Moody Rosslyn boathouse award!?!? I believe that Santa Fe native, Terrell White, may well have painted the most unique and evocative portrait of Rosslyn’s boathouse ever. Ben White, a former student from my brief tenure as a teacher and coach at Santa Fe Preparatory School (1996-9) reached out to me a while ago — how in the world does time slip-slide so swiftly downstream? — with this moody painting inspired by our historic dock house located just north of the Essex ferry dock.
My dad paints a few times a week. He’s always looking for inspiration, and I showed him a picture of your boathouse. Think it came out pretty good! ~ Ben White
The uncanny overlap between my various worlds and life phases tickled me. And the stunning image thrilled me!
Quite a few years have whooshed past since I last connected with Ben’s father. Life happened. Friendly follow-up slipped into the morass of busyness. Years came. Years went.
Until today. Something triggered the memory of this painting. I’ve managed to dug it up. And now it’s yours to enjoy. Let’s raise a cup full of fermented cheer to Terrell White for inventing the moodiest (and the most cinematographic) rendering of Rosslyn’s dock house to ever flit across my radar. I would love to capture a higher resolution photograph or scan of this singular painting, but until then, this curiously cropped digital will do.
Now it’s time to dig through old address books to see if I can reconnect with Terrell White. Stay tuned…
It’s always a treat to discover Rosslyn artifacts. Can you just barely spy our boathouse beyond the moored boats?
This intriguing photograph was received from part-time Essex neighbor, Christine Herrmann. This generous Sandy Beach friend has allowed us to traverse her Lake Champlain waterfront with our tractor to rebuild and maintain our seawall during autumn’s low-water levels. And – as if that weren’t enough to qualify her for neighbor superstardom — she periodically shares patinaed glimpses into the sometimes recent, sometimes distant history of our home, waterfront, and village.
“Here’s another photo I found of a long ago summer. Not sure what year but probably early 1950’s. I’m pretty sure it’s of the Essex Regatta, but I do not know any of the boats. Maybe someone will know more.” ~ Christine Herrmann
I am long fond of vintage boats and especially keen on vintage photographs of the summer celebrations that drew boaters and spectators from many miles away to the north shore of Essex Village half a century ago. Although I never experienced the Essex Regattas, I can almost summon up the excited cheers, the starting horns, the healing sailboats, the grinning water skiers, and the roaring speedboats from photographs and newsclippings. I keep hoping that I will stumble across an old home movie if the Essex Regattas, but until then imagination and the generosity of others will serve me well.
Rosslyn Boathouse, Circa 1907 (Source: vintage postcard with note)
It’s time travel Tuesday! Gazing through the time-hazed patina of this vintage postcard I’m unable to resist the seductive pull of bygone days. Whoosh!
I tumble backward through a sepia wormhole, settling into the first decade of the 20th century. It’s 1907 according to the postal stamp on the rear of this postcard.
Back of Rosslyn Boathouse Postcard
Eleven decades ago a man rowed a boat past Rosslyn’s boathouse, from north to south, through waves larger than ripples and smaller than white caps. It was a sunny day in mid-to-late summer, judging by the shoreline water level. A photographer, hooded beneath a dark cloth focusing hood, leans over behind his wooden tripod, adjusting pleated leather bellows, focus, framing. And just as the rower slumps slightly, pausing to catch his breath, the shutter clicks and the moment is captured.
Perhaps this is the photographer who memorialized Rosslyn boathouse more than a century ago?
Albumen print of a photographer with Conley Folding Camera circa 1900. (Source: Antique and Classic Cameras)
There’s so much to admire in this photograph-turned-postcard. Rosslyn boathouse stands plumb, level, and proud. Probably almost two decades had elapsed since her construction, but she looks like an unrumpled debutante. In fact, aside from the pier, coal bin, and gangway, Rosslyn boathouse looks almost identical today. Remarkable for a structure perched in the flood zone, ice flow zone, etc.
I’m also fond of the sailboat drifting just south of Rosslyn boathouse. Raised a sailor, one my greatest joys in recent years has been owning and sailing a 31′ sloop named Errant that spends the summer moored just slightly north of its forebear recorded in this photo.
Although the pier and the massive coal bin in front of the boathouse are no longer there, they offer a nod to Samuel Keyser‘s stately ship, the Kestrel, for many summers associated with Rosslyn boathouse.
Kestrel at Rosslyn boathouse in Essex, NY
Other intriguing details in this 1907 photo postcard of Rosslyn boathouse include the large white sign mounted on the shore north of the boathouse (what important message adorned this billboard?); the presence of a bathhouse upslope and north of the boathouse (today known as the Green Frog and located on Whallons Bay); and the slightly smudged marginalia referring to a small white skiff pulled ashore slightly south of the boathouse (what is the back story?).
This faded photograph kindles nostalgia and wonder, revealing a glimpse into the history of Rosslyn boathouse while dangling further mysteries to compell me deeper into the narrative of our home. Kindred sleuths are welcome!
More good news on Rosslyn’s boathouse gangway repair project: redecking is complete. The necessary mechanical adjustments were made, sleeper joists were properly flashed, decking was consistently spaced, the correct number of posts were installed in a structurally sound manner, and the redecking was actually completed. Eureka!
It’s a pleasure and a privilege to celebrate yet another accomplishment by Peter Vaiciulis and Sia Supi Havosi. After the previous team’s parade of missteps and setbacks last fall, winter, and spring, it’s been a tremendous relief to be able to share positive progress report after positive progress report this fall. Peter and Supi have proceeded thoughtfully and responsibly ever since they joined us. They’re organized and methodical, detail oriented and communicative. And their expertise is enabling a remarkable recovery from a lost year and rescuing this historic landmark from its precarious status last spring.
Let’s wrap up with a ultra short mashup of the final phase of redecking.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Clur5p3A4Oo/
Thank you, R.P. Murphy and Peter Vaiciulis, for your photo documentation!
My day was made when part-time Essex resident Kelly Youngs-Schmitt shared these fun photographs on Facebook.
Kelly’s a relatively new acquaintance (although her Essex connection is far deeper, longer and more historically significant than my own.) But the Facebook-powered social web and the curiously compelling Essex DNA have brought us together. She participates in the Essex on Lake Champlain community blog, and she generously shares the stories and artifacts from her family’s Essex past.
Essex DNA
That curiously compelling Essex DNA is in no small part responsible for our decision to relocate here. It’s an elusive topic, one that surfaces and then almost as quickly vanishes again throughout this blog. Like Champ, the Lake Champlain monster, who so many have experienced, but few can clearly and concisely explain or even prove… Essex exerts a quasi-mystical pull on many of us. I suppose the closest analogy would be a large, loosely knit family or a college or prep school that becomes woven into your fibers in a way that you can never quite grasp. You meet a cousin or a fellow alum for the first time and instantly you are drawn to one another, despite only the most nominal connection.
Kelly Youngs-Schmitt and James W. Schmitt (Photo: Kelly Youngs-Schmitt)
No, these analogies falter. Because living in Essex, even for a few short weeks at a time, forges far deeper, far more relevant connections. Human connections. Civic connections. Architectural, cultural and historic connections. Environmental connections too, for so much of Essex’s magnetism is derived from its geographically perfect location between Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks. Access to nature and outdoor recreation, year-round, often elicits the “playground” analogy to the annoyance of some. Certainly far more than play happens in these sacred waters, valleys, hills and mountains. But it’s true that this environment is a proverbial fountain of youth. It invites childhood energy and dreams and playfulness, so in a sense it is a metaphorical playground.
But I’m wandering far from my starting point which was Kelly’s photographs shown here.
October Wind & Canada Geese
Despite the on-again-off-again Indian Summer that we’ve enjoyed this autumn, there have been some bracing days, many like the one captured in these photos. Picture perfect. Bluebird skies and sunshine. But crisp. And windy. That “selfie” in the canoe captures what I’m describing. Kelly’s husband, James W. Schmitt, is pretty well bundled up!
You can practically hear the Canada Geese clamoring across the sky or settling onto the lake for a deserved rest. This time of year vast flocks of Canada Geese ply the skyways from early morning late into the night. It’s the soundtrack of Essex autumn. And Essex spring. And while no Canada Geese are visible in Kelly’s photos, I know they are there. Honking.
There’s something else that’s not visible in the photos: summer sunshine. In addition to Canada Geese, Technicolor fall foliage, and the Gingko shedding its leaves suddenly, dramatically, another autumn highlight is the changing light. During midsummer these photographs would have been bathed in a considerably stronger, more orange hued light. But as autumn advances, even the brightest daylight shifts toward buttery yellow hues and flatter light. This is particularly apparent in the photograph of Rosslyn and the boathouse. They appear to be off-white. And while some credit for this may be due the camera or phone, the reality is simply that the paint colors appear fainter, less pigmented in the autumn light, even in the early morning when the sun rises up out of Vermont’s Green Mountains displaying its most colorful rays of the day.
Hmmm… A meandering, ruminating post if there ever was one. Time to wrap up!
The Lake Champlain water level is ever-so-slowly dropping, but it’s premature to rule out the possibility of hitting (or even exceeding) flood stage. At present, there’s about a foot of clearance between the bottom of Rosslyn boathouse’s cantilevered deck and the glass-flat water surface. Windy, wavy days are another story altogether.
[pullquote]With the first impossibly green asparagus and precocious yellow narcissus, can summer be far off?[/pullquote]
For now, at least, Rosslyn’s boathouse is safe.
Safe, but not dry. The boathouse, house, carriage barn, ice house, yards, meadows, gardens, orchard, and woods are soggy. Persistant showers with insufficient soaking up / drying out time has resulted in waterlogging. My bride catalogued current circumstances (see video below) including a row of cedars that were destroyed in late winter when an old, rotten maple tree fell down, crushing the hedge. And the vegetable garden has finally been tilled once, at least a week or two later than ideal.
The final images offer a nice balance to the spring rain, rain, rain. With the first impossibly green asparagus and precocious yellow narcissus, can summer be far off?
One is a large cottonwood with a pair of fallen locusts hung up on it. The beaver (Castor canadensis) has already gotten a pretty good start, and the tree is laaarge and disconcertingly close to Rosslyn’s boathouse.
We contacted the neighbor in the hopes that they would take a look at their earliest convenience (i.e. before the cottonwood and gravity conspire against the boathouse!) I suggested the possibility of wrapping the tree with steel mesh/screen to inhibit further damage. This isn’t the most sightly solution, but it tends to be effective.
