A greenhouse can start not only seedlings but thoughts of summer sun. Around here, a lot of stories surround a man named Sandy, an architect who designed houses uncharacteristic of New England. With their low roof lines and blond wood paneling, they might have been a better fit in California. A lot of people said […]
By Edie Clark
Feb 22 2016
Winter Dreams | Mary’s Farm
Photo Credit : Clare Owen/i2iartAround here, a lot of stories surround a man named Sandy, an architect who designed houses uncharacteristic of New England. With their low roof lines and blond wood paneling, they might have been a better fit in California. A lot of people said that he was ahead of his time or that perhaps he was living in the wrong place. This was back in the 1960s. I never knew the man, but apparently he didn’t like winter. One story I heard was that he designed a greenhouse to be built up above his house. He didn’t build it to grow anything. Instead, inside the glass house, he planted a big lawn that provided him with a winter fantasy; he could unfold his lawn chair out there and sit on green grass, enjoying the sun on the coldest winter day. He had six children, so I imagine it was also a place for him to escape the mayhem, a kind of “man cave” before there ever was such a thing. I was so intrigued by that that I inquired, and his wife invited me to walk up and have a look. Sure enough, there was the outline of the footings impressed in the earth, with shards of glass scattered about this sharp-edged rectangle. You would have had to know what it was in order to figure out what had once been there. What I saw was a dream in ruins. Sometimes dreams are the start of a reality: Eventually, Sandy ended up living in Ireland, surrounded by all that green.
When I first moved here to Mary’s farm, there was a small hothouse that Mary had installed down near her garden. It was the kind that could be ordered from a gardening catalogue, delivered in pieces and constructed on site. I understand that it was her dream to be able to extend her gardening season. Her father had been a gardener on one of the Great Gatsby–like estates on Long Island, and much of her gardening knowledge as well as her plantings here had come to her from him. I also had great hopes for that little conservatory and managed to begin the process of making it a place where I could start seedlings and store garden tools. But a massive ice storm brought down a substantial portion of a big apple tree, which punctured many of the glass panes and put a stop to my own dream of having a greenhouse. For a few years it sat idle. Then one day I ran into a man who told me that he was interested in having such a greenhouse, and it worked out that he would come and take it apart and move it to his place a few towns away. I was happy with that plan, and he was happy as well. Over the course of a few Saturdays, he came and carefully took it apart, neatly stacking the glass partitions in his trailer and driving it all away.
I guess there were some bumps along the road to putting it all back together again, a whole Humpty Dumpty story of its own, but recently I saw this clever man and he was excited to tell me that the little greenhouse was back in business on a rise above the marsh behind his house. He showed me pictures: Mary’s glass house, snugly surrounded by snowbanks. It was a delightful second coming. I asked him what he was growing in there. “Nothing,” he said. “We just like to go out there on a cold winter’s day and sit.” I told him then about Sandy and his winter lawn, and he lit up. “What a great idea!” he said.
I saw the wheels turning. Who knows—after all these years, maybe Sandy’s idea will take root.
Edie Clark’s books, including her newest, As Simple As That: Collected Essays, are now available at: edieclark.com