Timeless Time

Today’s rumination on timeless time — a recurring theme in our Rosslyn adventure — returns to assemblage and juxtaposition of excerpts from previous posts in the hopes that some sort of coalescence might transpire.

“Once upon a time,” begins the story, the fairytale, the adventure,… It opens a door into the past, gentling the listener or reader into a moment long enough ago to seem harmless but present enough to feel relevant right now. A timeless historic canvas upon which to experience (or compose) a compelling narrative. (Source: Timeless Historic)

A cohesive story, a complete story. Beginning, middle, and end.

Cohesive and complete… A portrait painted into its context… An integrated whole, welcoming and timeless. (Source: Icehouse Facades Now & Then)

Timeless time. Kaleidoscopic.

We live amidst history. Ancient history and recent history. Forgotten history. History happening anew, now. And now. Layers of Rosslyn’s past, present, and future intermingle. Sometimes they resolve themselves. Sometimes they coalesce. A kaleidoscopic collage emerges, vanishes, re-emerges transformed. Again. Timeless. A thousand iterations. More. A mercurial montage. Sequencing. Re-sequencing. (Source: Yesteryear or Yesterday?)

An assemblage of artifacts. Assembling. Togethering…

Rosslyn as point of reference, as kaleidoscopic fulcrum. A protean portrait…

So often in our sweet sixteen [now eighteen] years as the stewards of Rosslyn, I’m drawn to the juxtaposition of old and new. In many respects rehabilitating Rosslyn and making our life here has blurred past, present, and future. History is alive. And similarly much of our quotidian existence is timeless. There’s a whimsical simultaneity of lives and times that infiltrates our lakeside lifestyle. (Source: Boathouse Illustration Revisited)

Over the years we’ve collected many artists’ interpretations of the boathouse, each a fresh perspective, a new chapter in the timeless tale we call Rosslyn. Much as I have attempted to narrate the property’s story, an inspiring retinue of painters, photographers, and artists drawn to other media (i.e. Mary Wade’s wood and stone creations) have curated and showcased their own experiences with Rosslyn, especially Rosslyn’s boathouse. (Source: Ric Feeney’s Watercolor Painting of Rosslyn Boathouse)

I had seen it [Douglas Peden’s black-and-white photograph of Rosslyn’s boathouse] before. During our earliest visits to Rosslyn, when we were still trying to talk ourselves out of making an offer, when we were still convinced that we couldn’t justify the immense undertaking (and risk)…

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It made an impression a decade and a half ago.

And it still appeals to me today. Timeless. (Source: Melancholy Boathouse Revisited)

There’s something… about this spot. Past and present blur into one another… Historic… will permeate today and tomorrow and on and on. And Rosslyn’s blurry boathouse will endure as a visual bridge across the centuries. (Source: Blurry Boathouse)

Endurance as measure design. Aesthetic longevity.

Cohesive, integrated design resolves subtly, allowing the elegant historic building to preside over an environment as welcoming and user friendly as it is timeless. (Source: Icehouse East Deck)

Historic reimagined. Historic adapted. Historic reused…

This handsome little outbuilding has endured for six score and more… rugged winters and sultry summers. And looking around it’s pretty evident that most icehouses haven’t endured. They’ve largely vanished from historic view-sheds throughout the country. But this well built, classically proportioned addition to Rosslyn’s timeless property remains with us, ready for a new chapter. (Source: Preservation by Neglect: Icehouse On Ice)

The [icehouse’s] sunken courtyard, surrounded on two sides by sloped beds, are further defined along their upper edge with stone walls comprised of stone salvaged on-site and repurposed into a timeless border wall that echoes 200 years of similar stone walls throughout Rosslyn’s historic grounds. (Source: Icehouse Hardscape Update)

Their efforts hardscaping an old tennis court and upcycled / repurposed stones into a timeless landscape, a sunken dining area, and an inviting oasis within an oasis weaves their work into 2-century heritage. This new chapter celebrates reuse, transforming old ingredients into new beauty. (Source: Stone-Walling)

History. Heritage. Old heirlooms. New chapter.

Yes, it’s a labor of love. But repurposing salvaged limestone into new garden walls and steps has become the final fulfillment of this ambitious endeavor, definitively reaffirming Rosslyn’s enduring and timeless legacy… hardscaping an oasis where one year ago an abandoned clay tennis court stood. (Source: Hardscaping an Oasis)

There is a harmonious balance between manmade monuments and natural surroundings. Habitat and home couple in a timeless equation. An architectural and aesthetic affinity. Tranquility. (Source: Pirouettes & Silhouettes)

I’ve felt a certain reverence for these timeless towers [ancient maple trees] presiding over our home and waterfront. (Source: Fallen Maple Secret)

The landscaping and hardscaping work together to integrate the built environment with the natural environment in a manner consistent with the rest of the property’s timeless design. From waterfront to main house, upper lawn to barns, stonework spanning two centuries unifies the chapters of Rosslyn’s history. (Source: Stone Paving Icehouse Courtyard)

Rosslyn is in so many respects a timeless historic residence because two centuries after construction she remains an optimal platform for our lifestyle. (Source: Timeless Historic)

On the one hand, this property is timeless, consistent and enduring, guiding and nurturing for two centuries. But on the other hand, there are so many elements of life at Rosslyn that keep us in tune with a perennial cycle of transition, including seasonality, lake levels rising and falling, planting and harvesting,… (Source: The Art of Flux)

A tapestry of timeless time.

Our Rock Harbor rhubarb bridged time and place, Rosslyn’s rhubarb had become a seasonal reconnection bridge to a timeless tapestry of family, gardening, meals shared, and home oases. (Source: Ready for Rhubarb Time?)

I remembered the Adirondacks… as a place where nature’s timeless cadence moved me, filled me, and absorbed me into itself. — Kevin Raines (Source: “A Path of Many Guides: Painting a Way Home” via Kevin Raines: Painting Home)

The hills above Lake Champlain, where “Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine.” — Edith E. Cutting via Harold W. Thompson (Source: Introduction, “Lore of an Adirondack County”)

Today is the day between my late mother-in-law’s birthday and my wife Susan’s birthday. October 26 is also exactly half a year until my next birthday. An interstitial day, perhaps no more or less important than yesterday or tomorrow, and yet these in-between times, these slightly symbolic signposts draw my attention to time. The passage of time. And timelessness. To the todays we will hopefully live in the future, and those we have already lived. Let’s meditate a moment on a couple of yesteryears today… (Source: Yesteryears Today)

Back to the icehouse for another mashup (the first is the collection of framed art and artifacts above), this time drawing together the Riley, a family heirloom from my parents, and Rosslyn’s icehouse.

This magical marriage of Riley and Rosslyn outbuildings now adorning place of honor at the heart of the icehouse — itself a timeless, adaptive reuse blurring past and present, art and artifact — is an important piece in the puzzle. (Source: Riley & Icehouse)

For timeless time is indeed a puzzle. An enigma. A mysterious commingling of eras, a layered lifestyle, a marriage of poetry and design. Which inevitably if circuitously leads me to boats…

I’ve been lusting after an Adirondack Guideboat, well, probably since the late 1970’s when I enjoyed my first rowed ride in this quintessentially ADK conveyance at the Ausable Club. During the early days of the pandemic my mind returned this timeless watercraft, as elegant today as it was in the 1800s, and somehow inviting wistful daydreams of calmer, simpler times. (Source: Adirondack Guideboat or Vermont Dory?)

A habit of braiding past and present and interweaving timelines.

And not just boats and jalopies.

Their collaboration has rendered layers of Rosslyn history — from the late 1800s and early 1900s when the icehouse was in use, through 2008 when we built the deck that yielded this garapa, to 2022 when the old deck was deconstructed and the icehouse rehabilitation was initiated — into timeless beauty that will adorn the icehouse when it is introduced/revealed next summer.

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Future decor created from old materials, documented midstream the icehouse’s transformation. Future, past, and present. Concurrent history and hope, a timeless present, an artistic representation of this liminal moment. (Source: Upcycled Christmas Gifts)

And what of artifacts? Relics from Rosslyn’s past.

How does the past extend into the present? To and through the bits and pieces proffered by history, inherited evidence of a long before, timeless tidbits ostensibly proving our place in the river of life and death, creation and destruction? Do these artifacts salve us? (Source: Relics Rhymed)

They certainly intrigue and invite us to wonder. They remind us that the present was once the future. That it will soon be the past. 

I was subtly resurfacing an even larger consideration of time and timelessness across the span of Rosslyn’s two centuries… one’s first impression might be to judge the artifact as a time capsule. A voyeuristic glimpse into an earlier time…

I’m struck not only by the ambiguity of time but also of memories and perspectives… Susan and my memories about notable chapters in our own Rosslyn record frequently diverge. Countless conflicting recollections surface in our conversations. When certain things happened. Why they happened. If they happened at all! (Source: It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Feature)

Uncertainty. Impression. Possibility.

Time’s a queer companion. Deceptive. Especially when storytelling, when untangling the timeline, when framing the past from the present.

Time’s deception is inadvertent, I suspect. Organic, rhizomic, sprawling, and intermingling. Layering. Fusion. Hybridization. Cross pollination…

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Framing the past from the present without the certainty of 100% reliable memories or metadata is a bit like considering the view through Rosslyn’s wavy glass. Or deciphering a scene painted on the wrinkled water surface of Lake Champlain.

Which is challenging. And intoxicating. (Source: Framing the Past)

New York covets the new and improved, and Paris fastidiously collects and curates the most valuable gems from the past. But Rome simultaneously lives in the past and the present. Comfortably. Happily. Willfully. In a sense, Rome is timeless for this reason. It embraces its living past. (Source: Paris, Rome, New York City and Essex)

And what of Santa Fe, a newer home, less scrutinized as of yet? Its own unique mestizo mix of pasts and futures. But I’ve wandered wayward long enough today, too long, in this meandering meditation on timeless time. Best to curtail the quest for now. To let these tidbits rest together a while. Hopefully these fragments will ferment into something spirited and quaffable. Soon!

Until then, forgive the scrapbook (and chime in with catalytic insights.)