From the Guestbook Monday, Jul 2 2012 

Esperanza and Historical Events acairfearann 14:07

Esperanza had, during the late 1800’s to pre WWI, any number of guests; happily, they also maintained a guestbook.  These books are a treasure trove of commentary, signatures, photos, and sketches.  The sketches are usually done in the style of the time: half-caricature, half-line drawing.*

Two entries, from a random page:

“Walter Booth Adams,

Syrian Protestant college, Beyraut, Syria

‘Coffee equal to Syrian coffee, what further praise can I give to the good dinner?’

 

Adelaide G. Richetts

‘Who came to Esperanza Farm June 10th 1899, carrying a cane and weighing 110 pounds. She left August 3rd, said cane in the bottom of her trunk and her weight was 132.5 lbs. ‘Nuff Said.”

*The only example of the style I can put my hand on is the illustrations by Jean Webster, in her books Daddy LongLegs and Dear Enemy…published in 1915, not much help there.   Jean Webster did visit the place.

 

On kitchens Sunday, Jun 24 2012 

Esperanza and Historical Events acairfearann 13:39

From the recollections of my grandmother, Eileen Creevey Hall, who was the great-grand-daughter of Julie P. Smith, whose letters I often take excerpts from.   Eileen grew up spending summers at Esperanza, along with Carlotta and Kennedy, her two siblings.  The following events are from the 1910-1925 era.

“There was only one part of the house which was strictly off limits to us. That was the area south of the dining-room door which led into the domain of The Cook. No children to run about and get in her way! And no wonder! She was responsible for three full meals a day, plus the tea. As there often ten or more people in the dining room, and four maids, and a coachman to be fed, you can easily imagine that she was completely occupied all day.*  The big iron range was never cool and it must have been a difficult job to do all that work. And we had to be prompt!”

The kitchen is on its third or fourth iteration since 1893.  The big iron cook stove is long gone, unless it is the thing lurking in the basement?,  the kitchen put in by Eileen’s mother, Lucy, post WWII lasted with only some changes to the stove and fridge until c.2004.

*Often more; that count only included the ten people who stayed all summer on a routine basis, it didn’t include other guests who might stay anywhere from one night to several weeks.

 

Returns Monday, Jun 11 2012 

Esperanza acairfearann 13:17

Esperanza has always been a place that people return to, very few of the people who have called it home have been born here.  It has also been a place where objects return; generation upon generation has closed down other houses or flats and in doing so they have stored things at Esperanza, sometimes temporarily sometimes permanently.  This, of course, makes for an amazing jumble. 

In any event the latest, thoroughly unexpected, return was rather large and rather heavy.  A cousin called us up, they were cleaning out their shed and had run across one of the cast-iron urns from Esperanza, would we like it back?  Well, yes.  We assumed that it was one of the missing pillar urns, because out of the original three, one was smashed and two ‘vanished’.  Well no….  Much to our surprise, it was a mate to the Large urn that stands on the eastern stone stairs.  It had originally been at the cottage, before it was sold in the early ’70’s.  At two feet tall, nearly three feet wide, and made of half inch thick cast iron, plus Victorian ornamentation…they are something else again.  It came home in the trailer of the little tractor, thundering down the highway to the amusement of all and sundry, since getting it into a pickup was beyond our lifting abilities.  Of course, what precisely will we do with it?  Place it on the other stairs perhaps?

 

Those were the days… Sunday, Jun 3 2012 

Esperanza and Historical Events acairfearann 15:39

A statement that makes us in the PC, 21st century distinctly uncomfortable, but I will not digress nor apologize for the dead. 

In any event, those were the days!  Whilst looking through the first guestbook, an admittedly over the top summer day at Esperanza in the summer of 1878.*

Order of the Day

Reveille by Lucy on a horn – 6 AM

Traveller’s Breakfast – 6:30 AM

“All aboard that’s g’wine!” – 7 AM

Lazybones’ Breakfast – 8:30 AM

Walk to Minnietrost by ‘Cherubini’  (the children, for summer lessons) – 9 AM

Gin and tansy for the ‘Widow Goldsmith’ (Julie P. Smith) – 10:30 AM

Mint Juleps, omnes, specially for Mrs. Capt. Jim Smith – 11 AM

Lunch – 12 PM

St John XX:1-3 – 1 PM

Dinner with Claret and olives – 3 PM

Travellers return, reception for G.W. Ellsworth – 6 PM

Currant Ice by the ‘Queenly Carlotta’ – 9 PM

Twenty Questions – 9 PM to 12 AM

Night Cap – 12 AM

Break Down dance by G.W. and wife – 12.15 AM

*Appearances or Carpe Diem? Neither Julie’s writing nor Morris’ busines were going well, but they had a wonderful summer, which counts perhaps for more?

 

Concerning architectural styles Thursday, May 24 2012 

Esperanza , acairfearann 09:51

I’ve been somewhat focused on plants recently, tending to ignore what all those plants surround: namely, the house.  This will be a quick introduction to what should be many, many posts.

To an architectural historian the house presents a bit of a puzzle.  Like every other classification scheme dreamed by man, architectural styles promptly sprout exceptions to fly away on, Esperanza is one of those exceptions.  In North America, the vast majority of houses are built in one go, or, when there are additions, they either remain as smaller, distinct parts or are built to match.  In Europe, where building sites have been occupied for much longer, rambling houses with wings for each century occur more frequently; and not infrequently these wings are as large as the original, or larger.  Consequently, dealing with multiple styles in one building is more common than in North America.  Generally, North American historians* try to place a house in one style: Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Federal, Mission, Dutch, 2nd Empire, etc.  Sometimes these categories are suspiciously large, usually amended by the word ‘vernacular’ or ‘folk’; and some styles, such as Queen Anne or the wonderfully accurately named Victorian Eclectic style, are by their own nature more flexible. 

Esperanza succeeds in being both European and American.  By European standards it is, of course, young and quickly built: 1790*-1893.  By American standards it rambled, with no less than five major additions and modifications.  We have the center section: built in 1790-1810 as a bog-standard New England colonial farmhouse; then comes a nearly complete remodel and expansion circa 1830 in the Greek Revival style which adds a kitchen extension*; then in the 1870’s doubling the house’s size with the south wing by re-using an old post and beam barn that is disguised as Victorian; at the same time, the original house’s facade gets reworked with a late Victorian eclectic style porch and associated room; finally, the entire facade is re-worked and the house again doubles in size as the 1893 north ell is created in an early expression of the Shingle Style.  While modifications continue to occur after this, they are largely cosmetic repairs and not reworkings.

Perhaps the most ephemeral of the lot is the Victorian, 1870’s, facade additions as they were superficial and removed in 1893; though the porch room with its round, stained glass window, remains one of the house’s most recognizable features.  However, it is no longer part of a Victorian porch.

Ironically, the house is classified on the tax card as Queen Anne, while the National Register of Historic Places classifies it as Shingle Style.  But it really doesn’t quite fit that either; because if you look at it hard enough, there is that rock-solid colonial/Greek Revival…

* It is less the historian’s fault and more the form’s fault: if the thrice-blessed, computer generated form only allows one to check off a single style…the tyranny of the form!

*1790 or 1810? It depends on who you talk to and whose evidence you believe. 

*It is possible that there was a fire, but it didn’t burn to the ground.

*Think gingerbread.

 

Someday I am going to… Tuesday, May 22 2012 

Esperanza acairfearann 10:24

do an inventory of the place that goes beyond the current one, which doesn’t include individual books.  On the other hand, it would take away the surprise of randomly pulling a book off the shelf, assuming it was a collection of Scott’s poetical works,* and finding not only that it wasn’t, but that it ranked in the top five of the ‘oldest book in the house’ competition, or at least the ‘oldest Known book in the house’ competition.** It wasn’t, however, very interesting otherwise; so it went back on the shelf.  This house seriously warps one’s approach to history and historical objects. 

I work at a museum, where white gloves are required for touching anything, actually touching is pretty much verboten unless you are a head curator.  Now, they have good reason there: the objects and art fall into the ‘priceless’ category.  But, the house they are in is younger than this one by a decade and there are major similarities in the lesser furnishings and the library.  So it is always jarring to be in their library and be contemplating from a respectful distance the same book that you had casually been reading on the porch the other day.

*It was a logical assumption, we have umpteen copies of good old Walter.

**1793, there is a Bible that beats everything by quite the margin; a few books clustered in 1790-1800, a gradually increasing number starting around 1830, and then a massive spike between 1890-1930.

 

The camera doesn’t lie Friday, May 11 2012 

Esperanza and gardening acairfearann 19:31

Well, yes and no.  It does as far as the human mind is concerned.  On days like this, when the wind carries the scent of honeysuckle, viburnum, lily of the valley, and a thousand thousand growing things; when the sun is warm but not yet hot; when the birds are singing hard; when the light has a vibrancy that makes every flower, every blade of grass, every leaf glow….then the camera lies.  For days of glory, there is no record but the soul.

 

127 years ago Wednesday, May 9 2012 

Esperanza acairfearann 17:29

there was a boy…

Actually, there were any number of boys in 1885.  One knows that quite well.  Still, there is something almost tangible about looking at a pencil line recording that boy’s height on a convenient wall.  One of the more poignant touches in Esperanza is the growth chart on a corner post in one of the upstairs rooms.  It was used between c.1885-1950.  And somehow, people become so much more real when one can run a finger across a pencil line that marked their height when they were five or six or ten.  Most of the people on that chart are long, long gone (not all! :)).  Yet…they were young once; someone, perhaps a doting grandmother?, had them stand there, ‘Stand up straight now!’ and carefully drew a line in heavy pencil. And time bends into stillness.

 

Spring 1901 Monday, May 7 2012 

Esperanza acairfearann 11:06

Random entry in the guestbook:

An Esperanza Sonnet

While from the hills the shadows lift

And colors melt to gold

Across the sky the clouds adrift

The shapes of faces mold.

 

The calm and peace and full content

Our hearts at Anchor lie,

While love and life with Hope are blest

Beneath the close-hung sky.

Marie Stewart (sic?)

 

A musical note Friday, Apr 13 2012 

Esperanza acairfearann 18:56

One of Julie’s daughters, Fanny, was a pianist.  She made her living as a piano teacher before working for Steinway as the moving force behind its program of sponsoring young or unknown concert pianists.  It is through her legacy that Esperanza boasts the Steinways that it has.  However, the whole family has a tradition of musicality (to my great shame, I break with this tradition being barely able to stumble through the most basic of pieces).  Entertainment for generations meant a performance, usually on the piano.  Through the 1920’s, it was not uncommon for there to be parlor concerts, family members and visiting performers from New York City and, even, Europe might be involved.

Because of Fanny’s career, and because of Helen’s interest in the arts as well, it is no surprise, that the acoustics of the 1893 addition are remarkably good for a private home.  It was not built as a theater, but I cannot help but think that they must have requested a space specifically designed for the piano.  The piano, I would note, arrived a year or two later…and has never been moved.  Today, Jamie can usually be convinced to play a Chopin nocturne or two (from Memory!!!), and the elegance of the sound is not due solely to Chopin. 

Tonight, the reason for this post, I am seeing just how much the respectable (if by today’s standards antique!) sound system can take in regards to Anglican choral music.  The answer, for the curious, is that the space handles it well, for those that have heard such music in its original spaces, this is a compliment.

 

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