bunk beds

 

Upstairs dorm room bunkbeds, finally in at the Cabin!

    - photo by Jakob Sutton

The Cabbage

There is a new member to the family of cabins & cottages that make up the housing part of the On Olive Street project! She is and will forever be known as "The Cabbage" and sits up on the hilly side of Olive Street, tucked into the woods, overlooking the brook. A very special place indeed.

The Cabbage consists of one main room, a small kitchen, and a bathroom - and we will be adding a sleeping loft over the winter.

a pennyfarthing goes a long way

So as if I had nothing more productive to do with my time, while I was sitting here with my cup of tea I began to think maybe the "On Olive Street" project needs a new logo. 

The olive tree graphic was nice enough, and in marketing it's called associative-something probably... but other than the symbolic olive tree my son has growing in a large pot (a housewarming gift when he first moved to Olive Street in 2019) there are no olive trees on Olive Street. 

Olive Street, in case you missed that earlier post, is named after William Hayden's daughter, of course, Olive.  Olive, in case you don't remember, was postmisstress of the Madison Centre Post Office for ten years.  Sadly I have not been able to find photos of her as postmisstress or the Post Office here in Lakewood... so if you find any, please share!  In trying to find something to honor Olive, and a connection to this little community in the late 1800s - early 1900s, a discovery was made that in some places (indeed, my fact checking about Maine fell a little short, but I'm willing to forge on anyway) the mail was delivered by penny-farthing.  

Though it may be very, very unlikely that Olive Hayden did much of  delivering the mail this way, the idea of smartly dressed people riding their penny-farthings to and fro upon these paths through the neighborhood, gives the project an aire of fun and whimsy.

And, if you saw Tucker Atwood whizzing by this past summer, you know that bicycles are still a thing On Olive Street. 

the how of making it work

The mission statement goes like this: to gently support the historic Lakewood Theater & its people along with local artists & the community; and to be an ongoing self-sustaining project.

So how is that done? The hope is that by giving folks the space to create, that they will give back. The goal is that there will be no rent, but through personal revenue generated by individual artists [actual art, gigs, and/or lessons] things such as electric bills, taxes, insurance, and water association fees will be paid. Through individuals donating their time and skill, gardens will be tended, buildings will be painted, grass will be mowed. [and all residences will have things like beautiful pottery, wooden tables, stunning paintings... all by local artists and a few friendly bees]

It has been put before me that I may be a little too optimistic, and I should also look into crowdfunding

remodeling the Hayden Brook Camp in my mind

What the place needs is a giant porch/sunroom across the front facing the brook. And a kitchen remodel. And skylights upstairs.

These are the things I think about to occupy my mind some times. Other times it's moving furniture around. Also in my mind.

That piano we were gifted a few weeks ago has now found it's home here...instead of in the Dance Hall at the Tower House as planned. Pianos, you see, are very heavy and the logistics of moving one into particular spaces may make for changes in plans. Just go with the flow.

plans taking shape for the Tower House

Some minor and major improvements had been made on the first floor of the Tower House for my son's summer stay (a bit of painting, finishing of walls, and indeed a whole new bathroom) but next year we will really see design take shape.

The dining room will become a small bedroom.  A wall between the kitchen and living room will be taken down to give the whole area a more open space. New, less steep stairs will lead to a second floor landing, where we'll place bookcases and a couple of futons. And we'll put in a spiral staircase to the tower and the bedroom there. Or should the tower be a studio space? Community space? We'll see.

Most definitely electricity will be installed in the Dance Hall, and gardens planted throughout the grounds.

the "Tower House" at 4 Olive Street

I've never before thought of restoring older houses to what they once were, but maybe I'd like to with this one, if I could.  Having grown up in love with the Lakewood Theater - my parents home neighboring Libby Mills and becoming friends of Henry & Twinny Richards, and occasional house guests of Fancher Swett.... there were never any shortage of Lakewood stories! -  I was always in search of memoribilia of the years of the past; and here was a whole house! I'm excited to own it now, and have plans to make it a part of the extended Lakewood community again. 

This is the "Tower House" with the famous Dance Hall, where my vision for Olive Street will begin to take shape.

I can't give you better information about the house than what was written by Colin W. Sargent as "Wild Olive" and subtitled "Lakewood Theater Colony: a secret history" in the November 2018 issue of Portland Monthly  Below are some edited excerpts. Please read the entire article at:

https://www.portlandmonthly.com/portmag/2018/10/wild-olive/

If Lakewood Theater colony is the bathtub-gin martini, this rustic Victorian bungalow is the olive. If you love theater, parties, and lakeside living, [the house at] 4 Olive Street [will] get your heart pumping.

The 1,192-square-foot mini-resort [ ] features a three-story Italianate tower, [and] views of Lake Wesserunsett. Also conveying is a legend best told over cocktails.

Eric Pierce [ ] sensed magic the moment he stepped inside[.] he contacted Jenny Oby, author of Lakewood Theatre (Arcadia Publishing, 2017), about the structure also known as “The Dance Hall.”

“The Theater is on the north side of Hayden Brook,” she says.[ ]  Olive Street was named for Olive Hayden.

“[ ] at the back of the house, you’ll see what looks like old stagecoach doors facing the lake [ ] You’d have had to drive your horse or car around back to use them. Just above those three doors is just this gigantic open room. [ ]  If you look closer, “the separate double-wide entry stairs and door that faces the courtyard instead of the road” compound the mystery. If not for a limited-access speakeasy, what else could this possibly have been for?

Which brings us to a sexy little stream that separates this house from the Lakewood Theater Colony. [ ] Lakewood Theater Colony manager “Herbert Swett was determined to make and keep his theater and surroundings attractive to highbrow clientele in order to attract the best actors and actresses of the time, and to attract the most affluent visitors as well. The Dance Hall is a five-minute walk from the theater, and you have to cross a stream. Local legend has it that on the theater side of the stream, the theater had lots of rules for the actors and staff and housed them in gender separated housing. If you crossed the stream you were no longer under Swett’s ‘jurisdiction’ or the rules of the theater. There is no doubt in my mind that a lot of thirsty and bored actors, actresses, and patrons crossed that stream on a very regular basis to drink, to party, and get a little wild [ ].”

[ ] there’s a chance Humphrey Bogart dared to cross this stream—to stay at this bungalow possibly. [ ]. “During the course of the 1934 season, Mary Philips, then wife of Humphrey Bogart, had spent the early portion of the season at Lakewood while Bogart finished his run in The Petrified Forest. When Bogart arrived he went to Herbert Swett to request a private cottage for himself and his wife, but Swett, in all seriousness, suggested that Miss Philips stay in the cottage she had been sharing with Katherine Kidder, another member of the players, and that Bogart could move in with Sanford Cummings and Keenan Wynn, a suggestion which led Bogart to seek another landlord the next day.”

Though Bogart didn’t have much use for the tame side of life, we don’t have a drop of Prohibition proof that he and Mary actually relocated or partied at 4 Olive. It’s just wild conjecture about Wild Olive. To suggest otherwise would be crossing a different stream. Over there is the stuff that dreams are made of.

throwback Tuesday

Photo of my parents and I, taken by Michael Mills at his mom's house, circa 1970-something.

Having Libby Mills as an across-the-street neighbor was a hoot.