Exit Manhattan. Enter Adirondacks. Renovate a home. Grow a garden. Live happily ever after. Or…
What is Rosslyn Redux?!
Rosslyn Redux is a vicarious plunge into the euphoria, poignance, idiosyncrasies, and absurdities of reawakening an old, neglected home.
redux |rēˈdəks, ˈrēˈdəks| adjective: brought back; revived; restored origin: late 19th century, from Latin, from reducere ‘bring back’
In August 2006 my bride and I purchased Rosslyn, a circa 1820 historic home and boathouse on Lake Champlain. We decamped from a 1926 McKim, Mead and White prewar in Midtown Manhattan; started squatting at Susan’s mother’s Rock Harbor “lake house” 280 miles north of NYC and 10 minutes south of our new home (aka old house); assembled a spirited, character-rich team of carpenters, tradesmen, and artisans; and set out on a quest to fuse historic rehabilitation with green design.
Four years later we finally finished. (Sort of. Except for everything that we’re still working on…) We’d blown our original timeline and budget by at least 400%, we’d tested and retested our marriage again and again, and we’d sometimes-enthusiastically-sometimes-begrudgingly adapted to our new and improved North Country life.
This is our chronicle of revitalizing an historic home. And ourselves. And our dreams. Simultaneously!
Transmedia Experiment
Rosslyn Redux is a multimodal narrative incorporating oral storytelling, digital storytelling and print. This unconventional (and admittedly unfocused) approach leverages multiple platforms — live performance, video, audio, scrapbooking, blogging, social media and print/digital books — to explore the strengths and limits of modern storytelling while embracing author-audience collaboration. In short, Rosslyn Redux is an experiment, less chronicle and more lyric essay. Less memoir; more meditation.
Most memoirs untangle a single, tidy story and wrap it up with pretty paper and a ribbon. A gift. To enjoy. And then go on to the next gift.
Rosslyn Redux is less tidy. More tangled. Less gift. More adventure.
Join the Story
The Rosslyn Redux blog is a good place to begin. If you’re active on Facebook (@rosslynredux), Instagram (@rosslynredux), or Twitter (@rosslynredux) you can jump into the story on your social media platform of choice. If you like pictures, perhaps you’ll enjoy Pinterest (or if you prefer moving pictures, YouTube may be your best bet.) If you prefer live storytelling (or audio/video recordings from live events) check out Redacting Rosslyn. Every day there are powerful new storytelling innovations, and your suggestions are welcome. Thank you.
I have a photo (a carte-de-visite) of 2 men sitting wearing top hats. On the back is printed in pencil: James L. Livingston/Albion Wadhams. The photo, for which I paid $8, is by A. P. Hart, Photographer, No. 22 Lake Street, Elmira, NY. It is not dated. Might you be interested in it?
Thank you, Raymond, for piquing my interest. I would indeed be interested in seeing the photograph (and possibly acquiring it, if you’re inclined) for the post about Hickory Hill and Homeport. I imagine that James L. Livingston must be a man from Elizabethtown, NY who worked many years for the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company and whose obituary appears in the July 18, 1905 issue of the Elizabethtown Post, a newspaper founded by his father, Major Robert Wilson Livingstone. That said, I haven’t any notion of the relationship between Livingston and Wadhams except that they must have been friends, acquainted by virtue of the proximity between Wadhams and Elizabethtown. Any ideas?
I was walking along your shoreline last summer and admiring your recent stone wall creations. Can you please tell me who did that work for you and can you give me their contact information? I own a lakeshore property a little bit north of you and I am considering building a stone patio, seating area and fire pit. Thanks.
Jere Buch
Jere, thanks for your comment. I will email you directly regarding the local stone masons and laborers who’ve helped us gradually restore Rosslyn’s lakefront terracing and other stone walls and foundations throughout the property. Next time your walking by, ring the bell and introduce yourself! 🙂