At the center of the time capsule cluster hanging in the icehouse vestibule is a pair of Essex Regatta promotional posters from 1955 and 1960. Harkening back to summers of yesteryear when watersports enthusiasts flocked to the Sherwood Inn waterfront for waterskiing exhibitions, sailboat and motorboat races, and — according to colorful memories shared with us over the years — enthusiastic family festivities (occasionally drifting into debaucherous fêting.)
I’ve referenced these posters in past posts including the framing.
Yesterday Susan and I returned from another creative collab with Nico Sardet at Furchgott Sourdiffe, mostly transforming and framing vintage artifacts that will be displayed in the icehouse.
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Soon these time capsules will adorn the interior of the icehouse. Can’t wait to share finished design and decor shots! (Source: Framing Vintage Artifacts)
Well, as too often, “soon” slipped down a dungeon stairwell and vanished for a while.
These sepia’ed, time tattered artifacts were gifted to me by a generous neighbor several years ago along with one of the Essex-Charlotte ferry crossing (the other popped up in an auction).
Conceived as the core of this collage, these relics’ midsummer-meets-maritime memories bridge past and present for us. Susan and I were initially smitten with Rosslyn’s waterside lifestyle possibilities — from sunrise hammocking to sundown beach bonfires, swimming and sailing to waterskiing and wakesurfing, windsurfing and standup paddle boarding to rowing and kayaking, cocktail cruising to lakeside restaurant boating — and the vintage ferry and regatta artifacts offer context and continuity.
At top left is an historic map that reaches back even further. Our waterfront did not yet have a boathouse or pier recorded, and the plan of our home did not yet include the two bays to the south of the entrance. (This latter detail confuses the notion established elsewhere that this extension was completed in 1823.) The property owner at the time was A.A. Morse, and a thorough title search might well provide an accurate date range, but for now I’ll venture a guess that this cartographic time capsule dates from the early to mid 1800s. In any event, the lakeside location, the orientation of the village along the shore and around the harbors, and commercial waterfront wharfs and enterprises further affirms the heritage of historic Essex as a significant (and once thriving) inland maritime hub.
At bottom left, beneath the map, is another visual voyage back in time. This waterfront bathhouse once stood north of Rosslyn’s sandy beach, inland from the northernmost crib dock now reduced to ruins by the slosh and wash of time. A gift from Todd Goff, discussed in greater length elsewhere, this is a reference to a more contemporaneous waterfront lifestyle, tinged with the traces of a no longer extant attribute.
Let’s move to the top right, another gift, this time from Catherine Seidenberg.
Catherine’s whimsical black and white watercolor of Rosslyn’s front facade offers a chance to reflect on the past decade Susan and I have spent reinvigorating this quirky property and an invitation to daydream about its future. (Source: Catherine Seidenberg: Artist)
And just beneath Catherine’s creative rendering is a pair of Paul Flinn illustrations.
Mr. Flinn is an Essex resident and a world famous landscape architect. Designer of the Burlington Waterfront and other major projects, his drawings, large and small, perfectly capture a sense of place its light, its angles and its shadows. (Source: Essex on Lake Champlain)
So many gifts. So many souvenirs from Rosslyn’s heritage as an actively appreciated and heralded waterfront.
A tumble of usual time capsules encouraging our water-centric adventures with inspiration from our friends and forebears.
What do you think?