom mantle, and on the foyer bookshelf.
But I remembered another location: George McNulty’s basement sculpture workshop.
George McNulty’s Bronze Sculptures in Workshop
Perhaps you’ve noticed the sculpture (with baby) just left of the G. McNulty, Sculptor sign that is propped against the back wall?
Here’s a slightly different angle, zoomed in a little tighter…
George McNulty’s Bronze Sculptures in Workshop
In both of the two images above, and there’s some thing else that might catch your eye. If you look directly to the left of the sign, I’ve described, you will see a head. And behind the head? I believe that squinting a little bit and looking closely, you’ll see the empty arms of a second sculpture with no baby.
And, so it would seem, Jason McNulty was correct. Two versions were made. So I will choose to imagine our figure holding high, not a baby, but the glorious abstraction of HOME.
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.
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.
After purchasing Rosslyn, George McNulty, presented us with a bronze sculpture born of his own hands and imagination. Standing with arms outstretched, extended skyward, the figure’s celebratory posture exudes joy and pride. In my view, McNulty’s miniature man appears to be celebrating or perhaps praising, arms reaching upward toward the heavens. Rosslyn Rapture, I’ve titled it (albeit only in my mind.) With no permission from the artist to name/rename his work, you’ll note no plaque adorning the base, no engraved nametag competing for attention. In fact, until now I’ve kept mostly mum about my personal title for McNulty’s sculpture. It felt presumptuous to impose my narrative, my interpretation onto another’s creation.
Rosslyn Rapture: Bronze Sculpture by George McNulty
And while we didn’t have Rosslyn Rapture plaqued, we did have it mounted on a small marble base for display. When we received the sculpture a couple of bolts protruded from the bottom of the feet for mounting. Since, at first, the figure could not be exhibited without a base, we held it in our hands. We felt the weighty bronze, ran our fingertips over the textured surface shaped by the fingers of a man who invested almost four decades into studying and documenting and slowly restoring the buildings which we now call home. We traced the figure’s lanky limbs and placed our fingertips into the sculpture’s tiny palms. There was an intimacy. A connection. Or so I chose to believe.
In time I came to see the sculpture as McNulty’s exaltation for a home and a heritage that he loved. A man exalted with reverence. It was a hypothesis that fit the man I’d briefly come to know. It was a hypothesis consistent with the anecdotes and memories shared by his Essex friends and neighbors. It was a hypothesis that justified his commitment—spanning almost four decades—to preserving this historic property. But mostly, as I’ve come to learn in the years since, it was a hypothesis that helped me explain my own love affair with Rosslyn. I realize now that I was ascribing my own passion for this property onto the previous owner. I was enraptured with Rosslyn, with our new life at Rosslyn, and with the prospect of restoring this stately home and grounds to the restrained elegance still evident but fading. I had reimagined this art as an artifact of the previous owner’s passion and devotion for Rosslyn when in fact my hypothesis was first and foremost self referential.
Rosslyn Rapture: Bronze Sculpture by George McNulty
A Bronze Sculpture
In short, I realize now that Rosslyn Rapture was my creation. McNulty’s was a bronze sculpture of a man with outreached arms and open hands lifted high. I saw a man grasping for something or praising a higher being. Or perhaps the man’s adulation was for a woman with whom he was impassioned? But fancy clouds my vision. The man’s arms are outreached. That is clear. Whether in praise or celebration or something altogether different, only the sculptor knows.
For many years the figure has presided over our living room from his perch on the mantle above the northern fireplace. When I gave George McNulty’s son, Jason, a house tour a few year after completing our renovation, he immediately spotted the sculpture.
“What happened to the baby?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” I responded, confused.
“The man was originally holding a baby up in the air,” he explained.
It had never even occurred to me that there might have been another part of the sculpture, a part now missing. A baby. That’s what he’s lifting up and celebrating.
I explained to Jason that we had not removed the baby. We had never even seen the baby. Aside from the addition of a marble base, this is exactly how the sculpture looked when it was gifted to us by Jason’s father.
Probably his father had made two versions, Jason suggested, one with a baby, and one without. Or perhaps the baby was cast separately and conjoined afterward.
Both possibilities seem possible, probable even. Imagination flushes out the narrative. George McNulty sculpts the man out of clay, creates a mold from the original, and—using the lost wax process—casts several bronze replicas. Separately and by the same process, he casts bronze babies which he then welds to the man’s hands. One of the figures, for some mysterious reason, remains empty handed. No baby.
I found myself, wondering if his son, now standing in the living room of the house where he had grown up, might perhaps have been the inspiration for the sculpture, maybe even the model. The man did, after all, resemble his father. And the baby? Anybody’s guess.
It occurs to me later that there’s another possibility. Perhaps each of the figures originally held a baby high in the air. But one broke. Or the sculptor removed it. Maybe that’s why he gave it to me, because it was an incomplete piece. This seems like a reasonable hypothesis, and maybe it’s correct. But I prefer the possibility that he gifted us this version because it leaves open the hands, open the possibility that Rosslyn is the subject of the man’s ecstasy.
Rosslyn Rapture: Bronze Sculpture by George McNulty
Rosslyn Rapture: Bronze Sculpture by George McNulty
Today’s post is a tribute to our Rosslyn forebear, George McNulty, from whom we inherited a whimsical double sunburst motif on the west façade of Rosslyn’s ell, and Peter Vaiciulis who fabricated a slightly downscaled sister embellishment for the east façade of the icehouse.
Double Sunburst, Rosslyn’s Icehouse, March 2023 (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
This twist on a familiar Essex architectural theme, the sunburst motif that is most prominent on the old firehouse turned art gallery turned tavern (in the middle of town), is perhaps best described as a double sunburst. Or, in the view of Peter, the carpenter who reinterpreted George McNulty’s original with a slightly more diminutive iteration, this is not a sunburst at all, but rather two “sun fans”.
And a haiku is born.
Double Sunburst Haiku
What sunburst motif? Better two suns than one, and a pair of sun fans.
Or Sunup, Sundown?
As an unabashed heliocentrist I’m drawn to another possibility. Possibly Peter’s “sun fans” are actually an architectural paean to the rising sun and the setting sun. Sunup. Sundown. Conjoined. Sunup-sundown.
While it’s tempting to conceive of Essex, New York (and maybe even the entire Adirondack Coast) as the point of perennial sunrise, more fitting (and yet similarly flattering) is the more reality based celebration of sunup AND sundown. For both are glorious in this realm.
Afterward
The Essex sunburst has ostensibly been ornamenting our community since the late 18th or early 19th century. Perhaps this 1882 Harper’s Weekly illustration was inspired by a visit to our fair hamlet?
Melancholy Boathouse (Source: Douglas Peden, Essex Studios)
Melancholy much? Yesterday I posted this achingly evocative image on the Rosslyn Redux Instagram feed with thanks to our neighbor, Emma, who gifted the vintage photograph postcard to us. It was a gift to her from Michael Peden who, in turn credited his father, Douglas Peden, as the photographer. Here’s an excerpt from my caption.
Sometime in the early days of the millennium, perhaps. The condition of the boathouse suggested it may have been a few years prior to 2005 when we purchased Rosslyn. Such ethereal longing and melancholy in this painterly rendering. Hoping to learn more about this evocative photograph…
It turns out that my conjecture may have been off by a significant margin. There’s still no definitive date for when this melancholy moment in Rosslyn’s history was captured, but some interesting insights have emerged.
I’d guess that it is much earlier than 2005 – probably before 1985. If nothing else, the front porch doesn’t have its roof, and I don’t remember it ever being missing. The lack of the dock doesn’t mean anything, because with the water that high you wouldn’t see it, anyway. — Jason McNulty
I don’t recall the porch roof ever being missing either. Quick check from photos I have shows the roof there in 1969 and again in 2004. — George McNulty
Jason and George McNulty, two of the previous owner’s sons, have suggested that I’m probably off in my estimate by at least two to four decades. And George McNulty also shared another photograph doubling the subjects of my inquiry: when were these photographs taken?
Rosslyn Boathouse (Source: George McNulty)
Melancholy Boathouse Revisited
I’m grateful to Emma, Jason, and George for kindling this inquiry. And, as it turns out, the initial photograph gifted to Emma by Michael Peden (and ostensibly photographed by his father, Douglas Peden) which was in turn re-gifted to me has catalyzed even more intriguing feedback and photographs from Jason McNulty.
Jason McNulty followed up on Douglas Peden’s photograph at the top of this post with some feedback from his father, George McNulty, Sr. from whom we purchased Rosslyn sixteen years ago.
Sorry, but I really do not remember about the date. A good guess would be about 30 years ago. The photograph was taken by Doug Peden. It shows the dock house after I had rebuilt the cribbing but had not started to replace the roof. — George McNulty
Jason amended his own thoughts and another truly unique photograph of the boathouse.
For what it’s worth, if you fudge some numbers a little, this roughly corresponds with a picture that you posted on your site showing the dock house with its roof nearly destroyed by flooding in 1983. Given my parents’ finances at the time, it could easily have taken a few years to replace that roof. I’ve also found a picture in my collection from roughly 1989 showing a clearly new roof. — Jason McNulty
Boathouse 1989, original un-enhanced photo (via Jason McNulty)
Spectacular cinematic image! I’ve taken the liberty of tweaking the levels, etc. to improve the detail of the boathouse, pier, etc. Here’s the adjusted and enhanced version.
Boathouse 1989, adjusted/enhanced for detail (via Jason McNulty)
I was curious about the photo’s provenance, also wondered about the boats, etc. Jason offered some helpful insights. Although he wasn’t certain who originally took the photograph, he felt confident that the year was 1989 (i.e. seventeen years prior to our purchase of Rosslyn.)
When I added the file to my collection, I renamed it and added the year 1989 to the name. I wouldn’t have done so if I was uncertain about the year, although I have no idea now why I was so confident then. As for the sailboat, it was my father’s second sailboat during my lifetime. It was fiberglass and this picture must be relatively early in Dad’s ownership of the boat since he didn’t wait too long to replace the outboard rudder with an inboard one. This boat eventually disappeared from its moorings with no explanation, although the aluminum mast was still in the barn for years later. The first sailboat was a wooden boat, possible yellow in color, that sank on the other side of the dock (parts of its frame can still be seen), and its mast is now the flagpole for the dock house itself. The rowboat was one of three or four that Dad designed and built using plywood. Growing up, I rowed it all over the shoreline, going at least as far the marina. Unfortunately, part of the reason that Dad had to make so many was that they kept rotting out. — Jason McNulty
Although I’ve wandered afield to be sure, my curiosity’s been awakened. I told Jason that I recollected him (or perhaps his father) telling me about the sailboat that sank. As a boater and a sailer, the tragedy etched itself into my memory. But, I told Jason, I didn’t realize that another sailboat had vanished as well. Mysterious. Might it also have sunk?
It might have, but I doubt that it sank at its moorings. It was tied to a buoy not to far away from the dock itself, and I’m sure that Dad did things like check to see if the rope was still there or whether there was a large white blur underwater. Besides, unlike the wooden sailboat, the fiberglass one didn’t leak. Beyond that, though, I’m not sure. — Jason McNulty
I’m aware that Rosslyn’s boathouse flagpole is their former sailboat mast. A perfect story instance of repurposing. And I have salvaged a few other pieces from the sunken vessel. But now my wonder wanders to the second sailboat that disappeared. Hhhmmm…
In the vintage postcard above — faded, blurred, and stained with touch and time — the historic lighthouse located at Split Rock in Essex, NY reigns over a promontory bearing a curious resemblance to an arboretum, more landscaped and less wild than today. A copse of diverse specimen trees here, a granite outcrop there, a grassy bluff here,… I can’t help but see a sort of Split Rock botanical garden. But it wasn’t. I imagine the photographer and postcard publisher were likely thinking of the flora and topography as mere garlands for the centerpiece, the focus of the postcard: Split Rock Lighthouse.
There’s something comely about an old lighthouse, a spire of stone stacked skyward to secure a lofty perch for a sweeping beam of light. Bold, dependable, comforting. Or is it? Perhaps it’s just a tall tower like a barn with a silo? Is tall bold? Is a fortress-like column comforting? We ascribe much meaning to lighthouses because of their function. They are predictable and dependable because predictable, dependable lighthouse keepers ensured that they were. Today, I suppose, that’s mostly the work of technology. Bold and comforting likewise derive from function. Stormy night, navigating challenging seas, unreliable visibility, a valuable cargo, and the wellbeing, heck maybe even the lives of the boat’s captain and crew,… And then a navigational beam cutting through the blindness, showing the way to safe port. Or at least around a potentially dangerous obstacle that might otherwise have scattered ship and crew, reducing their industrious mission to memory and flotsam and jetsam.
In short, we think of lighthouses, so often portrayed in photographs and other artwork, as visually equivalent to the function they fulfill. We conflate the building with service it enables. We deploy references to lighthouses with confidence that our audience will understand what we mean. We think in metaphor. We speak in metaphor. And, by and large, the viewer, listener, or reader understands what we wish to imply.
This Is Not a Metaphor
Seven years ago, I was hit by a truck. This is not a metaphor. I was crossing the street two blocks from home when the driver, blinded by the sun, rammed into me. During my nine-month recovery, I began to reflect upon my life… I realized that for years, I had been stuck on an endless hamster wheel… I remembered the joke about the airline pilot who addressed his passengers over the intercom: “Attention: I have bad news and good news: Radar is down. We’re totally lost! But you’ll be glad to know we’re making very good time.” I knew I needed to make a change. — Susan Fassberg (Source: The Art of Looking – Reinventing Home)
The tragic accident, Fassberg assures us, is not a metaphor. Real truck, real sun, real collision, and real injuries. But the hamster wheel and the airplane trip? Metaphors. A pair of accessible and effective metaphors help Fassberg tidily convey her truth. She was stuck and needed to make a life change.
When Susan and I opted into the adventure of reawakening Rosslyn as our home, we knew that we needed to make a change. We were navigating disorienting liminal changes (personal, professional, financial, and even philosophical/ethical). In the midst of these tempestuous transitions, we latched onto a hope that Rosslyn would help us reboot. Rehab. Maybe reawakening a needy property would reawaken our own hopes, optimism, confidence. We were in need of a full system reboot. Unplug. Count to ten. Replug. And, in our infinite wisdom (read irony, ergo… our infinite folly?) we chose to believe that Rosslyn, in need of TLC (and possibly life support) herself, would be able to minister to us. Made perfect sense at the time!
We had not been hit by a truck. Not a literal truck at least. Perhaps a metaphorical truck. Or several metaphorical trucks. And the joke about the airline pilot? Really, really familiar. Only, purchasing Rosslyn didn’t exactly precipitate a safe landing. Not for a few years, at least. And, yes, we were lost before throwing ourselves at the feet of Rosslyn, and we were often quite lost during those first few years.
Sure, we needed change. But we basically leaped into the tumbling kaleidoscope of constant, unpredictable change, each juggle and bump triggering a dazzling aurora borealis of tumbling technicolor mystery. Mysteries. It was spectacular and intoxicating. And it was often disorienting. Sometimes it was debilitating.
Are you with me? Maybe 50-100% clear on what I’m trying to say?
No?
Me either.
Not a metaphor, I promised. And then, I dove into metaphor. Metaphors.
Sorry.
Sometimes what I want to say and what I think I want to say are like the nearly marooned boat captain and the fog-lancing lighthouse. Each reaching through the turmoil toward one another, but only occasionally, fleetingly connecting.
When in danger of becoming marooned, I tell myself, narrow the focus. Tack 90° or so in a different direction. Decrease distance to desired destination by abbreviating the current journey….
Projecting Passion & Lovestruck Infatuation
I’ve often used the words “smitten”, “seduced”, beguiled, enchanted… when referring to Rosslyn. I ought to be more specific. I used these fuzzy euphemisms when describing my personal relationship with Rosslyn. And, in an effort to be as candid as comfortable — hopefully catalyzing some sort of catharsis, some sort of eureka moment clarifying this sixteen year affair with a home — I insisted, especially early on after purchasing Rosslyn from Elizabeth and George McNulty, that he, George McNulty, seemed to have had an almost four decade long love affair with Rosslyn. I even once asked his son, Jason McNulty, what he thought of that observation. I don’t recollect him making too much of my peculiar characterization, but perhaps I’ll find the opportunity to revisit this over-the-top and totally unjustified hypothesis. I bring it up now because it strikes me as peculiar that I initially felt so certain, perhaps I even needed to understand the previous owner’s relationship with this property as being a sort of love affair, an enduring passion that ran parallel to his marriages. And peculiar that Susan and I adopted this anthropomorphic oddity in explaining our own relationship with Rosslyn.
I relied on this fuzzy explanation for our outsized investment of energy, resources, and life into an old house because it was a way of avoiding the complexity of our true relationship. I figured that my love entanglement language would simply be heard as metaphorical exaggeration. And I hastened to contextualize my own infatuation with the previous owner’s alleged love affair as if to suggest that this property had a certain charm that could only be approximated with the language of love and passion. We all tend to speak in hyperbole, especially when asked to justify odd, uncharacteristic, or extreme behavior. Certainly our family and friends would have been justified in describing our all-in obsession with Rosslyn as reckless, foolhardy infatuation.
But I suspect that most who’ve heard me claim that we were beguiled or smitten, never really took me literally. Perhaps I didn’t take myself literally. I’ve come to wonder if this is not a metaphor at all. Or if we’re unable to navigate, to grapple with loss and hurt and confusion and hope and optimism without the medicine of metaphor.
Looking South from Split Rock Light (Vintage Postcard)
Why did I illustrate this post with Split Rock Lighthouse? Why did I borrow Susan Fassberg’s brave truth and then trip repeatedly over metaphor despite an sincere effort to come clean, to carve our some crystal clear truth? And why is it so comforting to include this second postcard above as I wander toward my conclusion-less conclusion to this post?
The vantage from the lighthouse, looking south, the postcard states (although its actually sort of southeast), across the northern end of the Split Rock Wildway, across Lake Champlain at the beginning of The Narrows, and then across Vermont toward the trailing end of the Green Mountain, this vantage is familiar. It is our metaphorical front yard. It is a significant reminder that our attraction to Rosslyn was, yes, a handsome old home and boathouse, but it was also this realm, this wild and overgrown invitation to let go… of so much. And to allow ourselves to gradually reawaken, to reinvigorate our hopes and dreams and to rediscover a future that had become stormy and confusing.
[I’ve just attempted to reread this post without hitting delete. What in the world am I wrestling with? And why is it so elusive? Damned if I know. Yet. But if you’ve made it this far, I apologize. Sometimes the captain navigates the ship. Other times the tempest itself seizes the helm!]
Columns in previous owner’s workshop, present day dining room (Photo: Geo Davis)
It’s time for another architectural salvage update, this time focusing on the Greek Revival columns that we salvaged from Rosslyn’s future dining room back in 2006 in the early days or our renovation project. Let’s dive right in with that photograph above, but first a quick semantic note. For the sake of this post (and others) let’s assume that “adaptive reuse” and “repurposing” are sufficiently equivalent to be used interchangeably. There are those who restrict use of the former for buildings and use the latter for both buildings and materials, design elements, etc. I use the two interchangeably, not limiting “adaptive reuse” to buildings.
Some of you may recognize the photograph at the top of this post as the workshop of Rosslyn’s previous owner, George McNulty. Others of you know this same space — originally a pair of parlors and later dining rooms when the property was operated as the Sherwood Inn — as Susan and my principal dining room. (To avoid confusion, the qualifier is intended to distinguish the space from our front parlor which we use as a smaller dining room and the morning room or north porch which we use as our informal dining room.)
Deconstruction & Salvage
Although similar to the photograph above, this next set of visual benchmarks were made about half a year later. In the first photo the well equipped wood shop was still ready for creative carpentry and historic preservation, active pursuits of the previous owner for decades. But in the photograph below renovations are well underway and this room is virtually empty and deconstructed to the studs and brick.
Soon-to-be repurposed column during September 2006 deconstruction in Rosslyn’s future dining room (Photo: Geo Davis)
All of the trim in this room had already been meticulously documented by McNulty, but we salvaged everything that we could for reuse and to template from in order to bring this room back to its previous condition. It’s worth noting that we originally had hoped to be able to minimize repairs to this room, but it turned out to be a sifting sand trap. Each element we tackled revealed two underlying problems and so on. The floor was failing, the ceiling was failing, the fireplace was failing, the columns and beam which separated the space into two rooms was not original, and there was a window — bricked up and concealed within a closet — that was begging to be opened. Needless to say this room, our future dining room, was one of many that mushroomed in deconstruction and rehabilitation. The scope of work dilated day after day after day for weeks and then months and eventually years. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
To refocus on the columns, lets start by taking a good look at the southern column (above) and the northern column (below) and then let’s get a little boost from the good folks at Britannica on the anatomy of a Greek column.
Soon-to-be repurposed column during September 2006 deconstruction in Rosslyn’s future dining room (Photo: Geo Davis)
The simplicity of these columns, only minimally embellished, lead me to consider them of the Doric order. And the following overview serves us well with one subtle revision. Both in their original location and in their future icehouse location, these repurposed columns will rest on the floor. In other words, the floor serves as the stylobate.
There are many separate elements that make up a complete column and entablature. At the bottom of the column is the stylobate; this is a continuous flat pavement on which a row of columns is supported. Rising out of the stylobate is the plinth, a square or circular block that is the lowest part of the base. Atop the plinth and forming the remainder of the base are one or more circular moldings that have varying profiles; these may include a torus (a convex molding that is semicircular in profile), a scotia (with a concave profile), and one or more fillets, or narrow bands.
The shaft, which rests upon the base, is a long, narrow, vertical cylinder that in some orders is articulated with fluting (vertical grooves). The shaft may also taper inward slightly so that it is wider at the bottom than at the top.
Atop the shaft is the capital, which serves to concentrate the weight of the entablature on the shaft and also acts as an aesthetic transition between those two elements. In its simplest form (the Doric), the capital consists (in ascending order) of three parts; the necking, which is a continuation of the shaft but which is set off from it visually by one or more narrow grooves; the echinus, a circular block that bulges outward at its uppermost portion in order to better support the abacus; and the abacus itself, a square block that directly supports the entablature above and transmits its weight to the rest of the column below. (Source: Britannica)
You’ll be quizzed on this later. Maybe. Or not.
Repurposed Columns
Now armed with some targeted vocabulary we can fast forward to about a week ago when Pam, Hroth, and Tony extracted the columns from the hay loft of the carriage barn where they’ve been stored for about sixteen years. I won’t pretend they’re tidy, but they’re intact, well preserved and ready for repurposing as a whimsical-but-structural design element supporting the new icehouse loft.
Hroth surveying soon-to-be repurposed columns from carriage barn hayloft to icehouse (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
In the photo above we’re looking over Hroth’s shoulder at the soon-to-be repurposed columns. Yes. Big. Eight feet from the bottom of the plinth to the top of the capital. Hroth’s a tall fellow, but these stately columns tower above him. I’m bringing this up to allow for critics to suggest that these columns just *might* be out of scale with the diminutive icehouse. It’s a reasonable suggestion. But we’re not undertaking an historic preservation. Instead we’re rehabilitating a utility space, a once-upon-a-time storage barn for ice, into a contemporary mixed-use office, studio, lifestyle space. Relevance is driving the program and adaptive reuse with a whimsical nod to the past is guiding the design choices. There are some incongruities baked into the vision for sure, but we’re gambling that they’ll prove charming rather than unsettling. Fingers crossed!
Hroth transporting repurposed columns from carriage barn hayloft to icehouse. (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
After a decade and a half of dusty hibernation in the carriage barn’s hayloft, these artifacts of once again seeing the light of day. Tony (upstairs, inside) and Hroth (outside) tenderly liberated the columns from the veritable warehouse of architectural salvage — windows, doors, moldings, trims, shutters, fireplace surrounds, mantlepieces, and various miscellanea — to begin rehabilitating them.
Hroth and Tony transporting repurposed columns from carriage barn hayloft to icehouse. (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
It’s worth noting that I played with the perspective on the photo above in order to best view the column emerging from the carriage barn. Hoth’s face and figure suffered slightly Silly Putty disfigurement in the process. Please forgive me, Hroth!
Capital from column that will be reused in the icehouse rehab (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
The capitals are not connected to the columns, perhaps because installation is more convenient. Or perhaps as a casualty of our 2006 deconstruction (or sixteen years of getting bumped into while in storage?) But the elements are intact and ready for cleanup and reassembly. I’ll update the repurposed column progress as they move forward on their journey toward installation.
Capital from column that will be reused in the icehouse rehab (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Although it’s still a little premature to photograph the columns inside the icehouse, and since we have some long overdue cleaning and refinishing to undertake before these towering twins are ready to preside over their new environment, it’s helpful to imagine where we’re headed. To that end I’ll conclude with the most recent interior elevations that include the columns. There are inevitably tweaks that will emerge in the weeks and even months ahead and we massage the icehouse rehab into shape, but these drawings might sate your curiosity for a while.
Icehouse interior elevations including repurposed columns, as of November 11, 2022 (Credit: Tiho Dimitrov)
In closing, thank you Hroth and Tony for recovering the repurposed columns with such care. Thank you, Pam, for months of dimension documentation and photographs to ensure that Tiho was able to integrate these into the plan. Thank you, Tiho, for your perennial willingness to accommodate our sometimes challenging guidance and requests. And thank you, Rosslyn, for providing and supporting and nurturing our vision(s). Your gifts are without end.
Florence Sherwood, Phil Keuhlen, and Chuck Sherwood at the Sherwood Inn, August 1951 (Source: Phil Keuhlen)
One of the great joys in owning Rosslyn these last 15 years (hard to believe it’s been a decade and a half since we purchased our Essex home from Elizabeth and George McNulty!) has been discovering the memorabilia of those who’ve come before us. So many Rosslyn memories, stories, and artifacts. Today I’d like to introduce you to the Keuhlen family who vacationed at the Sherwood Inn in August 1951.
Almost three years ago I was contacted by Phillip Keuhlen via the Rosslyn Redux page on Facebook. The impetus for his outreach was contextualizing photographs from a family vacation in Essex many decades ago. I was immeasurably grateful for the opportunity to peer into Rosslyn’s past when the property was operated as the Sherwood Inn. As happens remarkably often in this quirky existence, Phil and I uncovered a handful of additional life overlaps, the sharing of which has evolved into a penpal friendship of sorts.
I asked Phil recently to remind me how we had initially connected.
As for how we came to be in correspondence, it started with a group of photos sent to me from my Mom’s estate, and thinking I might provide some context for my children if they were ever of interest to them.
The breadcrumbs lined up thus:
Internet search on “Sherwood Inn”… much too broad… you would be surprised at the number!
From there to a link to your Rosslyn Redux website
Finally to initial contact via messenger after following link to your FB page…
Digital breadcrumbs for a fortuitous connection across an historic and geographic divide. Oh, brave new world!
Tantalizing Time Capsules
What is it about time capsules, especially serendipitous time capsules? Is it the wink of familiarity across decades, despite initial dissimilarities? Is there just something intrinsically compelling about time-hazed mirrors and patinated backstories? Something irresistibly intriguing about glimpsing earlier iterations of our realities?
I can’t answer these questions, but I suspect that there’s something universal in the fascination I experience when permitted to time travel backward into Rosslyn’s history. My earnest hunch, squinting eyes, and furrowed brow – perhaps the subtle conceits of an amateur sleuth – and my fluttering pulse are familiar and welcome as I study the black and white images shared by a man who lives on the other side of the country, a man I’ve never actually met in person, a man who has generously shared a nostalgic cache of personal artifacts that just happen to illuminate Rosslyn’s blurry past, a sneak peek into an earlier chapter of the property we’ve been revitalizing for years.
In that first photograph above Phil Keuhlen as a youngster is flanked by his proud parents. They’re kneeling in front of a porch that adorned Rosslyn’s East facade for many years. At first the brick home as we know it today isn’t recognizable to me. And then it is. A flash of familiarity. The entrance door sidelights with those delicate, curved mullions are unmistakable.
Florence Sherwood, Phil Keuhlen, and Chuck Sherwood at the Sherwood Inn, August 1951 (Source: Phil Keuhlen)
They are better visible in the photograph above as well, however the center transom light (over the door) appears to have been altered at some point.
Adding to my good fortune, Phil has filled in details that his family photographs leave out.
Here are the Sherwood Inn photos I promised… All were taken in August 1951. We lived in Bloomfield, NJ at the time. The little guy in the photos is me at 2 weeks shy of my 2nd birthday. Wish I could offer more background, but both of my folks have passed and the first of my siblings had not joined us yet, so there is no one else left to ask. My only recollection of that vacation is a vague memory of falling backwards and getting briefly stuck between a bench and a bulkhead on a ferry trip across Lake Champlain! Look closely at the one whose file title includes “Note Sign” and you will see a sign for Sherwood Inn in the background. It says there were cabins available… not sure if that is news to you. There is also one that is very blurry… that I included because it shows that there used to be an extension well beyond your boathouse. The names of Florence & Chuck Sherwood, staff member Jean and guest/daughter(?) Judy are all retrieved from my Mom’s contemporaneous inscriptions on the back of the photos.
There’s plenty to muse and chuckle over in Phil’s message, but two threads especially strike me.
Let’s start with Phil’s mother’s “contemporaneous inscriptions on the back of the photos”. The photographs are opulent time capsules in and of themselves. They instantly offer a potent visual connection across the decades, an accessible and inviting bridge between now and then. The presence of Phil, his parents, and several others in the photographs contributes to the allure. These are not mere architectural artifacts. They are intimate snapshots of love and laughter and memories-in-the-making in the very same yard, beach, buildings where we love and laugh and make memories seventy years later. There’s a relevance and resonance that functions like a time machine, embracing two disconnected slivers of time so that they overlap for a moment.
And that is just a reaction to the time tarnished images. The inscriptions that Phil refers to remind me of the messages memorialized on the back sides of vintage postcards I collect.
Although I remain somewhat conflicted whether or not it’s appropriate to share the messages from vintage and antique postcards, I tend toward a quasi-archeological justification (unless the content is obviously sensitive or inappropriate). (Source: Sherwood Inn Landing on Lake Champlain – Rosslyn Redux)
From time to time these words illuminate the image. Time capsules in and of themselves, these quickly scrawled artifacts can enrich and amplify the value of the photographs. This is certainly the case with the notes recorded by Phil’s mother.
I’m especially intrigued to see mention of Florence and Chuck Sherwood. Although I’ve been fortunate in amassing many artifacts from the days that Rosslyn served as the Sherwood Inn, I’m thin on information about this couple. And the staff member smiling in the photos below, who is she? Might she be identifiable? Is she perhaps still a member of our Essex community?
Phil Keuhlen with Jean (staff) at the Sherwood Inn, August 1951 (Source: Phil Keuhlen)
Jean, Sherwood Inn staff, August 1951 (Source: Phil Keuhlen)
And Phil’s young companion, Judy, will she remain a mystery? Or perhaps a dash of crowd research will help us to identify her as well.
Phil Keuhlen and Judy at the Sherwood Inn, August 1951 (Source: Phil Keuhlen)
Phil Keuhlen and Judy at the Sherwood Inn, August 1951 (Source: Phil Keuhlen)
What gratitude I feel to Phil (and to Phil’s mother) for recording and sharing these moments. And yet, I can’t help but repeat thoughts from an earlier post about a vintage photograph.
This faded photograph kindles nostalgia and wonder, revealing a glimpse into the history of Rosslyn… while dangling further mysteries to compell me deeper into the narrative of our home. Kindred sleuths are welcome! (Source: Rosslyn Boathouse, circa 1907 – Rosslyn Redux)
Phil Keuhlen at the Sherwood Inn, August 1951 (Source: Phil Keuhlen)
As for the second thread I’d like to revisit, Phil mentions the Sherwood Inn sign in the photograph above.
It says there were cabins available… not sure if that is news to you.
While the presence of cabins or cottages at the Sherwood Inn is known to us, this is a reminder that we’ve never managed to locate any record (photograph, title, etc.) that precisely captures the locations or looks of these cabins. I’d like to. I’m hoping that somebody may have snapped a photograph once upon a time.
Rosslyn Boathouse
As I’ve mentioned time and again since I began sharing this story over a decade ago, it was Rosslyn’s boathouse with which I was initially smitten. It’s my first and enduring passion when it comes to this property. So, needless to say, Phil’s mother’s photographs of the boathouse are especially captivating for me.
Keuhlen Family at the Sherwood Inn, August 1951 (Source: Phil Keuhlen)
Although salvaging and rehabilitating this architectural folly was an epic project, it’s immensely satisfying to see that there are so few differences between today’s pier, dock house, and gangway (to shore) and their earlier iteration in the photograph. Preserving this +/-125 year old Essex monument is a perennial challenge. Engineering and construction location hurdles for “a boathouse that was one ice flow away from a watery grave” were not insignificant. And then there was the ahistoric flooding. Not the 1983 flood which took place more than two decades prior to our ownership. The 2011 flood, on the other hand, visited weeks upon weeks of high water upon us immediately after we had completed the boathouse’s lengthy renovation.
The second Keuhlen family photo of Rosslyn’s boathouse was taken when the photographer turned slightly more eastward, away from the beach and toward Vermont.
There is also one that is very blurry… that I included because it shows that there used to be an extension well beyond your boathouse.
Phil’s note touches on one of the notable differences with Rosslyn’s 21st century boathouse. Although a portion of the cantilevered section at the end of the boathouse remains, the extensive pier that continued eastward through the 1990s is no longer extant. Ruins of the old stone and timber crib dock remain however, and they’re visible at low water (usually August to September or October). An ice flow approximately a decade prior to our purchase effectively erased what at one time more than doubled the pier’s extension into Lake Champlain. A studious eye can spy the original pier (and the coal bunker built atop it) in these posts: “Kestrel 1892 Steam Yacht in Essex” and “Rosslyn Boathouse, circa 1907“.
Phil Keuhlen at the Sherwood Inn, August 1951 (Source: Phil Keuhlen)
Toward a Poetics of Place
I mentioned at the opening to this post that Phil and I have discovered several uncanny life coincidences. While some (i.e. New Mexico parallels) aren’t germane in this blog post, others are. It turns out that Phil and my wife, Susan, grew up — albeit a generation apart — within walking distance from one another. And his family was similarly drawn to old home rehabilitation.
Funny how small the world can be, huh? My folks restored an old Victorian house in Glen Ridge, the little town between Montclair & Bloomfield… When they took possession, there was a (leaky) slate roof, a well in the attached shed, a coal fired boiler, an earthen floor in the basement, some remnants of lead piping and gas lighting. I learned a lot watching and helping with that rolling renovation… largely an early lesson in blowing cost and schedule. I used to joke with my parents that I would have been a genius if I hadn’t ingested all the dust from sanding and scraping lead based paint in that house as a youngster! […] My folks lived in that old home from 1954 until they moved to Colorado in 1970, and subsequent owners have been generous in allowing my family occasional walks down memory lane there. It sounds like Rosslyn has the same attraction of fond associations for many in Essex. I explored your site some more and found the link to the article in OHJ. Your restoration is simply stunning.
I want to close by telling you how much I have enjoyed your blog. I lived in Saratoga Springs in ’72-’73 and enjoyed exploring up your way every chance I got (ok… when not casting on the Battenkill or Ausable). You write evocatively about a special part of this beautiful country and the history that is integral to a sense of place and community.
I too want to close by telling Phil Keuhlen how much I have enjoyed these photographs and our communications, conversations sometimes rooted in a shared experience of the Sherwood Inn / Rosslyn and other times meandering far afield. It has brought me immense satisfaction journeying into this 1951 time capsule through the memories and artifacts of a stranger-turned-friend. And I am humbled once again with the proof that a sense of place and community is the heart and soul of Rosslyn Redux. I have approached this topic tangentially for years, wondering and wandering toward a better understanding of what defines our Rosslyn experience; what bound us so passionately to this property from our first encounter; and what after all are home, home-ness, homing?
In the early days of this blog I suspected our inside-out rehabilitation story might offer something useful — even practical — to others pursuing similar adventures. Perhaps this is still sometimes the case. But I’ve mostly migrated from prescriptive to curious. Wonder has long since eclipsed practical. Still coalescing is what I’ve come to see as a poetics of place.
With that somewhat nebulous prognostication, I close this pre-Thanksgiving post with heartfelt appreciation to Phil and his late mother. Your gift of memory and family artifacts are now woven inextricably into the Rosslyn narrative. Given the overalled youngster’s self assurance in this final photograph below, it seems almost inevitable that his grown up self would reach across the country and across the years to reconnect with a place that endures in memory. A place that endures as our home. An auspicious connection for sure! Thank you.
Father and son, Al Keuhlen (r) and Phil Keuhlen (l), at the Sherwood Inn, August 1951 (Source: Phil Keuhlen)
