A Next Door Neighbor Remembers the Franklins #3

A Tour of the Tower, Part One

 

by J. Tomas Allison

 

Every writer needs a designated sanctuary separate from the hurly burley. For Madeleine in Goshen it had been the old pantry as I described in the previous blog. When the family moved back to New York, she found that sanctuary …literally…in the Library of the Cathedral of St John the Divine. It offered solitude at the end of a brisk walk from their apartment on 105th Street. Oliver, her gentle giant  black and white collie was her daily companion.  It was heaven!

A Winter’s Love, her fourth book, had been published in 1957 and she was now a recognized author. But a real sanctuary in Goshen wasn’t going to happen easily. The windowless basement with walls of local stone, dirt underneath,  overhead floor joists of  tree trunks with the bark still on them  and a rumbling boiler do not a sanctuary make.

The attic was an option.  Picture a 1750’s “A” frame, one window each end with 12 over 12  tiny panes of bubbly  wavy original  glass.  It was charming but hardly an eyrie .   If  that had been the choice, it would have been christened “The Eyrie”  which is  the lofty nest for a bird of prey (such as a hawk or eagle).  If the basement chosen, it would have been christened  “The Eerie.”

Long time friend from New York now transplanted, Herb Gubelman, suggested making over the upstairs of their garage. Herb, Martha and their family Nash and Gretchen were now full time Goshen residents. He had built their home on Bartholomew Hill, the most elevated place in town except for Ivy Mountain far to the east. Its views rivaled their own at Crosswicks thanks to the wall of windows Herb had installed. He had been their designer/ builder and understood the beauty, allure,  quirkiness and unique possibilities found in 18th  century Yankee architecture.

The upstairs of the garage offered an existing space. The structure had been Goshen’s first General Store. Uri Hill from Wallingford built the house in the 1750’s  with  a separate structure to one side.  It was still sound, shifting a bit with wind and age. It was finally replaced with a larger three car/guest suite in the next century.

Before Thanksgiving, we had a real four day blizzard. Meteorologists refer to winter cyclones as a “bombogensis” with snow

instead of rain. But to Yankees it is a “Nor’easter”   After the town snowblower went through, my mom and I went up the street with my Kodak 20 to record the event. Herb had gotten stuck  a hundred feet from the drive and left his convertible VW Bug in the road. That was the perfect place to record the snow depth with a 10 year old boy’s “stick em up” pose.

Herb had shoveled the drive several times and down to his car in the course of the storm hoping to get it into the garage.  That night the wind came up and it was buried. Two days later, he heard the approaching roar of the blower. He used one of the poles the town annually put up defining the sides of the road to mark his car. He pushed it through the canvas roof.

Over the course of the winter, Herb daily drove the three miles to transform what earlier generations had used as a chicken house. Herb was a genius at optimizing space. He could not sacrifice the more valuable garage for a proper stairway, so he created a narrow steep flight of steps. Tight against the north wall, they turned to the left as they reached the floor. If Madeleine were to go up there, she would have to duck, but so would everybody else. Thank God, Goshen did not (yet) have any zoning regulations.

Part Two to come!

 

Tom Allison is a retired Congregational Minister living in Albany NY.  Rehabbing a house once owned by a Hudson River Steamboat Captain inspired his looking into that history culminating in “Hudson River Steamboat Catastrophes Contests and Collisions” (History Press 2013) available Barnes and Noble and Amazon.  Since 5th grade he has enjoyed offering to the public illustrated history lectures. Among the 40 plus have been American Cookbooks,  plumbing,, transatlantic steamboat travel in the golden age, Litchfield Connecticut: America’s most historic mile and  A neighbor remembers Madeleine L’Engle, (for the 100th anniversary of  her birth)  to name a few. He is pictured here at Crosswicks, with the typewriter Madeleine gave him on the occasion of his high school graduation.