Tag: Historic Essex

  • Totally, unabashedly, irreversibly seduced

    Totally, unabashedly, irreversibly seduced

    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,…

  • Adirondack Chairs Revisited

    “To all whom it may concern: Be it known that I, Harry C. Bunnell, a citizen of the United States, residing at Westport, in the county of Essex and the State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Chairs. … ” So begins patent number 794,777, dated July 18, 1905, in…

  • Hyde Gate For Sale or Rent

    Rosslyn artifacts pop up all over the place! And they’re not always Rosslyn artifacts; sometimes they’re Hyde Gate artifacts or Sherwood Inn artifacts… Honestly one of the most enjoyable aspects of owning and renovating our home is stumbling across interesting relics of its almost 200 year history. I originally came across the advertisement above on…

  • Rosslyn Roundup, June 27

    Rosslyn Roundup, June 27

    It’s time for another Rosslyn Roundup to share everything Rosslyn-related that I didn’t get a chance to post this past week. Summer in the Champlain Valley has a way of inching along slowly, slowly, slowly and then suddenly galloping off! This summer was not exception, but the transition was even more apparent because of protracted…

  • Haying with Draft Horses at Full and By Farm

    Haying with Draft Horses at Full and By Farm

    CSA run by Sarah Kurak and James Graves in Essex, New York.

  • Three Perks of Life in Essex

    Yesterday afternoon Beverly Eichenlaub sent me a message: “Fresh Item: Cufflinks! Come on over and choose your pair!” She’s heading off to represent her jewelry, Essex Glass, at a Father’s Day show in Rhinebeck later today, so I zipped right over this afternoon to see what she’d built. Bev and her husband Bryan Burke are…

  • Moon Over Lake Champlain

    Last night’s moonrise over the Vermont foothills (south of the Green Mountains) was absolutely sensational! The moon started out fat and orange as it made a dramatic appearance. My bride and I first spied the moon over Lake Champlain while driving home to Essex from Willsboro after dining at Johnny’s Smokehouse. Breathtaking. And elusive because it…

  • Ed Pais visits Rosslyn Boathouse

    Ed Pais visits Rosslyn Boathouse

    Edward Pais was a classmate of mine at Deerfield Academy from 1986 to 1990, and he now practices architecture in Burlington, Vermont. Despite being out of touch for more than two decades we recently reconnected via Facebook. Ed joined the Rosslyn Redux Facebook page and he’s offered ongoing feedback about our boathouse during the Lake…

  • Almost Logical

    Within minutes we were tripping over each other, drunk with excitement, imagining one whimsical “What if…” scenario after another. No filter, no caution. Our reveries flitted from one idyllic snapshot to another. “What if I finally sat down and finished my novel?” After dawdling self indulgently for a dozen years – writing, rewriting, discarding, rewriting,…

  • Rosslyn Roundup, June 6

    Monday morning media mashup? From Champlain Area Trails (CATS) to Old Adirondack, there are so many local news updates directly related to Rosslyn that I’ve collected the half dozen most relevant links for you. The titles are clickable links to the primary content, so once you’ve read each blurb (in most cases excerpted directly from…

  • Redacting Rosslyn

    Thanks for diving into my experiment! Redacting Rosslyn is an invitation to co-create Rosslyn Redux, a transmedia memoir of marriage testing misadventure, exurban flight & eco-historic rehab. The following is a digital scrapbook for my performance at the Depot Theatre in Westport, NY on August 3, 2011.

  • Hickory Hill and Rosslyn

    I recently happened on this antique postcard of the Ross Mansion (aka Hickory Hill) which was built by the brother of W.D. Ross, Rosslyn’s original in the early 1820s. Hickory Hill still presides handsomely at the intersection of Elm Street and Church Street. I’m still sorting out the Ross family tree, intricately woven into the history…