The porch at Flat Rock
Willsboro holds a special place in my heart. My great-grandfather first brought the family to the north country in the 1880’s, sent there by his father to supervise the pulp mill which then dominated the town. Although his home was in New York City, the camp he built on Flat Rock Point became the focal point of family summers ever since, and is today at the heart of a group of related properties on River Road near the mouth of the Bouquet River.
If there is a heart within the heart, it would be the porch at Flat Rock. Although the furniture has changed over the years, I can still picture my grandfather and my father sitting at the table in the north-east corner, bathed in the golden light of a late summer evening, trading stories and watching the world pass by on the rippling blue waters of Lake Champlain.
Green Bay in the 90s
Green Bay was bought by my grandfather in the 1940’s and was my late father’s summer and vacation residence. It is now part of a Paine family compound covering approximately one square mile of woods, fields and shoreline along Lake Champlain. Up until 2012, my brother and I continued to vacation at Green Bay thanks to the generosity of Paine cousins; now, the house has passed on to new owners (still in the family, however) who plan to make some extensive renovations and improvements.
Let me tell you about Clock Therapy. First, picture yourself after a particularly stressful week at work—not difficult to do, is it?—and now finally off for a long weekend. You arrive at the house in the dead of winter, with silence so profound that you can hear your own heartbeat, and settle into a soft armchair by a flickering, crackling fire. Almost mesmerized by the flames, your eye moves up the mantel and spies an old clock, softly ticking away at the edges of your hearing…
Clock Therapy in progress
Tick tock Tick tock…
Sometimes slightly louder, sometimes slightly softer, but constant, like your heartbeat…
Tick tock Tick tock Tick tock…
And so, slowly, your mind and body let go, surrendering to the firelight and the steady beat of the clock. Welcome to Clock Therapy!
