Two Invitations – an Adirondack Nature Retreat and a 50th Birthday Celebration
Hello friends,
It’s been quite a year of adventure, and as I haven’t updated my blog in a while, I wanted to take a moment to share some highlights and two invitations.
I’m writing to you from our new home in Fort Ann, NY near the village of Lake George in the Adirondack Mountain Park that I’m calling “Halfway Brook Hollow”.
Our search for a new home wasn’t easy. Finding a place in our budget in this region where people own multiple holiday homes, with high property values and astronomical rent made it difficult to get through the summer season. We moved out of our first rental, and into a second short term rental and kept searching hoping to find the right home that we would be comfortable in ourselves and that could be a place where we could host our adult kids, grandchildren, and extended family and friends.
I almost titled this post “When Your Dreams Burn to the Ground,” because this past spring we found a dream home. Or what had the potential to be a dream home. It was a house on a lake, 3 acres of forest, and 500 feet of waterfront. What brought it to our price range was that it had sustained a lot of damage and was an “as is” fixer upper. With David’s skills we decided to go for it, knowing what it could eventually be. We were renting on the other side of the lake, and we kayaked past many times, through the lily pads, past the loons and the beavers, watching the deer and chipmunks on the banks, imagining and dreaming of the life we could have there, our grandkids coming to visit, friends and family retreating for a lakeside paradise vacation. I often turned to David and said “can you believe that this is going to be ours?” I wanted to pinch myself.
The night before a safety inspection, the dream literally burnt to the ground. I got the call from our realtor on an early Tuesday morning that the house was no longer standing. At that moment David was on his way to the house to meet the inspector, and saw the smoke and the firetrucks.
We were heartbroken. We tried bargaining – maybe we could buy the lot, and build from the ground up, but were told no. We knew this wasn’t a tragedy – no one was hurt or killed, no one was living in the house so there was no loss of a lifetime of belongings and memories that were destroyed. In the case of house fires, this could have been much worse. And it was still hard to let the dream go.
A month later we put an offer on another potential dream home – a house on the Hudson River that was small but made up for it with coziness and the flowing water right on our doorstep. That one fell through because another buyer was willing to forgo an inspection which after our experience we weren’t willing to do.
A month later, we saw this home in Fort Ann and we brought our visiting kids and grandchild with us for the tour, and I was charmed by the fairy house and cottage feel, imagining Gemma and other kids playing in the creek, walks through the forest, and the final push was the sheer amount of cupboard space in the kitchen. Oh the shelves and drawers! David was won over when he saw the basement with enough room for a shop – something he has wanted forever. What brought this into our price range is that it’s on a highway with a lot of road noise, but we love a project and a challenge so we’ll be working on ways to mitigate that.
The sellers accepted our offer, and we moved in late September, slowly making it our own. I’m trying out the name “Halfway Brook Hollow”, as we are in a valley surrounded by hills, with the waters of Halfway Brook winding across and through the woods.
I feel incredibly blessed that we have this home and we want to open up an invitation to our friends and family in search of a nature retreat (either outdoorsy or indoorsy). During the pandemic we rented an Airbnb a few times to relax, renew and recharge, and are now living that life daily.
We’d love to host you and your family, and children are very welcome. Please let me know if you’re ever thinking of coming up to the Adirondacks, and if the timing works we’d love to have you here.
The other invitation is for my upcoming 50th birthday. I have been reflecting on all of the foundational experiences and relationships that have brought me to where and who I am today, what I’m grateful for and what I’m excited for the future.
For my birthday, I’d love to celebrate with everyone who has been a part of that. We don’t have space for that many people at once, so we’ll be celebrating in person with a few people also turning 50 (and in David’s case 60) for our version of a reflective, relaxing, renewing, recharging weekend retreat, and opening it up to my friends and family around the world, for a virtual celebration.
I’ll post the birthday invite on December 14th and ask you to join in. It will be a simple request to share the things that light you up and that are your favorite. My hope is that we can all inspire each other with some favorite things to try, to do, to taste, to read, the bright spots that give us something to look forward to, that can keep us going in the darker times.
Thank you for reading, and I look forward to celebrating and retreating with you,
Alison