In the summer, we went to Tyringham.
My grandfather bought Glencote from the Gilder family in 1923. My grandmother Kate had lunch at the Cos Club on East 66th Street with Ros Gilder in the spring of 1922. Ros asked Kate what the family's plans were for the summer, would they spend it in Windsor? The Gilders had a house available next door to Four Brooks Farm, and would love to rent it to the right family. Sight unseen they rented the “cottage” for the summer, and bought it from the Gilder family the following year. Books on the Berkshires showcase the various ‘‘cottages” that were built during the Gilded Age- ostentatious mansions like Ventfort Hall, Shadow Brook, Naumkeag, The Mount, or Ashintully. This “cottage” was not an estate, but rather a fine Gre
ek revival farmhouse, built around 1840, which stood between Four Brooks Farm, owned by the Gilders, and Singlebrook, which the Gilders rented to their farm help, the Lorings.
My father would tell me of his first memory of Glencote, how at the age of four, he would look out the back door to the woodpile, where a large rat would sit at his leisure and stare him down. The woodpile and the rat soon departed. My grandfather, for whom I was named, started planting hemlocks, arborvitae, and yews. In Manhattan he practiced law in Rockefeller Center, and wouldn’t dream of crossing 72nd Street in less than a suit and tie, but in Tyringham he wore a faded blue denim shirt, a straw hat, and dungarees, and spent his days on a step ladder patiently pruning and shaping his hedges. At lunch on the front terrace he’d sit on one of the three white Adirondack chairs which faced across the valley towards Cobble and drank his Carling Black Label, except on weekends, when he enjoyed a very dry martini. After dinner, he would sit in “his” chair in the corner of the living room next to the horse hair couch, and read Boswell’s Life of Johnson, and smoke a cigar. He had the ability to amaze me by blowing one, two, three smoke rings, and then sending a plume of smoke through the center of each concentric hole.
He had taught Latin and Greek at St. Pauls for a year before entering law school, and asked me, “What are you reading at St. Paul’s?”
“Hemingway.” I responded.
“Pshaw,” he snorted, “What would you want to read that rogue for?!”
After the Cuban embargo went into effect, he tried to accept the ersatz Habanas that were rolled in Honduras, but when he found they paled compared to the originals, soon gave up cigars completely.
My grandfather bought Glencote from the Gilder family in 1923. My grandmother Kate had lunch at the Cos Club on East 66th Street with Ros Gilder in the spring of 1922. Ros asked Kate what the family's plans were for the summer, would they spend it in Windsor? The Gilders had a house available next door to Four Brooks Farm, and would love to rent it to the right family. Sight unseen they rented the “cottage” for the summer, and bought it from the Gilder family the following year. Books on the Berkshires showcase the various ‘‘cottages” that were built during the Gilded Age- ostentatious mansions like Ventfort Hall, Shadow Brook, Naumkeag, The Mount, or Ashintully. This “cottage” was not an estate, but rather a fine Gre
ek revival farmhouse, built around 1840, which stood between Four Brooks Farm, owned by the Gilders, and Singlebrook, which the Gilders rented to their farm help, the Lorings.My father would tell me of his first memory of Glencote, how at the age of four, he would look out the back door to the woodpile, where a large rat would sit at his leisure and stare him down. The woodpile and the rat soon departed. My grandfather, for whom I was named, started planting hemlocks, arborvitae, and yews. In Manhattan he practiced law in Rockefeller Center, and wouldn’t dream of crossing 72nd Street in less than a suit and tie, but in Tyringham he wore a faded blue denim shirt, a straw hat, and dungarees, and spent his days on a step ladder patiently pruning and shaping his hedges. At lunch on the front terrace he’d sit on one of the three white Adirondack chairs which faced across the valley towards Cobble and drank his Carling Black Label, except on weekends, when he enjoyed a very dry martini. After dinner, he would sit in “his” chair in the corner of the living room next to the horse hair couch, and read Boswell’s Life of Johnson, and smoke a cigar. He had the ability to amaze me by blowing one, two, three smoke rings, and then sending a plume of smoke through the center of each concentric hole.
He had taught Latin and Greek at St. Pauls for a year before entering law school, and asked me, “What are you reading at St. Paul’s?”
“Hemingway.” I responded.
“Pshaw,” he snorted, “What would you want to read that rogue for?!”
After the Cuban embargo went into effect, he tried to accept the ersatz Habanas that were rolled in Honduras, but when he found they paled compared to the originals, soon gave up cigars completely.
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