Two years ago Susan and I were still deliberating over the icehouse rehabilitation project. Transform the historic utility building into a centerpiece for our lakeside lifestyle. Or not. Today’s barnyard retrospective captures the icehouse and carriage barn on May 23, 2022 as we were finalizing decisions that had been set in motion two years prior.
Back in the spring of 2020 (during our extended COVID-19 quarantine at Rosslyn) we had “reignited long dormant fantasies about the icehouse, about transforming this historic utility building into a modern day work+life flex space.”
So many late afternoons into early evenings flanking a fire pit or sitting in the hammock, watching the sun settle into Rosslyn’s back meadows and woods and Boquet Mountain beyond, we debated the merits of one last Rosslyn revitalization. We had put this dream on ice almost a decade and a half before. During the height of the pandemic period our world once again centered around these buildings and property, this lake and views, our home. The world had suddenly locked down. We were all hunkering. Anxious. Introspective.
And yet it was more abundantly apparent than ever before: Rosslyn was an oasis. Rosslyn *is* an oasis. No claustrophobia here. Spring was reminding us how fortunate we were to enjoy fresh, homegrown produce. The lake was just beginning to get warm enough to enjoy swimming and boating. Almost 70 acres to garden and explore and exercise, so much to soothe the troubled times we were all living through.
We decompressed and shuffled perspectives. We revisited the early dreams and the vision for Rosslyn that delivered us to this property so many years before. And little by little we decided to complete the process we had started back in 2006.
Fast forward to now. Virtually everything in the photograph above has evolved. The icehouse has been resurrected as the ultimate work+life flex space. The two large trees bookending the photo have succumbed to the forces of nature. The foreground lawn, a former tennis court from Sherwood Inn days, is now a fire pit, sunken courtyard, and hot tub.
Two years. A world of difference.
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