Tag: Historic Rehabilitation

Durable Joinery

Durable Joinery (Photo: Geo Davis)

Joints. Joinery. Rejoinery. Durable. Dynamic. Durable dynamics. Durable joinery. Team dynamics…

Consider that word parade fair warning for where I’m headed. From dovetails to team dynamics, in the twinkling of an eye. At least, that was my plan in revisiting a flood of field notes. Instead my errand evolved into a meandering meditation on admittedly abstract, fairly freestyle associations between durable joinery and team dynamics.

So, if you’re the A-to-Z git-r-done type, this is a good post for you to skip. Probably. Unless you’ve already burned a cord of calories and you’re surfing a dopamine-endorphin wave, in which case this might be just the departure from your daily that the doctor ordered. (The proverbial doctor, not the real doctor.)

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s rewind a few weeks to my sudden and unanticipated decampment from Santa Fe to Essex.

Durable Joinery (Photo: Geo Davis)

Icehouse Intermission

Mission interrupted, more to the point. Icehouse rehab back on ice for a week or two while we regrouped and remapped and, eventually, rebooted. Upon approaching Rosslyn by water — steely skies and surreal snowflakes fluttering occasionally (as if the special effects team had been downsized), an almost empty ferry, a mostly hibernating hamlet hunkering lakeside — mixed emotions roiled within me.

There was a wellspring of anticipation upon returning to inspect firsthand the team’s progress on the icehouse rehab, boathouse gangway, and some painting and tiling maintenance inside our home. There was also the poignant pique of a visit precipitated not by plan or passion but by infelicitous necessity. (Source: Snow Falling on Homecoming)

Three weeks ago this past Wednesday. The following days were invigorating. Encouraging.

By in large, this impromptu return to Rosslyn has been profoundly positive…

[“On the Level“, a poem drafted during my visit, reflects] the reassurance that I’m encountering, the confidence and conviction that are flowing back in after ebbing…

[…]

On the level, there’s plenty of optimism, despite inevitable setbacks. (Source: On the Level)

The progress was grounding, familiarizing myself physically with what I’d been living virtually, witnessing in person the dramatic transformation of this long-held vision into tangible, well built, inviting spaces and floors and walls and stairs and windows and doors. The volumes and the vessel that contains them, defines them, that had been gestating for almost two decades, was at last becoming believable due to the collaboration and teamwork of many.

Durable Joinery (Photo: Geo Davis)

A furtive foray into the curious coalescence of still tender fractures and ruptures that drew me back to Rosslyn (and that continue to disclose themselves each day of my stay, reminders of quaking in recent weeks) but also the durable bonds and the abiding beauty that hold it all together. (Source: Bowtie & Broken Memento)

While it is indeed Rosslyn’s abiding beauty that beckoned us to this property in the first place and her abiding beauty that has buoyed us through years of historic rehabilitation (and personal rehab!), there are times when the border between broken and unbroken blurs and faultiness become fractures. In such cases it is the durable bonds that prevail, that steady the proverbial ship, that hold it all together.

Rarely, I find, does the journey tidily delineate between clear victories and clear setbacks. Ours is a nonbinary and highly subjective adventure, and this midwinter, mid-project hiatus is no exception. Disheartening and challenging, yes, but also an opportunity to acknowledge and to celebrate accomplishment, a notable benchmark on the quest to reinvent a 19th century utility building as a 21st century lifestyle hub on a par with Rosslyn’s gracious home, waterfront, and generous grounds.

In short, there was — and there is — far more to fête than to lament at this juncture.

Durable Joinery (Photo: Geo Davis)

Back to Work & Field Notes

In what’s become a familiar pattern, today’s post was an orphaned draft, initiated as field notes during my recent Essex sojourn, and then adapted into a readout for the team to catalyze our onsite meetings into an actionable scope of work. That part happened. Practical. Necessary. Timely. Now, with the benefit of sufficient remove (for tempering tone and shifting perspective) I’m revisiting those field notes from a more meditative perspective. And yes, my reflection has been fueled in no small part by an obsession with joinery.

Before I go there, guiding you into the mesmerizing maze of my imagination (bread crumbs advised), let’s ground this soon-to-be-ungrounded stream of conscious in the days we spent together as a team. Here are a few excerpts recapping my extended site visit.

We met as a big group and as multiple smaller groups over more than a week. Much was rehashed, brainstormed, problematized, and decided during these encounters, so I’d like to follow up with a readout from our main meeting as well as some of the items that came out independently in my one-on-one followups. Please understand that some of what I’m including may feel like micromanaging or second-guessing skills, expertise, experience, etc. Please accept my apologies in advance, and understand that neither are among my objectives. However the last month has illustrated the downside to having direction and decision-making silo’ed up. By “flattening” the team, I am hoping to shift the focus toward a more collegial, more ensemble oriented approach. We have ample resources in our team (an almost embarrassing abundance of skill, passion, and work ethic!), and I want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to contribute, to catch problems before they materialize, to learn from one another, and to avoid the bottlenecks and logjams that we can’t afford at this halfway point.

We will continue to rely on Pam, Peter, and Eric as the three leads or “co-captains” with the objective of streamlining on-site decision-making and progress. But I strongly encourage everyone to study the plans, to ask questions, to make suggestions, and to contribute to the collaborative success of the icehouse rehabilitation as we cartwheel toward the finish line.

Although we covered an expansive scope of work during our meetings, I gathered the gist into a detailed outline for everyone to review, edit, and augment prior to our team meeting the following week. In addition to onboarding everyone as a contributing and valuable member of the team while reaffirming a commitment to transparency as we move forward, I also hope to encourage the sort of cross pollination that has consistently defined the high point of this and previous projects.

Our follow-up team meeting fleshed out the scope of work and cemented the near term benchmarks and timeline. We will be able to revisit weekly with an eye to efficient project management, clear expectations, and an emphasis on incubating the sort of collaborative environment that yields the best results and ensures the most enthusiastic comradely. Goals set. Updates as we advance upon these goals.

So that sets the stage in a dry, rearview mirror sort of way.

What it overlooks is the morale, outlook ,and commitment of everyone with whom I met. Shuffling the team and shifting responsibilities midstream is unsettling and disruptive at best. The way this team came together, processed the change, stepped up to new responsibilities, and immediately, resolutely refocused on the new map and timelines was astounding. Confident and optimistic, proud of their accomplishments heretofore, eager to restore forward motion, and laser focused on the tight timeline, elevated expectation, and bountiful challenges. Unwavering. And hopeful that the full team might be reconstituted in the home stretch to finish up strong together, and to collectively commemorate their accomplishments come June.

And this is part of what takes me to the woodworking, and specifically joinery, as a metaphor. Heck, it’s not even just the sorts of joining and conjunction that are foundational to joinery and even carpentry. It’s the millennia old art and artisanry committed to joining, conjoining, and even mending that fascinates me. I’ve waxed on aplenty about wab-sabi, so I’ll sidestep a tangential deep dive now (ditto for Kintsugi.) A tidy touchstone will suffice.

Wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” in nature. (Source: Wikipedia)

Joining, conjoining, and reconjoining. No false disguise, no pretense, no faux facade. Bringing together. Bringing back together. I’m clearly still ill equipped to wordsmith my ideas into articulate or persuasive prose. But I’m working on it. And I’m hurling this half-baked post into the world with the unrestrained wish that it will settle on fertile soil, that it will germinate, and that I will be able to observe and learn how to communicate what it is that I’m discovering, this groundswell of insight that I’m experiencing without yet fully comprehending what it is. Bear with me, and I’ll do my best to interpret the lessons as they are learned.

In the mean time, I will draw in two compelling perspectives that may well shed some light.

Durable Joinery (Photo: Geo Davis)

Joinery as Metaphor

Allow me a moment to weave in a consideration that deftly approaches the idea of woodworking as metaphor.

I am building a file cabinet for my office. It strikes me an apt metaphor for what we do as teachers in the classroom. I begin with a vision, followed by making a clearly developed plan. I gather the materials I will need – examining them for grain, quality, and fit. Each piece is cut just over the requisite length. I use a variety of joinery techniques to assemble the parts. The finished piece begins to take form. From the rough construction, wood is slowly and strategically removed, rounding edges and corners, sanding rough edges and surfaces, slowly revealing the finished shape. I stand back to see what continues to require attention. Final details are attended. Stain is gently rubbed in; varnish is brushed on – rubbed smooth between coats. I stand back and smile, satisfied with a pleasing, useful piece of furniture. — Bill Lindquist, January 3, 2012 (Source: The Purple Crayon)

Teaching. Yes. And team building. Team rebuilding.

Perhaps the following is only tangentially related, though it feels germane.

But I know full well that many woodworkers don’t want to hear about philosophy. What practical value can there possibly be in sitting around thinking about work? Isn’t it better just to roll up your sleeves and get to it?

I believe that this temptation to leave our brains at the door of the shop is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature that separates our thinking from our doing…

We are whole beings, and although we have inner and outer aspects (mind/soul and body), we are essentially unities, not dualities… you cannot separate your mind from your body. You can’t put your thoughts and beliefs in one category and your practices in another.

So, why so much thinking and theory from a woodworking publication? Because, reader, you have a mind inextricably connected to those hands. And I am convinced that if we want our work to reflect the fullness of who we are, the why will be just as important as the how. — Joshua A. Klein, September 28, 2021 (Source: What’s With This Woodworking Philosophy Stuff? – Mortise & Tenon Magazine)

Absolutely. (And, as an aside, this reminds me that I’ve been ignoring another orphaned draft about Rosslyn’s 5w’s. Back on the punch list!)

Durable Joinery (Photo: Geo Davis)

At present I’m endeavoring to unweave our recent Rosslyn narrative just enough to re-braid the threads that anew, mending the challenges that have arisen, as if braiding a bridge over troubled water… (Or a bridge graft at the base of a partially girdled tree in Rosslyn’s orchard… Yikes! Mixed metaphors. And so long as I’m hoarding metaphors, what about kintsugi?)

Kintsugi is an ancient Japanese art in which broken pottery is mended with glue and gold honoring and highlighting the cracks rather than hiding them. The belief is the pottery is stronger and more valuable after the breakage and mending. Kintsugi is a powerful metaphor and physical art practice to explore layers of meaning of broken, to look at the pieces in new ways, and notice the ‘glue’ in our lives that assist us to mend, navigate challenging times and keep on going. — Kristin Pedemonti (Source: Mending What’s Broken | Steer Your Story)

The writhing winds are pulling my mind hither and yon, and I find myself too, too deep into this meandering meditation to abandon it. If I’ve lost you, I apologize. Know that we are lost together. But as fellow sojourners we are not idle, waiting for the illumination of morning. Perhaps we’ll stumble upon or quarry in the darkness.

In closing, and I promise you I am, allow me to apologize for this untethered and unedited runaway. More soon, I hope, on mortise and tenons and dovetails, joyful joinery, rejoinery and durable bonds. My imagination is conjuring an intricate scarf joint that conjoins by gathering, by honoring, by encouraging, a meticulously crafted union where stresses are distributed in all directions and resilient when forces challenge. My imagination is ringing with the melody of strengthen, even repairing a strained or failing joint. Join, conjoin, reconjoin…

February 19, 2023
Impermanent Perspectives
Much like nature and gardening and the creative arts, construction supplies a wellspring of impermanent perspectives. Perfect fodder for those of us with protean proclivities. Perennial process, or so it sometimes seems, the finished product merely a mirage dancing in the distance.

Impermanent Perspectives (Photo: Geo Davis)

I’ve touched a time or two (or ten?) on my fickle criteria for field note gathering, my quasi chronicling, and my munge-meets-compost creative process. I pretend no historical authority, no architectural acumen, no matrimonial expertise. Just an unabashed curiosity and abiding appetite for adventure and creative exploration. In short, what finds its way into Rosslyn Redux is a bit of a mystery. Even to me!

The experiences these coup d’œil capture are inevitably shaped and edited by my perspective… Shoot for objectivity; settle for subjectivity. (Source: Voyeuristic Glimpses & Mosaic Mirages)

These temporary points of view (POV) — as much a part of rehabilitation as of writing and revising — are one of the highlights, *addictive* highlights, of any construction or reconstruction project.

The photo above and the photo below were taken inside the icehouse mechanical room looking west, through a tangle of framing. A fleetingly photographable point of view…

Impermanent Perspectives: Poem
```
Impermanent perspectives
transient apertures
mercurial moments
vignettes vary
vistas evolve
gazing inward
into and through
a building’s bowels
interim point of view 
through a thicket of
studs and stringers
headers and plates
an ephemeral photo
possible now but
impossible soon
as progress clads
walls and risers
as progress courts
completion
```
Impermanent Perspectives (Photo: Geo Davis)

These impermanent perspectives intrigue me. Often they provoke second guessing and new ideas. Sometimes they alter the path forward. Though not this time.

Soon the mechanical room wall will be clad in plywood (to provide blocking) and the walls will be paneled and trimmed. The staircase will be finished with risers and treads. A column of balusters will march up the stairs carrying a “brightwork” handrail. This layered look, this filtered view, this multidimensional perspective on the vaulted main room of the icehouse will transition from reality to memory. A few photos. A poem.
February 17, 2023
Boathouse Repairs 6: Northside Post Wraps Installed

Supi Installing Northside Post Wraps (Photo: Peter Vaiciulis)

With the blizzard barreling into our neck of the woods, Peter and Supi hustled to wrap up installation of northside posts before snow stalls their progress.

Supi Installing Northside Post Wraps (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

These photos give the golden-lighted illusion that work conditions down at the boathouse are temperate and eminently agreeable. Reality is a bit different, of course. Temperatures have been damp and cold. And working on a manmade peninsula out into chilly, windy Lake Champlain isn’t for the delicate.

Northside Post Wraps (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

In the photo above the copper tops are as obviously absent as the railings. I had a “tin knocker” fabricate the copper tops almost a decade and a half ago. They’ve patinated handsomely in their demanding lakeside environment, and they’ve even endured a few dings from waterski fins, windsurfer booms, etc. over the years. So replace them, right? No way! We’re carefully removing the small copper nails that secure them, and we’ll reuse them once railings are in place. As if nothing ever changed!

Boathouse Northside Post Wraps Installed (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

Northside Posts Ready for Rails

The northside posts are s assigned and ready for Peter and Supi to install the railings. The railing components are being fabricated — almost done — and following the posts to Willsboro where Erin is priming and painting the components prior to installation. Lots. Of. Steps. Have I mentioned before that it takes a team?!?!

Boathouse Northside Posts Installed (Photo: Peter Vaiciulis)

That photo above shows new post wraps primed, re-sanded, and ready for another coat of primer. Then they’ll receive two coats of paint before being installed. Overkill, you’re wondering? Actually it’s future -proofing. An investment in longevity. Yes, historic rehabilitation is a perpetual balancing act between revitalizing the past and endeavoring to preserve these architectural artifacts well into the future. Onward!

December 17, 2022
Orchard Rumination

Apple Blossom (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lately I’ve been reflecting on all the trees I wish I’d planted in the fall of 2006 and the spring of 2007. We’ve been adding new trees for a year now — a half dozen or so each spring and fall — and yet I can’t help but imagine what might be today if I’d started earlier. Fruit trees ten or twelve feet tall would still be blooming. We would have been harvesting apples and pears and plums and apricots and peaches for a couple of seasons by now.

In fact, we have harvested some apples and pears during the last two years, but they didn’t come from newly planted trees. I’ve been restoring a couple dozen gnarly, long neglected apple trees (and two pear trees) scattered throughout the meadows behind our barns. Whittling a third of their old growth away each season, I’ve begun to nurse the old trees back to health, and several have begun to produce palatable fruit.

I’ve wiled away many beautiful hours lopping and sawing from the top of a ladder or winding my way through the limbs like a monkey. I’ve loved every minute of it and not just for the promise of future fruit.

It’s a funny thing, an orchard. So many functions wrapped up in one little plot of land, one little grid of fruit trees. Obviously one of the most important is also the most self evident: an orchard is a neighborhood “market”, if you will. A fresh fruit grocery less than a minute from the kitchen. An organic grocery where I can be 100% confident that no pesticide and no unwholesome ripening techniques have sullied the fresh fruit.

Doug carrying orchard ladder

And then there are the flowers. Gardeners, landscapers, poets and painters have romanced the seasonal blossoms of fruit trees for hundreds of years. I am no exception despite my utilitarian, upcountry ways. An orchard is a geometric bouquet of blooms, an annual riot against leafless canopies and gray, drizzly spring days. And even when blossoms flutter earthward and the boughs fill with thick plumes of adolescent foliage, there remains a subtle nobility in the orchard’s orderly procession.

During hot summer days the orchard becomes contemplative, concentrating on nurturing promises into bounty. The fruit trees reach deep into the cool earth for water and high into the sky for sunshine. They brace their increasingly heavy load against winds and thunderstorms.

And then it’s time for the harvest. Whether a crisp apple plucked during a mid-day walk with Griffin or a pear sauce cooked down with vanilla, cloves and a jigger of maple syrup, I’ve already begun to enjoy the fruits of my labors. This August through October should offer up an even more robust crop of apples and pears. And someday soon I hope to acquire a cider press and invite friends and neighbors for a weekend of fruit gathering and cidering. A potluck. Music in the meadows. And by then, with luck, the apricots and peaches and plums will have begun to produce as well. What fruity feasting we’ll do!

Old Apple Tree; New Chapter (Photo credit: virtualDavis)

During the winter months another often overlooked function of the orchard reveals itself. In order to maintain healthy fruit trees while improving their physical architecture and productivity it’s necessary to prune the trees during the period of winter dormancy. This is a chore, and the bigger the orchard grows, the bigger the chore. But unlike most chores, pruning an orchard is far more than a line item on a To Do list.

There’s a creative element, shaping and guiding the trees’ growth habit year after year. And there is a serotonin inducing pick-me-up triggered by dedicating yourself to an activity during the winter doldrums which will increase summer abundance. An investment in future harvests.

But for me, the single greatest reward of fruit tree orcharding occurs during the off-season. My bride is an avid and dedicated practitioner of yoga. Not I. For me it’s fruit tree pruning. I don’t think it’s a reach to suggest that pruning fruit trees in the late winter and early spring is my yoga. It’s my mindfulness meditation.

And then there’s grafting… But that alchemist’s hobby for another day, another post.

Now I’m off to sleep to dream of the orchards we might have had today if we could have initiated our orchard yoga sooner!

May 2, 2012
Icehouse Insulation Installation Complete

Phew. With Rosslyn’s icehouse insulation installation complete we can collectively exhale, confident and warm. Today I’d like to offer huge holiday shoutout to Kevin and Joe from Adirondack Spray Foam for wrapping up 2022 with the winter-proof armor we need to keep the icehouse project going fullbore over the coming months. Bravo!

Installing Spray Foam in Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

Some progress is pretty. Framing new window aprtures, for example. And some progress is practical. Installing helical piers, for example. Insulation installation is *indisputably* in this second category. And yet, aaahhh… What a relief to have the first phase of insulation complete! (Source: 1st Floor Insulation Installation and Subfloor)

Those were my thoughts a couple of weeks ago when we started installing spray foam insulation. If phase one was a relief, completion is resoundingly reassuring, like a bear hug from the universe. Things are going to be alright. Winter will huff and puff, maybe even blast us with blizzards and deep freezes. But we’re cocooned snuggly inside a protective force field.

Installing Spray Foam in Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

And combine the insurance of a thoroughly spray foamed building with the just completed ZIP System insulated sheathing swaddling is from the outside in? Aaahhh… It’s warming to just think about it. Ongoing rehab can continue afoot despite the taunts of our Adirondack Coast winter.

Installing Spray Foam in Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

As I’ve explained previously, we installed 1-1/2” structural insulated panels on the exterior which provides R-6. The 3” of spray foam inside the walls adds another R-21, and there’s a bonus between the two synthetic insulation barriers. When the size house was built in the late 1800s, they filled the interior 2 x 6 walls with wood shavings for insulation. Although we removed all of that in 2006 while remediating rot, the exterior of the framing was sheathed in two laters of T&G separated by about an inch baffled with shredded newsprint enveloped in tarpaper. So these walls should now do a remarkable job of keeping winter cold out, and summer cool in.

What about the roof?

Adirondack Spray Foam installed 7” on insulation between the rafters which will amount to an R-49 thermal barrier sandwiched between the ceiling and the roof.

Installing Spray Foam in Icehouse Ceiling (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

A decade and a half ago we wrestled with the best way to balance insulate Rosslyn. Ultimately, we concluded that our historic rehabilitation needed to balance heritage and environmental responsibility. Although we also use recycled denim insulation and mineral wool when appropriate, we’ve come to trust the energy efficiency of spray foam.

Insulation Installation Complete in Time for Winter

And then it was done. With our insulation installation complete, we can rest a little easier. January will inevitably plunge us into all manner of meteorological challenges, but we’re now in a much better position to power forward.

Insulation Installation Completed by Adirondack Spray Foam (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

Although blue green doesn’t exactly *look* warm, the icehouse now can be warmed with a space heater. We’ll see if reality meets expectation this week.

Insulation Installation Completed by Adirondack Spray Foam (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

In addition to wall-to-wall insulation these last two photos capture the post cleanup tidiness. It’s the perfect tabula rasa to start framing this week.

Spray Foam Insulation Mashup

Let’s curtain call this post with an almost meditative mashup of the last lap of spray foam installation.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cmp97yYB_hi/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Thanks, Kevin and Joe.

December 26, 2022
A Barnophile of Bygone Barns
Yesterday I meditated a minute on bygone barns. Ancient farm buildings. Tempered by time, tempted by gravity, and sowbacked beneath the burdens of generations, these rugged utility structures retain (and sometimes gain) a minimalist elegance long after design and construction and use fade into history. My meditation was meandering and inconclusive. In part this was due to the wandering wonder these timeworn buildings inspire in me. And in part it was because my observations are still evolving and inconclusive. I’m not a barn expert, an agricultural architecture preservationist, or even a particularly astute student of barns and farms. But I am a barnophile.

Barn·o·phile /bärnəˌfīl/ noun (from Greek philos ‘loving’)
1. 1. a connoisseur of farm buildings
  2. a person with a fondness for structures used to house livestock, grain, etc.
  3. an admirer and/or collector of agricultural outbuildings
Aside from the hubris I’ve just exercised in birthing this barnophile definition, I’m generally inclined to a humbler and less presumptuous relationship with the mostly agrarian artifacts we categorize as barns.

[As an unabashed barnophile with a] weakness for wabi-sabi, I’m especially keen on bygone barns.

By “bygone barns” I’m conjuring an entire class of rural farm and utility buildings belonging to an earlier time. Classic lines, practical design, form following function, wearing age and even obsolescence with pride,… I’m even smitten with buildings so dilapidated that they’ve been reduced to their skeletal essence by the forces of nature. Sunlight, moonlight, weather, wildlife, and vegetation permeate these carcasses. The sparse assembly of materials — beaten by the elements for more years than anyone alive can definitively claim to know — endure erect, monumental, lavishly adorned with forgotten functions and the patina of passing time. (Source: Bygone Barns)

Barn Vernacular (Source: Geo Davis)

But why do forgotten farm buildings enchant me? What reason lurks beneath the tidy text, what foundation for my unusual fascination with these vestiges of a simpler, more local, perhaps even a slower time? Katie Shepard, so very rarely off target, suggests this childhood reminiscence might play into my barn-centric attraction.

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)

As usual, Katie is right. Woven into the earliest tapestries of my childhood are fond associations with barns. This was undoubtedly further reinforced during our years at Homeport given the inordinate amount of time that my brother, sister and I occupied ourselves in the mysterious old barn complete with ballroom and servant’s quarters long since adapted to other uses. And in my grade school years my siblings and I memorized Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill” to recite as a birthday gift for my father. I wish I could take credit for this creative gift giving tradition, but it was my mother, Melissa Davis, who gently guided the three of us each winter to select a poem that would appeal to my father, and then to memorize it during our daily 45-60 minute commute to school each morning and and each evening. Three days after Christmas, on my father’s birthday, we would recite the poem together, and (with one notable exception that’s better reserved for another day) my father enjoyed the gift, leaning back, sometimes closing his eyes, and listening attentively. I think “Fern Hill” may have been the best received, and it became a go-to for family recitation over the years, hypnotically weaving itself into the ethos of our childhood the way a prayer might.

Boundaries of a Barnophile

There comes a time to focus the “philos”, or at least to try and narrow or delineate the subject of interest.

I’ve talked around my fascination with barns, barn architecture, barn construction, and barn aesthetics… But I haven’t outlined the tenets for my enduring intrigue, nor have I articulated exactly what I mean when I refer to a barn vernacular. It’s time to draft at least a preliminary look at my love of barns. […]

In the vernacular vocabulary of quintessentially North American architecture, the barn endures as a practical yet proud icon of rural living. […]

Although my fascination with barn vernacular isn’t limited to Yankee barns, it is my most consistent and encompassing vision.(Source: Toward a Barn Vernacular)

In other words, I’m inclined toward classic geometry, roofs steep enough to shed water and snow (with a particular fondness for 9:12 pitch), and unembellished details. And I will always favor bygone barns to new construction. The quality of workmanship and materials stands out, but so too does the story stretching across decades, even centuries.

I consider aging utility buildings — barns, boathouses, icehouses, sugarshacks, etc. — to be at least as intriguing as old houses. More sometimes. So many relics, unselfconscious, candid. Less penchant for concealing, fewer makeovers, more concurrently present years and lives. Sometimes it’s the old, banged up subjects and objects that look the best. Thank goodness for that! (Source: Horse Stall Haiku)

And what of other barn-like buildings, rural utility buildings designed and constructed after the same manner?

School Bus Stop Ahead (Photo: virtualDavis)

They appeal to me as well. In fact, the agricultural DNA isn’t essential to me at all. I suppose I’m somewhat “barn androgynous”, equally smitten with similarly origined buildings even if they’ve never seen a horse, cow, chicken, pig, or hay bale.

That said, it’s worth acknowledging that the architecture of New England barns, Yankee barns, and even — drifting a little further southeast — tobacco barns are especially appealing to me. And if it’s fair to assume that my affinity is at least partly nostalgia-driven, then it’s probably worth adding another influence the those sited above. Four year of boarding school in Old Deerfield, Massachusetts definitely instilled in me an appreciation for early colonial building, and there were a couple of barns that still loom proud in my memory.

Beyond Boundaries

Although I wish I could gather these strings and call it caput, I must further complicate the boundaries I’ve endeavored to delineate above.

While there’s something alluring about the volume and the efficiency of barns, the unpretentious posture with no attempt to conceal functions or mechanism, scale isn’t essential. The small corn crib above, for example, intoxicates my imagination nearly as much as the grand barn at the top of this post.

Baked into my identity as a barnophile, into this somewhat esoteric aesthetic and philosophical appetite, is a tendency to stretch my definition of barns to include other similar outbuildings.

While Rosslyn didn’t fit squarely into the vision of an old farm or a collection of dilapidated barns that I originally was hunting for, this stately home does have three remarkable outbuildings, all three of which lured me as much as the house. In fact, well before we completed our top-to-bottom rehabilitation of the home, we tackled the icehouse, boathouse, and carriage barn. All of them were on the brink. Actually much of the house was as well. But just as we committed to salvaging the home, returning it to its former grandeur, we likewise undertook laborious, challenging efforts to salve the icehouse, boathouse, and carriage barn. All buildings were dilapidated, but the icehouse and boathouse were both succumbing to the omnipresent challenges of weather and neglect.

I’ve posted plenty in the past about Rosslyn’s boathouse, the lakeside folly that beckoned to us from the beginning. For a whimsical mind like my own, smitten with boating adventures — real and imagined — becoming irreversibly enchanted with our small dock house protruding out into Lake Champlain was pretty much inevitable. Although its mission has always been tied to watery locomotion, it is for all practical purposes a sort of barn. A diminutive lakeside barn purpose-built for boating. A utility outbuilding conceived and specifically confected to serve the Kestrel just over a century and a quarter ago.

And Rosslyn’s icehouse, occupying much of my attention these last few months as we cartwheel through an ambitious rehabilitation and adaptive reuse project, is likewise a barn. We often refer to the carriage barn and icehouse, standing as they do side-by-side, as “the barns”. As a utility building designed to complement the architecture of the carriage barn and home, it was nevertheless first and foremost a utility building constructed to support the residents with year round cooling at a time when refrigeration did not yet exist. It was an ice barn!

And so you see perhaps the elasticity of my identity as a barnophile. A barn might not immediately appear to be a barn. But the rudiments, the purpose, and likely the longevity have profited from the heritage of barn building. And this, my friends strikes me as the right place to wrap up. If this this post was intended as a more intimate look at the romance of bygone barns, those that have endured a looong time and even those no longer viable, then I’ve covered my bases. And too, I’ve revisited my original hope of locating an old barn to convert into a home, a hope that has not altogether faded away.

In fact, Susan and I have been for a few years brainstorming a barn-inspired for the future, our future, that just might begin to emerge in the years ahead. Stay tuned…
January 3, 2023
Icehouse Rehab 4.5: Foundation Collaboration

Icehouse Foundation Collaboration: concrete truck arrives

Last Friday I gushed that it’d been a monumental week. No hyperbole. Tackling (and completing) Rosslyn’s icehouse foundation was an epic accomplishment, a concrete collaboration conjoining two separate teams to rescue the foundering concrete project. And while Friday’s post was brief, timely-but-abbreviated recognition for the indefatigable individuals who pulled off this remarkable feat, today I’ll show you the step-by-step process from prep work and two separate concrete pours to completion of the icehouse foundation and crawlspace floor. I see this accomplishment as an enduring testament to (and foundation for, excuse the pun) the unique energy fueling Rosslyn’s icehouse rehab, an intrinsically collaborative and transformative revitalization and adaptive reuse project.

Rising from the Ashes

After repeatedly failing to produce a verifiable estimate, timeline, and definitive commitment (ie. a contract), the concrete subcontractor imploded mere days before starting work on the icehouse.

“Bad news,” Pam informed me and then told me she needed to get back to me in a moment. No time for bad news, I thought.

By the time she called me, minutes later, both in-house teams had convened to brainstorm. Given the tight project timeline, they decided to undertake the foundation and slab themselves. This marked a return to the original plan (subsequently discarded in lieu of hiring a concrete contractor in the mistaken assumption that it would streamline and accelerate the project timeline) but with a twist… turning two teams into one. Full pivot!

One team (Pam, Hroth, Tony, Justin, Eric, Matt, Andrew, Bob, Phil, Scott, Brandon, Ben, and others) has been rehab’ing the icehouse, and the other team (Pam, Peter, and Supi) has been rebuilding the boathouse gangway, etc. You read right, Pam is managing both projects. And several other Rosslyn initiatives including our master bedroom balcony re-decking, master bathroom shower tile tune-up, overall property management at Rosslyn, ADK Oasis Highlawn, ADK Oasis Lakeside, and multiple other properties. (Since I can hear you wondering, yes, she’s that good!)

The combined concrete collaboration would be Pam, Peter, Hroth, Supi, and Tony. With everyone coalescing around one specific goal — completing the icehouse concrete as well or better than a dedicated contractor without blowing up the budget or timeline — the objectives were obvious, but so was the potential for challenges and setbacks. Imagine a metaphorical pressure cooker. Top clamped tight. For a week. With zero room for mistakes. And yet, collaboration prevailed despite the inevitable stress.

From layout to excavation to vapor barrier to pinning the old foundation to setting rebar to wiring mesh to pouring initial footings and slab to forming curbs and setting rebar to final pour and stripping… these five came through delivered in a big way. Together they’ve guaranteed a sound, well constructed foundation for Rosslyn’s circa 1889 icehouse rehabilitation. I can report with profound pride and pleasure that it was a total success.

Most of the crew was able to gather on Saturday evening to celebrate their accomplishment, an end result that is in all likelihood superior to what we would’ve wound up with in the first place. Sometimes setbacks are actually the inspiration to regroup, reboot, and outperform original expectations. Sometimes fiasco fans the fires of triumph. Sometimes the phoenix rises from the ashes.

Video Mashup of Concrete Collaboration

If you’d prefer the quick zip through, then this video mashup is for you.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CkovuO_AApb/

Thanks to Pam, Hroth, and Tony for recording the photos and videos featured in this video mashup!

Photo Essay of Concrete Collaboration

Okay, now it’s time for the photo essay chronicling the step-by-step progress and the series of accomplishments made possible by the collaboration of Pam, Peter, Hroth, Supi, and Tony.

Icehouse Foundation: installing vapor barrier

Icehouse Foundation: Supi and Tony install vapor barrier

Icehouse Foundation: Supi and Tony install vapor barrier

Icehouse Foundation: Peter bending rebar

Icehouse Foundation: Peter bending rebar

Icehouse Foundation: installing rebar for footers

Icehouse Foundation: Hroth, Peter, and Supi awaiting concrete

Icehouse Foundation: rebar and remesh ready for concrete

Icehouse Foundation: Peter, Hroth, and Supi ready for concrete

Icehouse Foundation: Hroth, Peter, Tony, and Supi pulling concrete

Icehouse Foundation: Hroth, Peter, and Tony pulling concrete

Icehouse Foundation: Supi screeding concrete, Hroth and Peter pulling concrete

Icehouse Foundation: Tony, Hroth, Peter, and Supi pulling concrete

Icehouse Foundation: Supi screeding concrete; Peter, Hroth, and Tony pulling concrete

Icehouse Foundation: Supi floating concrete; Peter pulling concrete; Hroth supervising

Icehouse Foundation: first pour curing

Icehouse Foundation: Supi doweling curb rebar into green slab

Icehouse Foundation: building forms for second pour

Icehouse Foundation: building forms for second pour

Icehouse Foundation: building forms for second pour

Icehouse Foundation: building forms for second pour

Icehouse Foundation: forms ready for second pour

Icehouse Foundation: forms ready for second pour

Icehouse Foundation: forms ready for second pour

Icehouse Foundation: dowels, rebar, and forms ready for second pour

Icehouse Foundation: Peter and Supi pouring curb

Icehouse Foundation: Supi vibrating concrete

Icehouse Foundation: green concrete setting up; j-bolts installed

Icehouse Foundation: foundation stripped and curing

Icehouse Foundation: foundation stripped and curing

Icehouse Foundation: foundation stripped and curing

Icehouse Foundation: foundation stripped and curing

Icehouse Foundation: concrete curing

Thanks to Pam, Hroth, and Tony for recording the photos featured in this photo essay

November 7, 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
Demolition: Rosslyn Dedux

Rosslyn Demolition, autumn 2006

When it was built it was just right for the times. But it didn’t adapt… Rooms were shut off and fell out of use. Neglect left the paint chipped, with bare wood and brick showing through… rehabilitation fails with no sustainable plan for use. ~ Stef Noble (www.stef.net)

I don’t recollect how I came across Demolition, a blog post by Stef Noble (@stefnoble). I don’t know her. I don’t even know about her. But somehow I stumbled across her reflection on what happens at the end of a building’s life. She ponders demolition, debris, salvage, sensitivity to neighbors and environment. And she wanders into wonders about the transition, preparedness, shelter…

[pullquote]Like an enigmatic poem that continues to resonate long after that first encounter… Stef’s words have hooked me, drawn me back again and again.[/pullquote]

The post moves from conviction and resolve to questions. From “sometimes you find that there is nothing left to save” and “It must be a salvage process” to “What does your shelter look like now?”

It’s a poignant, provocative post despite its brevity and abstraction. I have no idea what or where the building is or even whether the building is a metaphor for something else that’s beyond rehabilitation, something else that must be dismantled sensitively and responsibly before moving on. But like an enigmatic poem that continues to resonate long after that first encounter, inspiring rereading upon rereading, Stef’s words have hooked me, drawn me back again and again.

Noble Demolition & Rosslyn Rehabilitation

At the risk of misappropriation (Sorry!) I have transposed Stef’s wonder to Rosslyn’s endless rehabilitation. Inadvertently. Inevitably.

There are obvious differences. Rosslyn was repeatedly adapted across almost two centuries. From year-round residence to seasonal residence to inn, restaurant and tavern. From Georgian to Federal to Greek Revival to Victorian and back to Greek Revival/Georgian. From stately home and outbuildings to dilapidated, structurally failing buildings more readily, easily, and cost effectively demolished than rehabilitated. Rosslyn adapted.

But rooms fell out of use, and rooms were shut off. A large portion of the rear ell (wing) was removed half a century ago. In fact the rear ell has undergone four or five, maybe even six significant rebuilds and alterations since the 1820s. And the front facade was dramatically altered early in the 1900s when a vast Victorian wraparound porch was added. This lake overlook was removed several decades before Rosslyn became our home.

In short, Rosslyn’s story is first and foremost one of adaption. Repeat adaption. Her perseverance has been at least partly due to her perennial adaptability.

Rosslyn Boathouse, circa 2006

Nevertheless when we were in the final pre-purchase days, the inspector opined that the boathouse and icehouse were probably unrecoverable. Use them while we could or demolish and replace them. There were other eleventh hour surprises that jeopardized the sale too, but demolition as a recommendation was unnerving.

Rosslyn’s boathouse was precisely what I’d fallen for. Tear it down? No chance. And the ice house promised to be the perfect office/studio/playhouse. Think desk, aisle, pool table, bar!

In both cases we forged ahead, prevailing upon the planning board, engineers, contractors (and detractors) that these buildings should be, could be, would be preserved. Underpinning our confidence and our persistence was the conviction articulated so well by Stef Noble:

rehabilitation fails with no sustainable plan for use

In order to ensure that Rosslyn’s iconic boathouse/dock house would continue to welcome ferry passengers to Essex long into the future, it needed to be more than an historic artifact. It needed to be relevant and useful. It needed to adapt.

No longer serving the Kestrel as a boathouse and coal storage facility, the boathouse needed to evolve. It need to become our waterfront, useful and relevant to us. Rosslyn’s boathouse should accommodate our boating and water sports needs. We windsurf. We waterski. We sail. We entertain nieces and nephews and friends who enjoy fishing and playing on the beach and barbecuing…

The sustainable plan for Rosslyn’s boathouse involved adapting the precarious building into a safe, inviting and attractive place of waterfront activity once again. And despite the odds, we prevailed. The boathouse remains the heart and soul of our Rosslyn lifestyle.

And some day — in the still unknown future — I hope that the boathouse will evolve again to satisfy and inspire Rosslyn’s future stewards.

Rosslyn Ice House 2006

The ice house is another story.

We stabilized the failing structure, replaced the failed roof, repaired the crumbling stone foundation and upgraded the mechanicals. But then we mothballed the project, deferring the next phase indefinitely until circumstances warranted moving forward. For several years we’ve used the ice house as a storage and maintenance annex for the carriage barn, but recently we’ve begun to address a sustainable plan for use. I hope to address this in more depth over the course of the next year. But for now, I’ll just say that we understand that simply stabilizing the building is not enough. Successful rehab demands a sustainable plan for use. And we’re working on it!

The carriage barn and house have been rehabilitated and are serving the modern iteration of the original purposes for which they were built. The house is a home. We live and work and entertain at Rosslyn. I genuinely hope that the future is bright for this structure remaining a year-round residence for a long time. And while horses and carriages no longer come and go, the carriage barn is a handsome but utilitarian space for cars and tractors and a colorful parade of property maintenance equipment. There are bicycles and winter storage for kayaks and windsurfers. In a real sense the building has been rehabilitated into a modern “carriage barn”.

If you’re still with me, I apologize for getting carried away. My mind was wandered. And I’ve still fallen short of conveying why exactly Stef Noble’s post continues to resonate for me. I suppose I’m still not 100% certain. But it seems to share some DNA with the adventure my bride and I undertook in the summer of 2006 when we pulled up roots in Manhattan and set down roots in the Adirondacks with the dream of rehabilitating Rosslyn…

Rosslyn Boathouse, circa 2006

Rosslyn Boathouse, circa 2006

Rosslyn Boathouse, circa 2006

Rosslyn Boathouse Detail, circa 2006

Rosslyn Icehouse 2006 (Source: Geo Davis)

Rosslyn Icehouse 2006 (Source: Geo Davis)

Icehouse Demolition, autumn 2006 (Source: Geo Davis)

Icehouse Demolition, autumn 2006 (Source: Geo Davis)

Icehouse Demolition, autumn 2006 (Source: Geo Davis)

November 10, 2014
Renderings for Icehouse Rehabilitation 2022-2023

If you’ve been following along over the last couple of months, observing from afar as we rehabilitate and repurpose Rosslyn’s icehouse, then perhaps a vision is beginning to take shape in your imagination? Or maybe you’re struggling to envision the future of this handsome but understated utility building? I’ll be sharing design and structural plans piecemeal in the months ahead, but today I’d like to show you a couple of slightly whimsical renderings of the icehouse as it *might* (see note below) appear when rehabilitation is complete. The work of friend and frequent architectural design collaborator, Tiho Dimitrov, these illustrative previews are an enjoyable way to fertilize the team’s imagination as they progress.

Rendering for Icehouse Rehabilitation, East Elevation (Source: Tiho Dimitrov)

The image above depicts the east elevation, the most visible to passersby who happen to glance west, beyond the house, past the stone wall and the linden tree, to where a pair of “barns” —actually a carriage barn and an icehouse — are backlit by the setting sun. This east-facing icehouse façade was the primary focus in our meetings with the Town of Essex Planning Board. Because of the impact it has on the historic viewshed, we have endeavored to minimize changes, even repurposing/recreating the former icehouse door as a storm door per the encouragement of several board members.

Rendering for Icehouse Rehabilitation, North Elevation (Source: Tiho Dimitrov)

The second rendering of the icehouse as viewed from the north is notably absent the carriage barn (located directly south of the icehouse.) Although this might initially seem misleading, there’s potentially an intentional and beneficial consideration as explained below. Of note in this view (not visible from the public viewshed) is a change to the original fenestration. Only a single window, the one furthest to the left, likely dates to the building’s construction in the late 19th century. This 3-lite window, along with an identical window south side, have served as the template for three windows in the rehabilitation plan. When we purchased the property a massive window had been cut into this wall, but we removed it during the initial phase of structural rehabilitation in 2006-7. It is visible in the photo below, taken by the previous owners’ son, Jason McNulty.

Icehouse, North Side (Source: Jason McNulty)

It’s also evident in the following photo taken by Jason McNulty. Both photographs were recorded on November 8, 2004.

Icehouse, North Side (Source: Jason McNulty)

The three six-over-six double hung windows in Tiho’s rendering have been templated from the carriage barn, and the three small windows above are templated from similar windows in the carriage barn that were originally installed in rack of the horse stalls. They are visible in one of the photos I shared recently in the post, “Local Lumber& Fall Foliage”.

As It Might Appear?

I qualified my statement above about these renderings illustrating how Rosslyn’s icehouse will/might appear after rehabilitation is complete. Why, you ask? Architectural renderings are a powerful tool for visualizing designs and structural plans, but they are subjective. For example, in the renderings above, attention is focused on the icehouse to the exclusion of other conditions (ie. the carriage barn located mere feet to the south of the icehouse). There’s something romantic, even misleading when we isolate a specific subject from its broader context, and that is certainly the case with these delightful renderings. Colorful and capricious, they are extremely effective tools for catalyzing imagination for the future of this rehabilitation project. But there’s much more at stake as we adapt the northwest quadrant of Rosslyn’s public property (as opposed to the meadows and fields to the west of the gardens and orchard). I’ve chronicled in other recent posts concurrent site work to the north and west of the icehouse, removing some of the topographical changes introduced early in the 20th century when a clay tennis court was installed. We will be reintegrating the landscaping in the immediate vicinity of the icehouse with elements already present on the property in order to restore greater cohesion and balance to the landscape design.

November 6, 2022
Icehouse Haiku

Icehouse Haiku or Sketchy Brainstorm?!?! A once pondered (and discarded) concept for lifting the icehouse… (Source: Geo Davis)

Recent months have been busy with rebuilding and advancing plans for further rebuilding. Soon I’ll share an update on our summer 2022 deck rebuild, and I promise that it’ll be worth the wait. Until then, I’ll tease out another potential rebuild on the horizon. But first, by way of introduction, I offer you an icehouse haiku.

Icehouse Haiku

Once sanctuary
for winter ice in summer,
so insulated.

Sometimes a morsel is all we need. And for some of you this may be plenty. A glimpse into my recent ruminations on Rosslyn’s historic icehouse.

If a poem is way of repurposing an experience, a subject, an idea, then drifting into recent evolution of our icehouse vision via an icehouse haiku seems appropriate. We are, after all, returning to the many times delayed and postponed notion of completing the icehouse rehabilitation initiated back in 2006 and 2007. By the end of this week we may — fingers crossed — be able to offer an exciting update. For now a few brief sketches will suffice, minimalist asides underpinning the idea of repurposing this circa 1889 utility building in a way that is relevant and useful to us today.

Intrinsic to the Icehouse Haiku

Underlying the ultra compact words of the icehouse haiku above (and the composited photo and sketch above) are sixteen years of brainstorming and iterating (and repeatedly postponing) plans for rehabilitating the icehouse.

Rehabilitation fails with no sustainable plan for use. — Stef Noble (Source: Demolition Dedux)

Our earliest plans for revitalizing Rosslyn rested on this idea that use, usability, contemporary relevance is fundamental to successful historic rehabilitation. Sensitive, responsible, historically and architecturally accurate, yes. But most important, the building must have a functional reason to endure.

More on this anon, but for now a few glimpses backward in time…

My earliest inkling about icehouse-ness hearkens back about four and a half decades to Homeport, the Wadhams, New York property that my parents restored when I was young. Although already removed prior to my parents’ purchase of Homeport in the mid/late 1970s, I grew up aware that there had been an icehouse just beyond the “sunporch”, my parents’ summer bedroom. The idea fascinated me. A house full of ice. My youthful imagination conjured up all sorts of fanciful possibilities that history fated to exist in my imagination only.

Before tripping further down memory lane, let’s get onto an equal footing with respect to icehouses in general. What exactly were they?

An ice house, or icehouse, is a building used to store ice throughout the year, commonly used prior to the invention of the refrigerator…

During the winter, ice and snow would be cut from lakes or rivers, taken into the ice house, and packed with insulation (often straw or sawdust). It would remain frozen for many months, often until the following winter, and could be used as a source of ice during the summer months. The main application of the ice was the storage of foods, but it could also be used simply to cool drinks… (Source: Wikipedia)

Ingenious!

Ever since my Homeport days I’ve been intrigued by life in the era of icehouses. And so inheriting one when we purchased Rosslyn was a particular pleasure. All the more so when I came across Sally Lesh’s personal recollection of the icehouse at Rosslyn (aka Hyde Gate).

Directly across the road, ice was cut every winter from the frozen lake surface. All these years later, I can picture the huge square hole full of dark water where the big blocks of ice had been cut by men using long saws. Each block was then hauled out. I have no idea how the block of ice was carried up the steep rocky bank and across the road, up the sloping driveway past the house, past the big barn that houses the carriage and the car, and finally to the icehouse, where it was buried in sawdust. We had iceboxes then, no refrigerators. The ice was broken into square chunks that fit neatly into the tin-lined top compartment of the icebox. I do clearly recall picking tiny bits of sawdust out of my summertime lemonade throughout my childhood. — Sally Lesh, All My Houses: a Memoir (Source: Sally Lesh & the story of Hyde Gate | Rosslyn Redux)

Sawdust in lemonade seems a small price to pay for frosty beverages and safely preserved perishables long before refrigeration came to Essex. I imagine that somewhere, some day, I’ll come across some historic photographs documenting this very practice Lesh brings to life, but until then I’ll dwell in my imagination.

As a final sketch before wrapping up this icehouse haiku rumination, let’s revisit these words from an older post.

The inspector opined that the boathouse and icehouse were probably unrecoverable. Use them while we could or demolish and replace them. There were other eleventh hour surprises that jeopardized the sale too, but demolition as a recommendation was unnerving. Rosslyn’s boathouse was precisely what I’d fallen for. Tear it down? No chance. And the icehouse promised to be the perfect office/studio/playhouse. Think desk, easel, pool table, bar! (Source: Demolition: Rosslyn Dedux)

Okay, it’s long past the point that I should have abbreviated this runaway reflection. Go figure, I started with a microscopic poem, but then the words just came tumbling out. Sorry!

August 17, 2022
If You Lose Your Purpose, It’s Like You’re Broken

“If you lose your purpose, it’s like you’re broken.” ~ Hugo

Everything has a purpose, even machines… They do what they are meant to do… Maybe that’s why a broken machine always makes me so sad, they can’t do what they are meant to do… Maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose… it’s like you’re broken. ~ Brian Selznick (spoken by Hugo Cabret in The Invention of Hugo Cabret)

In the summer of 2006 my bride and I set out to repair a broken house. Rosslyn, a stately but crumbling old home, boathouse, ice house and carriage barn needed us. We could save them. We should save them. We would reawaken a property that had lost its purpose. We would pump our passion, our time, and our limited loot into repairing the broken property.

If You Lose Your Purpose

But over time we came to understand that we were at least as broken as Rosslyn. We had both lost our purpose, and we were both foundering. Leaping into an adventure as feckless and risky as moving our lives and work from New York City to the Adirondacks while renovating four buildings many decades past their “best if used by” dates nearly destroyed us. Emotionally. Economically. Physically. And yet, little by little we discovered that Rosslyn could (and eventually would) repair us. The broken, purposeless wreck we set out to rebuild ultimately rebuilt us.

Two years ago I holed up in a remote abbey in the New Mexico desert to sort through my recollections and artifacts from the years of renovation. A month alone reading and revising. One night I watched Hugo for a refreshing distraction. A children’s movie. Sort of. Sort of not. I was enchanted. Something happened to me that had never taken place before (nor since). As the movie ended, I restarted it and watched the entire film through a second time. Double header. Better the second time than the first. It resonated profoundly with the book I was trying to write, a memoir about the years spent rehab’ing (aka “historic rehabilitating“) Rosslyn.

It’s Like You’re Broken

Hugo is one of the best films i’ve seen in a long time. Be forewarned though, this is not your typical fantasy movie… The movie reveals the darkest times and how fear can be the driving force in everything we do… Also the fragile nature of human beings can be at any age and the limitations we have are only the ones that we put on ourselves. ~ Melissa Arditti (Windsor Square)

I’m not sure that Hugo is one of the best films I’ve seen, but it was the perfect narrative at the perfect time. And I will watch it again. Soon. I need to, in part, because I’m still grappling with this idea of a what it means to lose your purpose. I’m still working on repairing the broken machine. Rosslyn. And within. I’m reawakening purpose. Thank you for assisting me along the journey.

If you haven’t seen Hugo yet, here’s a teaser, the passage that still appeals to me two years after first experiencing it.

Purpose Lost & Purpose Found

As a storyteller and writer I’m conscious of the temptation to “find” purpose where it isn’t, and to ascribe purpose where and how it fits best. How I’d like it to be. Not always how it is. Or how it should be.

Over the past decade I’ve been trying to unlearn the habit. More curiosity. Fewer assumptions. And if/when I alter the original purpose, when I repurpose, I’m striving to realize the difference. To own it.

Rosslyn Redux, marriage, small town life, the joys and woes of midlife, and the rapidly evolving world of publishing have served as my tutors. I’m confident that I’m beginning to make headway. Two final quotations from Hugo offer the optimistic note I’m hoping to achieve in my closing, and they both offer a glimpse into the view from where I am lately.

I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too. ~ Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret

In that moment, the machinery of the world lined up. Somewhere a clock struck midnight, and Hugo’s future seemed to fall perfectly into place. ~ Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret

The machinery is still aligning, but I’m confident that soon it will all fall into place.

Word to the wise? If you lose your purpose, hold off on plunging into the sort of adventure we undertook. First watch Hugo. And then… plunge!

March 3, 2014