MARCH 2011: Four offers in four days. Listed with Paula Redmond Real Estate: “This 1880s jewel now beautifully redone offers seasonal river views and a generous .66 acres in the heart of historic Rhinecliff. Walk downhill to Amtrak, restaurants and boat launch; drive minutes to Rhinebeck village for shopping and dining. French doors in the dining room open to a grand oak tree above a carpet of purple myrtle in a private backyard encircled by a white picket fence, with perennial and herb gardens. Quality features in this 2-3 bedroom house include granite kitchen countertops, Viking dual-fuel range, copper gutters and newly restored original windows. There’s room to expand with a spacious attic, antique coal shed, and unique 700 sq ft Victorian two-car detached garage with loft and workshop. This historic-tour structure is the 1870s boathouse from the Ellerslie estate. Only the second time offered for sale in 120 years.”
Reflections from the tipi
AUGUST 2011, posted by Susan
I sit in a tipi as children chant my daughter’s nature camp name, “Sugar Maple, Sugar Maple”. She stands to receive a blue marble that looks like the Earth, a token of her week at Flying Deer Nature Center. I have just come from a meeting on the cost of building our new house and, for a moment, I wish for a simple plan of poles and canvas. I ask my son, who is spinning a stick against wood in hope of igniting fire, if he would like to live in a tipi. “Maybe not in winter,” he replies.
The kind of house we want to build will cut heating costs by 90 percent. It’s a Passive House, and winter in upstate New York makes this way of building both cozy and cost-effective. It will have thick walls, a very thick roof, triple-pane window and some technology to capture heat and keep the air clean. If we are going to build new, we might as well make the most of the investment.
Saying goodbye to the campers, we drive back to the “For Rent” house, as Sugar Maple calls it, where we will rent while we build. “We found someone to build our new house,” my husband tells the children. “It’s the kind that doesn’t use much energy,” I add. Fresh from the lessons of nature camp, our 8-year-old son says, “That should make the Earth smile.”
Stuyvesant Falls after the hurricane
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The hundred year storm. Photo by Chris Gould