Hillcrest Station in Essex, NY (Source: Vintage Postcard)
Do you remember the Hillcrest Station in Essex, NY? Three weeks ago I shared a new-to-me vintage postcard (Instagram / Facebook) featuring an Essex service station (with Socony gas) by the name of Hillcrest Station. After winning the eBay auction for this intriguing glimpse into hyperlocal yesteryears, I combed through my collection of Essex artifacts and discovered that I have another vintage postcard depicting the same business from a different location. Needless to say, the Hillcrest Station no longer exists, so my hope in sharing the image on IG+FB was an attempt to learn a little bit more.
Little by little this former Essex business depicted in a pair of postcards is (possibly) getting demystified which is to say that a little amateur sleuthing has turned up a few leads. Let’s start with the other postcard photograph I have in my collection.
Hillcrest Station / Hillcrest Cabins in Essex, NY (Source: Vintage Postcard)
Same service station from a different angle. It’s not clear in the photograph above whether or not cabins were part of the mix, but this second image captures a sprawling enterprise including service/gas station, dining room, and travel accommodations. And the caption across the top of the card, “Hillcrest Cabins, one mile south of Essex, N.Y. on Route 22”, helps locate the property. This tidbit was corroborated by an intriguing tip from newspaper-sleuth, Paul Harwood, who found the following newspaper clipping in the April 21, 1934 issue of the Plattsburgh Daily Press.
This Essex town notices section refers to Hillcrest Station being located on Roger Hill. I’ve never hear this reference before, but perhaps other have? Of note, a front page article in the May 05, 1927 Ticonderoga Sentinel listing a juror panel for Essex County Court lists George Murphy as being from Essex and working as a “garageman”. That makes sense.
Scott Brayden also found newspaper mentions reiterating the location: “…located on Route 22, 1 mile south of Essex”. Here are two clippings from newspaper notices (1949 and 1950) to that effect. (NB: full broadsides at end of post.)
Hillcrest Station Notice 1949 (Source: Essex County Republican, April 15, 1949, p4)
Hillcrest Station Notice 1950 (Source: Essex County Republican, May 05, 1950, p8)
If we head south out of Essex on NYS Route 22, my best guess is that Hillcrest Station was located at the intersection with Middle Road. Some will recall this as the location of JJ’s Terrace (I think I’ve got the name correct). Others may also remember that Lincoln’s Hardware was across the street (location of present day Hub on the Hill). Or am I conflating things? In any event, Mary Wade also confirmed memories of Hillcrest Station. “I remember it in the Early 40’s, I believe it was still in operation then, maybe as far as after the war.” Perhaps additional recollections and photographs will emerge? I sure hope so.
Until then, I’d like to tease out the idea that Hillcrest Station was located at the intersection of NYS Route 22 and Middle Road. My hunch is based on more than the two photographs above and he news clippings. It’s based on a recent visit to the approximate location. I paused during a recent bike ride and took a few photographs that appear to offer some similarities with the historic photos above. I’m especially interested in the roofs of the main building in the foreground and the small cottage/cabin in the background (looking from Middle Road) as well as the trees. Hhhmmm…
Formerly part of Hillcrest Station? (Source: Geo Davis)
Formerly part of Hillcrest Station? (Source: Geo Davis)
Formerly part of Hillcrest Station? (Source: Geo Davis)
Hillcrest Station Update
I’ve received some intriguing feedback from Sean Kelly:
That hill used to be called rogers hill and the intersection used to be called rogers four corners – my grandparents farm was the one by the railroad tracks with the dilapidated farm stand in front – my wife and I recently bought the brick house in bouquet at the top of the next hill (Orr’s Hill), which is where my great grandparents once lived. So I’ve been doing a lot of Bouquet research over the past two years!
There are some references to that intersection in the newspaper when they started paving route 22 in 1921/22 (it was highway 8063 then) and the steam shovel that was doing the grading got stuck. I think the easiest way to answer what you’re looking for is just to pull up the last deed transfer for that plot – it also references rogers four corners, and shows the transfer from George Murphy (who I think owned Hillcrest) to Ted and Aida burns in 1947. They ran it as a bar (not sure when it closed) called Ted and Aida’s.
Ted’s Terrace! That’s right, not JJ‘s Terrace as I’ve previously noted. Thanks for jiggling my memory, Sean, and for filling in these details with all of that history!
Hillcrest Station ’49 & ’50 Public Notices
If you’re interested in the 1949 and 1950 Essex County Republican broadsides excerpted above, you can access them here:
Swapping December for January signals that we’re four months into Rosslyn’s icehouse rehabilitation which, in turn, means that I’m four months overdue for a look at (or perhaps the first of several looks at) my love of barns. Truth be told, I’m a bit of a barnophile. And, given my weakness for wabi-sabi, I’m especially keen on bygone barns.
Backcountry Bygone Barns (Source: Geo Davis)
By “bygone barns” I’m conjuring an entire class of rural farm and utility buildings belonging to an earlier time. Think of a barn vernacular with 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.
My romantic heart and my wabi-sabi aesthetic cling conspiratorially to the possibility of resuscitating, reimagining, and repurposing. Meanwhile the rights of rewilding attempt to discipline my disposition; I ache for the victory of natural forces over human will, the return of these materials to the earth. This tension between between revitalizing and rewilding winds my wonder and perpetuates my desire.
Backcountry Barns Haiku
Time torn, weatherworn
byways by backcountry barns.
Watercolor skies.
(Source: Backcountry Barns)
It’s not uncommon for me to interrupt a bike ride in sight of a bygone barn, ostensibly to make a photograph (which I do), but often I’m still standing ten minutes, fifteen minutes later, still observing, often lost in a sort of contemplative gaze.
[Bygone] barn architecture, especially minimalist barns, patinated with weather and time, speaks to something practically primordial in me. My earliest hope when looking for North Country properties was to convert an old barn into a home. I looked at lots of backcountry barns, but I never made a match. (Source: Backcountry Barns)
Inevitably this lead us to farms, mostly no longer actively being farmed, vestiges of an early time, and earlier lifestyle.
I began looking at forgotten farms, bygone barns, meandering stone walls hemming in overgrown fields… (Source: Leaping & Untethering)
Sagging Bygone Barn (Photo: Geo Davis)
It was a romantic errand that exposed Susan and me to many fascinating properties.
Susan… shared my dream of an old farmhouse surrounded by open meadows with views and sunlight. She liked barns and was even receptive to my occasional flights of fancy about converting an old barn into a home. (Source: The Hunt for a Perfect House)
But the bygone barns in my mind and those we visited were failing to align.
Although a farm on the lake (especially an old barn that could be reimagined as a home) was proving an impossible ambition, our imaginations were piqued on several occasions…
A handsome slate roofed barn, still square after a century or more standing at the crest of an immense field just south of Westport, beguiled me for a while. I imagined a lofty open plan; exposed, rough hewn beams; magnificent views in all directions. But the seller was unable or unwilling to subdivide the field and barn from a much larger farm which included additional fields, an immense dairy barn, various other building for hay and equipment storage, a “pond” for storing cow manure and a large square farmhouse with cupola. And in the end it was a relief to Susan, because, after all, this magnificent barn did not stand on the shores of Lake Champlain. (Source: The Hunt for a Perfect House)
Gradually our search evolved. And shifted.
Some day I still hope to explore the barn vernacular, perhaps in a modern and somewhat interpretive way. (Source: Backcountry Barns)
I wrote that last sentence about a year and a half ago. And, while it’s still 100% accurate, I’m also allowing this curious quest to inspire the icehouse rehab which is, after all, a bygone barn, albeit a diminutive one, purpose built for storing ice. Watching the building get stripped back to its oldest and boldest elements, honoring the legacy of a functionally perfect building that has outlived its functional utility, searching for the simplest and purest path forward, restraining the instinct to disguise the building’s age, and summoning the bygone barn’s story from the dusty darkness. It would not be absurd to compare this last four month’s endeavor to a protracted meditation.
In reworking my notes for this post — notes is too vague; perhaps field notes is closer, or travelogue — I come across a hastily jotted note.
Renovation or Story?!? (Photo: Geo Davis)
I’d written the question to myself as if posed by another, perhaps one of the many capable collaborators on this project. I don’t recall when or why I wrote this, nor am I certain why this seemingly frustrated inquiry was posed in this way. It’s as if I imagined Pam or Hroth or someone else, exasperated, almost pleading to simplify the journey, our journey, to focus fully (and exclusively) on rehabilitation of this bygone barn.
What’s more important, the renovation or your damned story?!?
I’m only about halfway through these notes, but this feels like the right place to pause. I’ll continue this reflection tomorrow, but for now I’ll prime the contemplative pump with an intriguing short film by Matt McFarling called “Bygone Barns” that the inimitable Katie Shepard discovered while helping me sort my jumbled thoughts.
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.
a person with a fondness for structures used to house livestock, grain, etc.
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…
Voyeuristic Glimpses: Carley, June 9, 2020 (Photo: Geo Davis)
Before you shift uneasily in your seat and survey your surroundings nervously, I’d best prologue my post with an assurance that nothing unseemly is in store. Exhale. Voyeuristic glimpses, yes, but only as the subject of an overdue clarification.
Voyeuristic Glimpses
After bricks and mortar, land and lake, residents (human and canine), Rosslyn’s blog is the most visible — and maybe even the most accessible — part. And if the blog is by definition a digitally distributed diary, then it offers voyeuristic glimpses into Susan and my relationship with Rosslyn, a circa 1820 home and property on the Adirondack Coast of Lake Champlain. We can debate how candid or unfiltered they are, of course, because the experiences these coup d’œil capture are inevitably shaped and edited by my perspective. As such the metaphorical “fly on the wall” is more aspirational goal than reality, and the voyeuristic glimpses captured in these blog posts do not pretend to be much more than editorialized field notes. Shoot for objectivity; settle for subjectivity. Caveat emptor.
Voyeuristic glimpses aside, the blog is only one constituent part of Rosslyn Redux. In sum, it’s actually a sprawling, multimodal mess! Er, I mean… it’s a multidisciplinary *experiment*.
Voyeuristic Glimpses: icehouse door, December 27, 2022 (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Mosaic Mirages
Beyond chronicling the stumbles and growth spurts of Rosslyn’s historic rehabilitation (along with the inevitable ups and downs of our romantic runaway to this lakeside Elysian), Rosslyn Redux is an exploration. An experiment. A creative endeavor. A lyric essay — from Old French essaimeaning attempt or trial — calling upon collage and composting as often as language and logic. In many respects, Rosslyn Redux aspires more to conceptual art than a home renovation blog, more to performance art than a midlife marriage memoir. It’s an epic poem mosaic (a constellation of poetry fragments) crossed with an archeological exhibition crossed with an inside-out inquiry into homing and homeness crossed with a serial meditation on rootedness and itinérance and longevity and impermanence crossed with a genre bending memoir crossed with a sketch and artifact swollen scrapbook.
Hhhmmm… If it’s all this, or even close to all this, then isn’t it just a cluttered attic too deep and dusty to decipher?
Sometimes. So far.
Voyeuristic Glimpses: contemplative Pam, December 13, 2022 (Photo: Hroth Ottosen)
But I’m endeavoring to evolve Rosslyn Redux beyond an avalanche of artifacts into a cohesive experience. Into a sojourner’s stopover, perhaps even the sort of sanctuary that Rosslyn has been for us.
My initial foray into building something durable out of our relationship with Rosslyn lead to bookish brainstorms (and hundreds of pages of drafts.) But conversations with editors and agents, pitching what was most readily definable as a memoir in those days, consistently came up against the same setback. Whether genuinely or politely intrigued by the ingredients for our Rosslyn story, everyone advised me to refocus the story, to restrain the narrative arc to my relationship with Susan. Newlyweds swapping Manhattan for the bucolic Adirondack Coast where they anticipated simplifying their lives while licking their wounds. Newlyweds nesting in a tumbledown money pit. A poet and a designer dive into home renovation… what could go wrong?!?!
I was also consistently and repeatedly advised to limit the story to one year. Two or more years is too messy! (Of note, editors’ and agents’ discomfort with the sprawling scope and calendar of our renovation was also a familiar refrain with our parents who were were increasingly nervous about the ever attenuating timeline and dwindling coffers.)
The trouble was, this was as much a story about Rosslyn as it was about the two of us. And so much more. And “the story” felt to me like more than a story. I envisioned an immersion. A three-dimensional immersion. I envisioned inviting the audience into the experience more like a long-stay houseguest, not just a reader. And, the truth be told, I was as keen to explore the limitations of language as I was to document the historic property’s rehabilitation; our hyperlocal reboot; a meandering meditation on home; etc.
Needless to say, I wandered and wondered and gradually — accepting that I was lost — I succumbed to inertia.
But Susan and my relationship with Rosslyn did not end. The sanctuary salved us, and the adventures reignited our wonderlust. And little by little clarity has emerged, a plan, a map forward. Born of necessity. And that, my friends, is why the last five months have been so different than the previous. And while the coming months will continue to catalyze and coalesce a map. Perhaps even a clear and cohesive multidisciplinary work to offer my virtual houseguests.
Today’s question from Al Katkowsky‘s Question of the Day book was the perfect invitation to reflect on Rosslyn Redux, the “big picture”!
What should you definitely not have done that turned out okay anyway?
In the summer of 2006 I definitely should not have purchased a dilapidated, almost two hundred year old house in Essex, New York. Definitely not. Not if I wanted to stay sane, solvent or married. Not if I wanted to do anything else in my life except for renovating, babysitting contractors, and nurturing this handsome old house back to life…
But I was totally, unabashedly, irreversibly seduced by Rosslyn, a sagging-but-still-stately, almost two century year old property on the Adirondack shores of Lake Champlain. My new bride and I swapped Manhattan for North Country bliss.
Our plan? Renovate a home. Grow a garden. Plant an orchard. Raise a dog. Swim, sail, ski, hike, bike and live happily ever after.
Or not…
Over a hundred carpenters, tradesmen and artisans later; over four times our budget and planned timeline later; and over countless marriage-testing misadventures later we finally finished our renovation. In time for the biggest flood in over two centuries to swamp our boathouse and waterfront for two months…
We should definitely not have undertaken this wildly ambitious project. But we did. And it turned out okay anyway. So far!
Check out rosslynredux.com for a vicarious plunge into the idiosyncrasies (and absurdities) of our renovation, marriage and North Country life.
My fixer-upper forays with Bruce Ware and other local realtors evolved when Susan joined the search. She shared my dream of an old farmhouse surrounded by open meadows with views and sunlight. She liked barns and was even receptive to my occasional flights of fancy about converting an old barn into a home.
But our notions of size and simplicity were less aligned. And Susan was particularly keen on finding a Lake Champlain waterfront property. “What’s the point of having a place that’s not on the lake?” she asked repeatedly as if the answer were self evident.
The odds of finding an old farm on Lake Champlain (bygone barns “In Old Champlain“) were slim enough, but the prospect of finding a simple, inexpensive property on the lake was totally implausible unless we shifted our thinking toward seasonal camps. South of Westport and north of Essex there were many small properties tucked along the lakeshore that Bruce insisted on showing us despite repeatedly explaining that they were not what we had in mind.
We also looked at inland farms and interesting old homes in small towns and hamlets, “Just so you can see what’s out there…”
We enjoyed looking and brainstorming, but we were growing frustrated with the increasingly diffuse range of properties we were seeing. We had lost our focus.
Bruce was trying to show us all of the options available which in equal turns dilated and frustrated our search. But there was an even more fundamental problem: Susan and my interests were not perfectly aligned.
Although a farm on the lake (especially an old barn that could be reimagined as a home) was proving an impossible ambition, our imaginations were piqued on several occasions by totally dissimilar and totally unlikely properties.
An old “Great Camps” style summer house in Westport overlooking Lake Champlain’s Northwest Bay intrigued me until I realized that this pedigreed manse adjoined — indeed partially overlooked — the town’s sewage treatment plant.
A handsome slate roofed barn, still square after a century or more standing at the crest of an immense field just south of Westport, beguiled me for a while. I imagined a lofty open plan; exposed, rough hewn beams; magnificent views in all directions. But the seller was unable or unwilling to subdivide the field and barn from a much larger farm which included additional fields, an immense dairy barn, various other building for hay and equipment storage, a “pond” for storing cow manure and a large square farmhouse with cupola. And in the end it was a relief to Susan, because, after all, this magnificent barn did not stand on the shores of Lake Champlain.
And then there was Rosslyn, a Merchant-Ivory film set for The Great Gatsby’s Adirondack prequel. A century earlier. Located on the lake in Essex, it included a boathouse I’d loved since I was a child, a carriage barn, an ice house, and plenty of stone walls. But there were no fields and too many buildings. And the house was too big. And too run down. Way too run down. And the price tag was beyond unrealistic.
During our first visit Susan and I had both known immediately, instinctively, conclusively that Rosslyn was not for us. Purchasing this once stately but now desperately dilapidated property was a bad idea. A really, really bad idea.
The expense alone. There was no conceivable short term return on investment. None.
And the amount of time it’d take to understand all of the property’s problems, let alone begin to fix them, to build her back to her former glory? It was incomprehensible.
But money, scope, logistics, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Long deferred maintenance, decades overdue; a gutted rear wing with failing floors suspended from cables that stretched through the middle of rooms; crumbling foundations; faulty electric, plumbing and heating; a boathouse that was one ice flow away from a watery grave; an ice house with corn cribbing walls and a collapsed roof. The current owner had dedicated the better part of four decades of his life, four decades — full time — to renovating Rosslyn and yet it was disintegrating around him.
Buying Rosslyn was totally incompatible with our means, our lives and our plans. And yet Rosslyn seduced us. Susan and I visited and then, months later, revisited the property, each time musing about its potential despite knowing that we shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t ever own it.
Our increasingly unfocused search — Susan and my notions of the perfect fixer-upper diverging and converging unpredictably — must have vexed Bruce despite his perennial good humor and patience. Though we did periodically visit additional properties when Bruce called with new listings that he thought might appeal to us, our enthusiasm for discovering the perfect spot gradually waned. And our enthusiasm for Rosslyn, for brainstorming and daydreaming and scheming some way to transport this once stately property into our new home, gained momentum.
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, by Essex artist and cartoonist, Sid Couchey.
Yesterday I mentioned that the day was “an especially significant milestone for me“, but I postponed further explanation. Today, I’ll touch on this personal achievement by way of revisiting another previously postponed promise. Both obliquely reveal themselves in this excerpt from my October 10, 2022 update, “Old House Journaling“.
Yesterday marked ten weeks of old house journaling. Every. Single. Day. Two months and ten days back at the helm of this wayward, meandering, sometimes unruly experiment I call Rosslyn Redux. I emphasize the daily component of this benchmark because it’s been an important part of the goal I committed to at the end of July. Starting on August first I would resuscitate Rosslyn Redux. The why part of this equation is important, but I intend to tackle that separately. For now I’ll touch on the how… (Source: Old House Journaling)
At the time, I introduced how I was reinvigorating the Rosslyn Redux project. Today I’m ready to explain why rebooting and revitalizing this decade and a half old initiative has taken on new significance for me. But first, that momentous milestone!
100 Days of Journaling
Yesterday marked a new benchmark on my quest to post… every… single… day for one year. One hundred days, so far. No skips. At least one Rosslyn update each day. Quite a few late night, last minute posts, but so far I’ve managed to squeak it out every time. Phew!
This means that I’m more than a quarter of the way to my goal of 365 straight days. A year in the life of Rosslyn! And with over three months of consistent posting I’m cautiously growing more confident that I can reach my goal. There have been some unanticipated challenges (such as Susan falling gravely ill and landing in the hospital), but the truth is that bringing fresh vision and vigor to Rosslyn Redux has invigorated me beyond all expectations. My mission is 100% clear. My timeline and deadlines and expectations? All clear.
Each new reflection, poem, photo essay, artifact, etc. is driving me deeper into a profoundly curious conversation with Rosslyn, compelling me to explore Susan and my passionate relationship with this property (and even our family’s and friends’ connections to this property), inspiring me to wonder how a brick-and-mortar home mysteriously became a member of our family, and challenging me to try and gather the dots into a constellation that makes some sort of sense…
Why Reboot Rosslyn Redux?
Once upon a time a pair of newlyweds decided to move from Manhattan to Essex because they’d fallen head over heals in love with an old home on the Adirondack shore of Lake Champlain (cue “In Old Champlain“…). They imagined a wholesome new life. A chance to reawaken Rosslyn, a dilapidated historic property, while reinvigorating themselves. They wanted to start a new chapter together. Maybe they actually needed to start a new chapter together. The last chapter had been thrilling. Passionate. Fulfilling. But also tragic. The ache of recent loss — plus the sort of soul searching and recalibration catalyzed by bereavement and unanticipated endings — stirred their new adventure no less than their capricious optimism. A couple of years to rehab Rosslyn’s house, boathouse, carriage barn, icehouse, and grounds, they surmised. Then a couple more years to enjoy the fruits of their labor while rebooting and plotting their next escapade.
This was the plan.
But time stretches. Reality meanders. Plans change.
Our original timeline extended exponentially without our even realizing it. So much living. A decade. More… Our orbit was widening to include Santa Fe where I’d first lived in my twenties. We moved fluidly between the lush Adirondack Coast and the high desert southwest, happy homecomings at both. A pendulum path between two sanctuaries.
And then tragedy struck. Susan’s mother, Shirley, unexpectedly passed away. While we were still reeling, the pandemic eclipsed everything. We hastened home and hunkered. A week. Two weeks. All spring. All summer… Rosslyn nurtured us. A sanctuary in the storm. As we grew through the loss of a mother, the loss of a mother-in-law, and the flagging morale of a nation struggling through the lingering malaise of the Covid-19 pandemic, we began to understand our relationship with Rosslyn. Although we had set out to rehabilitate her, time and again she had rehabilitated us.
This past summer, sixteen years after Rosslyn became our home (exactly four times the number of years we’d originally envisioned living here!) Susan and I — no longer newlyweds — began to plot our next chapter. A new adventure. The details are still coalescing, but we’ve begun to reimagine our relationship with Rosslyn. Navigating this transition, growing through this bittersweet liminality is precisely why I decided to reboot Rosslyn Redux. Disciplining myself daily to relive this chapter, to ask questions and struggle with answers, to laugh and cry, to figure out if and how we have been shaped by this curious character called Rosslyn, and to begin mapping the future for her and for us. This is why I am rebooting Rosslyn Redux. And I am humbled and grateful to you for embarking on this journey with me. Thank you.
