Summer Home

We’ve been renting a small house on Peck’s Way, Arey’s Pond, Orleans on Cape Cod for about a decade.  We’re only here for two weeks but the house has become home.  The “we” includes our daughter Jenny, Rob and grandkids Eli and Viv.  This year on the bookshelves we discovered “Water Music: a Cape Cod Story” (2023) by Marcia Peck, the co-owner with her sisters.  Although the book is labeled fiction, it reads like a memoir.  Basically it’s the story of her family’s 1956 summer on Arey’s Pond in Orleans.  They leave their home in N.J., and via the Merritt Parkway make it to the Cape.  Her father, Weston, and mother, Lydia, had purchased the property and were building a house.  I’m reading the story sixty-eight years later in that house that her father built.  Nearby is the “playhouse” (towed up from Boston) where her parents spent the construction summer.  In the novel, Lily and her sister Dodie live in a tent which is blown over in an August hurricane.  Her Aunt Fanny, Uncle George and cousins, Nicole and Digory live across the pond.  Sometime a major hurricane, Marcia writes:  “I rowed to our side of the pond, dug out cots out from under the ruined tent, let them air-dry and then set them up in the new house. Our big new house with an upstairs and a downstairs and a chimney with a hearth and a picture window facing the pond, yet I crouched our cots together in the corner closest to the Playhouse.”                 My first experience with a summer home was my Aunt Ellen and Uncle Frank’s oceanfront at Harvey Cedars, a town on Long Beach Island, NJ.  It was described as a fisherman’s house (hooks stuck in a beam) that they bought in the mid-1970s. For twenty or more years we visited.  Sometimes for a day, a weekend, most of the summer when Diane was pregnant with Jenny, into a September (I commuted to work every few days).  I recall one Thanksgiving visit or we’d be with some friends and make a spontaneous calls to my Aunt and Uncle asking if we could use the house. They were extremely generous.                 Given Harvey Cedars houses, the Mignoni’s was very modest.  It was two story on the ocean, four or five bedrooms, large living room with a fireplace, kitchen and dining room with water views.  A large deck where we spent a lot of time. I had three married cousins so there was a lot of coming and going.  They lived a good but basic life.  My Aunt made a great breakfast, eggs over light, bacon, orange juice, toast (buttered on the right side: my Uncle’s dry humor).  There was also a good bakery nearby for Sunday sweets. Aunt Ellen cooked local Blue fish and Flounder for dinner frequently.  Maybe chicken.  Of course lots of Jersey corn and tomatoes.  My Uncle made an excellent lettuce salad, well salted, and clams casino (what a treat).  Vodka tonics or wine.  My Aunt was known for her pies — apple but also lemon merengue.                  We spent most time on the deck or beach, swimming, sunning, reading, walking.  Maybe a ride to Barnegat Lighthouse or Beach Haven.  Dinner out or hitting a bar was very rare.  Before his early death, my cousin William bought a boat and we would go out fishing.  I was always amazed how he learned to navigate in the ocean.  Diane and I may have rented a sunfish once or twice; when old enough Jenny and other young cousins might miniature golf.  LBI was very quiet, basic family living.                 For two or more years we had a family reunion.  The Profys,  my parents, four sisters, husbands and children and the Mignoni’s, Aunt and Uncle, their three children, husbands children and grandkids.  There were nearly 25 of us.  My sister Cissi rented a nearby house and we all found a bed.  Lots of beach fun, bonding, eating, photographs.  I have extremely fond memories of these weekends.  Many years later one of cousin William’s daughters hosted similar family reunions at her Bucks County house.                  We were only guests at the Harvey Cedars house but for me it was a home. I am grateful to my Aunt and Uncle for their generosity.  I treasure the memories.  The morning sunrises, long beach walks, reading on the deck, collecting shells, ocean meditations, family, Uncle’s humor, Aunts cooking, bonding with my cousins.  Frank and Ellen sold the house to their daughter MaryJo and her husband Larry.  They replaced the fisherman’s house with a larger Harvey Cedars oceanfront.              In the early 1990s Diane and I answered an ad in the local Yardley News for a summer rental in Nantucket.  We’d been to Martha’s Vinyard but never Nantucket.  We signed up for a week in August.  I suspect we spent one night at a Route 6A Bed and Breakfast before lining up for the 2 1/4 hour ferry ride to Nantucket.  Twenty-seven miles out to sea.  The ferry ride is always a thrill, leaving the mainline behind, the harbor and buildings fading away to open ocean, standing along a rail with strong salt laced breezes, running past large and small sail boats.  Then the Brant Point lighthouse, harbor docking, unloading, a car packed full, topped with kayak and bikes.  The first year, stopped in town for a key, bumping over the cobblestone streets, our eyes wide open taking in the downtown bustle.  The cottage was about four miles outside of town on Polpis Road, near the Life Saving Station Museum.  It wasn’t easy to find, hidden up a long crushed clam shell drive.  We asked directions.  We would make this trip for ten years, in later years first stopping in a bakery for bread and a pie; maybe groceries and wine.  Diane thought maybe she could make 20$ pies and we could stay all summer.                  The cottage, named Rattlesnake Bank, was on ten or more acres.  There was a front screened in porch, living room, kitchen, bathroom and two small bedrooms.  It had been built in the 1950s by the Aunt of the current owner John Whitman who lived in Newtown, PA.  The main bedroom had a high roof and skylight so it was open and bright.  There was a bunk bed in the one bedroom.  Overall it had aged, a bit dusty.  Nearby was a small one room guest house (a few years John’s daughter stayed there).  Otherwise you didn’t see any other houses.  Up a small hill was a lookout to the sound, you could also see the life saving station museum.  On the other side of the house was a small path up a steep hill which led to a larger path in the preserved moors.  One trail led to Altar Rock.  The moors are about 4,000 acres of protected land; Altar Rock is one of the highest points on the island.    After the first or second year, when we were settled into Rattlesnake Bank I slowly eased into what I called “Nantucket Time.”  Basically relaxed, at peace with myself and the world, no need to hurry, no need to go, to do, or meet a deadline.  It would last for our two week stay and oh, how many days later. John was great we could reserve Rattlesnake for any time period — arrive on a Tuesday, leave in 14 days or 16 days.  We were among a few regular renters.  The cottage was a home away from Yardley.                  Early morning I’d sit outside with coffee, listening to birds, and wind chimes.  One year the chimes were gone.  We headed to the hardware store to buy some.  Days unfolded slowly, a walk in the moors, or on a dirt road, then path that led to the Sound, beach combing, bird watching.  We had a scope.  Bicycle rides into town or Sconset.  We could go to several different beaches, sound or ocean.  We kayaked.  Excellent restaurants and historic museums, buildings and tours.  Walking town was a delight.  There were always music and speakers.  Nathaniel Philbrick, a Nantucket based historian who wrote “Away off Shore: Nantucket Island and its People, 1602-1890” was a favorite.                      Nantucket time led to hours of reading on a chair in the yard or on the porch. In Yardley,  I have a shelf of Nantucket or sea related books.  Mitchell’s Book Corner on was a local institution on Main Street which I frequented.  Down the street was Murray’s Toggery where I could buy Nantucket red shirts, pants or a cap.  Never bought the pants.  Nantucket Looms was another interesting shop we frequented.                  We often went to Quidnet Beach on Sesachacha Pond near Sankaty Lighthouse, a bike ride from our rental.  You could sit on the flat pond shore or walk to the ocean beach.  A longer walk and you began to reach some cliffs.  Occasionally we’d go to other beaches, each with their own characteristics.  There was Sconset (near the village); Madequecham, Nobadeer, Surfside and Cisco on the ocean.  Dionis, Steps and Jetties on the Bay.  Brant Point Lighthouse in town was a nice bay walk.              In about 2005, John Whitman called, he was selling the cottage. “No,” I cried.  I must he said, “I’m getting well over 1 million.”  It was the land; the cottage was actually moved.  We searched the island but couldn’t find another Nantucket home.  After a few Jersey beach rentals on Long Beach Island and Cape May, we settled on Cape Cod as our new summer home.                              It’s interesting reading “Water Music” while living in the house built in Marcia’s story.  Each chapter is prefaced by an increasing wind rated on a Beaufort scale.  It reflects the growing turmoil in the family.  Both Lily’s mother and aunt (who drowns in a boat accident; was it suicide) are sometimes volatile, unhinged.  Her mother and father get into arguments regularly.  Mother and others are annoyed by the Uncle George. Lily sometimes disagrees with her cousin.  Despite the tensions they interact and sometimes enjoy each others company.                                          I enjoy family’s activities around the property and references to Orleans.  Lily, her sister and cousins make a trip into town to see a movie — no theatre now.  They see a bus load of boys from Camp Namequoit unload for the movie (the camp may be gone but there is a street, Namequoit, nearby, outside of town.  They sneak cigarettes and try to strike matches on their fingernails.  They celebrate July 4 with some fireworks and have a classic clam bake on the beach at Nauset. They hear the Andrea Doria go down. There is fishing with her father in the “Clamshell.” The pond provides fish, crabs, mollusks.  Weston has an estimate of $2,500 to build the houses but it may cost more.  He buys material and supplies at Nickerson Lumber (still in town).       Feb 1973 Henry Beston’s Outermost House               In Water Music there are references to “The Outermost House” and “The House on Nauset Marsh.”  classics that lI’ve read. The title comes from the music Lily and her mother play.  Frequently she escapes to be beach to practice her cello which she will play in a music recital.  I feel I need to find some cello music, sit back, enjoy the salt pond, it feels like I’m at home.