Rupert Holmes, on Creating a Victorian-Flavored Escape in Upstate NY
Rupert Holmes, on Creating a Victorian-Flavored Escape in Upstate NY
by Robert C. Holmes
It’s tempting to get swept away in romantic fantasies of the past. I’ve done it before. It’s the same feeling you get when a childhood book comes alive in your mind: the smell of the paper, the feel of the pages, the sound and smell of a childhood friend’s voice (that’s my old room, the one I’m writing this in). It’s a feeling that’s as much of a part of me as the words in these pages. My old room felt like home, as it did for my mother and her sister and the other women I was surrounded by.
Of course, many people who grew up during the Victorian era would agree that their childhood was filled with beautiful rooms and a charming sense of style. The most beautiful apartment I ever saw, which my grandfather owned, sat in an old, quiet house in a residential part of New York City. When we saw it, we were awed not only by the beauty of the house, but also by its unique style. I remember that we, my mother and her sister and I, were especially struck by the way the light dappled the floors, walls and ceilings, and cast shadows on objects hung on the walls.
We spent many afternoons there when the sun was low in the sky. My mother’s sister called my grandfather “the old man of the house.” And this house had so much charm and detail that one day my father asked my mother what they had used for wallpaper on the walls. Even those who only knew my grandfather as a rather austere man, who taught mathematics and science at a high school, who loved the outdoors, and who kept detailed accounts of everything he did in his life, knew immediately why the wallpaper had been made that way. After that first visit, my father took a special interest in making sure we always had art on our walls.
As a writer, I don’t know if my own imagination is capable of capturing the same feeling of being wrapped in a special way in “a