DeJoux House

Daniel has nearly finished the drawings and the contractors are busy with other projects. So not much to do than enjoy the pond, which we are doing a great deal. The pond is an amazing ecosystem, cool and refreshing at the depths and warm as toast on the surface. The pool floats were the best discovery. You can float around in the warm water and every time you need a refreshing burst of cool water, just reach down. The floats are better than boats. Everyone can have one and you can paddle all round the pond. (Our latest guests, Jina and Dave, circumnavigated the island...something even Daniel and I have not dared to do). The willow trees provide wonderful shade in case the sun gets too hot. The new stepping stones are also a great addition and mean you can get into the water without putting your toes into the mud. We kept the grass at edges of the pond long which, we recently discovered, is good for the dragon flies. We have millions of dragon flies, turtles, frogs...

The weather this 4th of July weekend was spectacular. Not too humid but sunny and only little fluffy clouds in the sky. Cindy Gallop and Frances Allen came to stay for the weekend and we decided to spend the whole weekend at DeJoux House. The days were spent lying by the 'lake', reading, drinking and regularly throwing ourselves into the water. Cindy, as always, went for the "European style" sunbathing. In preparation for dinner on Sunday night I set up a grilling station, using the grill I got 'won' at the Hetrick-Martin auction, on top of two saw horses left by the contractors...It was the best kitchen I've ever worked in. Gentle breeze, quick easy dips in the 'lake' and all the time I could be part of the action while chopping, slicing, marinading and the like. Spencer Osborn, Justin White and Jurene Fremstad all popped in during the afternoon as we worked our way through several bottles of "Kungfu Girl" dry Riesling and "F...

This week we received from John R. Stevens (author of Dutch Vernacular Architecture of North America ) and the Hudson Valley Vernacular Architecture some wonderful drawings of our house based on what it would have looked like in 1765 (just after the kitchen was added). John's visit was reported here a few months ago and because we had taken all the furring from the walls he was able to see a lot of the original details and determine what the house would have looked like originally. In 1765 the main road - the Kings Highway that went to Kingston - was on our side of the river and ran across the property between our house and the river. There was a river crossing in Bonticoe where the New Paltz residents could join this main highway. The front of the house as we know it now was originally the back of the house and the front of the house had two doors. The upstairs was a grain loft with only very few windows. The dormer windows are contemporary. The original back of the house h...