A Sense of Place

Growing up in a small rural town in Southern Oregon, my world was immediate and well explored. Nevertheless there were “places” that touched my soul as soon as I discovered them. That shaded spot in the creek where the salmon would always return, the loft in the old barn which had been a livery stable for the ghost town that our schoolhouse turned home was behind, that spot near the back of the field where our mother cows would always give birth. These places became part of my spiritual development.

When I got the opportunity to travel, I discovered that there were many places where the crush of people made it impossible to ignore the significance of the place. New York City, Delhi, Tokyo etc. Not only was there history, but there was energy that could not be ignored. But there remained a few places that for some reason filled me with a sense of “place”, each time I experienced them. The North Shore of Oahu, Pont Du Gare in the south of France, Petra with it’s stone edifices, the whitewashed cliffs of Santorini etc, etc. Most of all home with it’s memories of people and my daily view of Mt. Hood and the Tualatin Valley.

When I first arrived in Windsor Vermont just 10 months ago, I was not expecting a “sense of place”. Instead I was expecting a run down forgotten rust belt village with no future. Certainly the presence of my daughter, grandchildren and their family make it special, but I was not prepared for what Windsor exuded in spirit. With the majesty of the Connecticut River running through, the splendor of Mt. Ascutney, and the beauty of Runnemede Pond, it certainly has natural beauty. With the history of people like Maxfield Parrish, Maxwell Everts, Augustus St. Gaudens, Maxwell Perkins, etc. etc. it certainly has a rich story to tell. With the museums and structures so strikingly representative of the age of precision machine industry along the upper valley river banks, it has a proud heritage of production and contribution to the worlds progress. But even more than that, it has a “sense of place” that even as I try to capture it in words eludes me. In future postings I will more fully describe “places” in and around Windsor, but I fear that I cannot do the spirit of the “place” justice.

I don’t know what the future will bring in terms of my association with Windsor, but I know it has already and irrevocably changed me. This to me constitutes a “sense of place”.

– Rich

getting down to biz-ness

Along with the design scouting, the demolition, and the logo design, we’ve spent a fair amount of time on the business end of things. From funding proposals to permit applications, operating agreements to accounting procedures, there’s a lot of biz-ness to running a business.

My contribution has been the project plan – an early early early version was shown in Chris’s blasts from the recent past post. It now has a lot more detail, names assigned, start and end dates, dependencies, etc. In my former life, I was a project manager for internet projects at Scholastic, Inc., so I have a fair bit of experience with project management software such as Microsoft Project. But, being a Mac girl, I am using something different for this – OmniPlan is what I decided to go with. I’m a big fan of The Omni Group’s OmniGraffle application for structuring workflows and doing wireframes/thumbnails of web pages, so I figured I would continue in that family of apps when looking for some project software. I’m pretty happy with it. I update and send out the plan on a regular basis (or at least I try to) so that everyone can see where we stand and what needs to be tackled next.

I know, it’s not as sexy as chandeliers and color swatches, but it’s part of the deal!

– McKay

Paradise Park & Lake Runnemede

The Snapdragon property borders on Paradise Park which, as Nate mentioned in his historical info, was land owned by a previous owner of the home, Maxwell Evarts, and now is a lovely natural area here in Windsor.

Lake Runnemede, formally Evarts Pond, is at the center of the Park with a myriad of walking paths in the surrounding area. When we were training for the 1/2 marathon, we did a lot of runs in Paradise Park but we all frequent the area and I love to go down and take pictures. It is the perfect setting to

capture a “Maxfield Parrish” sky,

see the hundreds of water lilies in bloom,

and take in a vista of Mt. Ascutney, southern Vermont’s only monadnock, or lone mountain.

For those that stay at the Inn, the paths and ambience of Paradise Park and Lake Runnemede will be a great little addition to their stay.

– Chris

Lighting options

In the Great Responsibility Division, I’m on lighting. So, to start – this is a chandelier we love, love, love! The sweeping tapers are elegant, yet not over the top. We would need two of them, one in the entry and one in the adjacent library. We would order them in bronze, instead of the black. Thoughts?

– Keighty

before & during

We move on to the west end of the 2nd floor hallway. In order to make room for a proper bathroom for the north room on the west end, we’ve reconfigured the way you enter that room and stolen some space from the hallway. Here’s before:

And here’s during, with the new entrance (on the left) and new bathroom section (on the right) framed in:

There will be more pictures for that entrance area to the left – we are turning what was three separate closets into the entrance, two small closets, and a bathroom – lots of reconfiguring! I may have to break out the floor plans to explain that one…

– McKay