Bringing Back Holleywood
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hidden histories

12/15/2021

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We're one of the lucky towns coming through a world-wide pandemic with our local newspaper intact. The Lakeville Journal has been serving the Salisbury community since 1897, but in 2019, it was at a crossroads. Its founding template made financial survival dependent on advertising and paper sales, but that wasn't working in the digital age. Thanks to the doggedness of its publisher, staff and board members, and the acumen and generosity of supporters, our paper was saved and will hopefully continue to foster the free flow of information and opinion in our community for another 125 years.

To remain vibrant, a newspaper needs not only readers but contributors. With that in mind, and with the encouragement of publisher Janet Manko, I've started a column in the Lakeville Journal called Hidden Histories. It will highlight little-known stories, lives and places that contribute to the richness of our community, revealing sometimes surprising aspects of our local heritage. Research is based on findings I discovered while writing this site and also while writing my novel The Latecomers (Little, Brown 2018), a tale of New England life in the last century, inspired by the Holleywood house. 

The first Hidden Histories column runs today. It tells the story of Fredrick Bauer, once a big name in town who has since been all but forgotten despite the fact that he not only gifted Lakeville a pond, a park, the historic train depot, and the former railroad right of way which now serves as access to the Town Grove, but funds for maintaining the properties.  You can read it here. Or pick up a hand-held issue wherever local newspapers are still (thank heavens) sold. 


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candlelit vigil

12/15/2021

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.A luminous gathering last night on the White Hart Green in memory of the 26 lives lost on December 14, 2012 in the Sandy Hook School shooting. Each name was read aloud between tolls of a bell. The gathering was organized by Sophia deBoer, co-founder of the Northwest Corner Committee for Gun Violence Protection. She and her husband Lee deBoer were parents of a student at Wesleyan in 2009 when a classmate was shot to death by a mentally unstable stalker with easy access to to guns. The grandmother of that victim, Johanna Justin-Jinich, had been a Holocaust survivor.
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tree time!

12/13/2021

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When your gutters need a cleaning and a lift has to be hired and there's an opportunity to make it do double duty. May your holidays be luminous and bring in a lighter, brighter new year!
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COVID made us realize we moved to CT years ago

9/1/2021

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Once Covid hit, our brains caught up to reality. We weren't living in Manhattan anymore. We were living in Lakeville. Our NYC apartment had become a very expensive storage unit for stuff we didn’t need anymore. I spoke to Joanne Kaufman of the New York Times about selling our co-op in the Time of Covid and making the brain shift to living full time to Connecticut, while hanging onto a tendril of the cord that ties us to the city-- a tiny 370 square foot apartment on the Upper West Side. Story here.
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caroling party in the Time of Covid

12/19/2020

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Thanks to the carolers for including us in the masked merriment they brought to several places in town. 
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a fictional house inspired by Holleywood

10/8/2018

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Thanks to Lakeville Journal reporter Alexander Wilburn for delving into the history of the house that inspired my third novel The Latecomers. One of the things that made me fall in love with this house (even when it was falling apart) was the bookcase in the library, a floor-to-ceiling fruitwood with sliding glass doors. The glass was engraved 1860 and I’d often wonder what conversations took place in the very place I was standing, as Civil War brewed, what secrets could be held in its walls.

The Latecomers follows five generations of a Connecticut blueblood family and how they are changed forever by hiring an Irish immigrant girl as a housemaid in 1909. The story unfolds from a mysterious death and includes love, betrayals, old money, motherhood and 117 years of meticulously researched American history. The Latecomers comes out in November from Little, Brown, but you can pre-order a personalized copy here to arrive in your mailbox the day it's published, courtesy of Oblong Books & Music.  

If you're in NW CT, please join me at the book launch at The White Hart Inn in Salisbury on Tuesday, November 6 at 6 PM. Election Day! I'll be presenting The Latecomers with a Hidden History of 20th Century America slide show featuring surprises I discovered while researching the book.
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balloon view

6/12/2018

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It was early on a Sunday AM and I was working in the tower room on the 2nd floor. I'd pulled down the shades to block out reflections on screen. Suddenly, it sounded like we had plumbing issues. What was happening? Something kept...flushing? I hurried downstairs to where Donald was working.

"What's that noise?" I asked.

"What noise?" he said. (Donald's defense against an old house is to try never to notice when something goes wrong.)

"It sounds like a whooshing, like pipes...in the front?" But there are no pipes in front.

We went to the hallway and through the sidelights we saw--something big and blue. Whattttt??? We opened the front door. There was a hot air balloon hovering at the second floor level. A guy in the basket was leaning over to ask, ever so politely, "Do you mind if we land on your field?"  

"No problem!" we said. (Later I asked him, what if we'd said no? He said he'd have moved on to a school field nearby.)

I grabbed my phone and began taking photos as the balloon landed and the couple being transported (a husband's gift to a wife for her birthday) stepped out.

"Want a ride?" asked balloon operator still inside the basket. We said sure. So--there we were at 8 am on a Sunday morning, flying above the trees in our yard, getting a bird's eye view of our house. Thank you Spirit Ballooning!
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Victoria Homes magazine

8/29/2016

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A beautifully told story of our house in pictures appears in the September 2016 issue of Victoria Homes, thanks to New Canaan photographer Jane Bieles and writer Rebekah Wahlberg.
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onion snow

4/3/2016

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That's what they call snow that falls out of season. What a surprise to wake up to it today. I hurried downstairs for shears and a bucket, pulled on snow boots and rescued daffodils, coat over my PJs. 
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writing on the wall

12/14/2015

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Tucked under the fourth floor tower is a wonderful studio where I write.  Outside the studio is a looooong hallway convenient for posting a timeline for the novel I've been working on, old school-style, with index cards. I (and houseguests) have lived with the timeline for years, but I was excited to finally take it down today. Early finished copies of the book are in! WHAT WAS MINE is a novel from Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books. The story is about secrets. (It was written in a house harboring many of them.) A childless woman takes a baby from a shopping cart and raises her as her adopted daughter for 21 years. The novel opens when the secret is out. It started out as a story, but after we acquired Holleywood, the story expanded, along with our living space. Pub date Jan 5, available here.
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Before/After
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<<Previous

    who we are

    We are a couple of Upper West Siders from NYC who never set out to buy an old mansion in Connecticut. But the moment we walked through its massive front door, we were smitten. The info on this site is earnestly cobbled from a variety of sources, including the web. Please let us know if we've gotten something wrong, or if there's a story about Holleywood you'd like to share.

    forewords

    December 2021
    September 2021
    October 2018
    June 2018
    August 2016
    April 2016
    December 2015
    August 2014
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    November 2013
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    August 2012
    July 2012
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    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
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    June 2011
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    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    November 2010

    glossary

    All
    2101
    Acorn Lights
    Adrian
    Aimee Davis
    Arnoff Moving
    Art
    Attic
    Avocado
    Balcony
    Basement
    Bathrooms
    Bathtub
    Bathtubs
    Bauer Park
    Beatrice Sexton
    Beaux Arts
    Before And After
    Bell Butler
    Bell Register
    Bernie
    Bill Sigsworth
    Billy
    Bird's Eye View Of Holleywood
    Boathouse
    Bookcase
    Boot Scraper
    Breakfast Room
    Bricks
    Bringing Back The Gatehouse
    Bunny Williams
    Cappy Tatsapaugh
    Carpentry
    Charles E. Rudd
    Charles Keil
    Charlie
    Chimney
    Chris Brennan
    Cistern
    Closets
    Colors
    Cost Of Oil
    Cousins
    Craftsmanship
    Crew
    Crook
    Crops
    Ct
    Cynthia Hochswender
    Dean Meadow
    Decorating
    Decorating 70s Style
    Details
    Dining Room
    Discovery
    Dock
    Doors
    Dreams
    Driveway
    Dumpster
    Earthquake
    Easter
    Electrician
    Emma Rudd
    Extruder
    Fear Of Heating Bills
    Fear Of The Unknown
    Felling A Tree
    Fireplace
    First Thanksgiving
    Floors
    Frank Garretson
    Fresco
    Front Doors
    Furniture
    Gallery Books
    Garage
    Garden
    Gatehouse
    Gateposts
    Gazebo
    Geoff Rosano
    Geronimo
    Ghosts
    Glass Etching
    Glenwood Stove
    Gold
    Governor Holley
    Gracious Living
    Grand Entrance
    Gravestone
    Greek Revival
    Green Restoration
    Groundhogs
    Happiness
    Helen Klein Ross
    Helen Ross
    Hidden Histories
    Hinges
    Historical Accuracy
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    Holley-Williams House
    Holleywood
    Hot Air Balloon
    House Closing
    Housewarming Present
    Hurricane
    Ice Carving
    Insulation
    Italianate
    Jackie Mock
    James Charlton
    Jane Lyman Holley
    Jason Hanley
    Jay Rudd
    Jinny Rudd
    John Gruen
    John Krom Rudd
    Jp Newton Market
    Juliet Balcony
    Katherine Chilcoat
    Katherine Ross
    Kitchen
    Kubota
    Kyle And Lindsey McEvoy
    Kyle McEvoy
    Lakeville
    Lakeville Ct
    Lakeville Journal
    Lakeville Lake
    Lance Middlebrook
    Landscaping
    Larry Burcroff
    Lathing
    Laundry Room
    Laurie Warner
    Lead Paint
    Leon Mcclain
    Lifetime Roof
    Lighting
    Lindsey McEvoy
    Living Room
    Locke Brothers
    Louise Hannegan
    Lucky Break
    Malcolm Day Rudd
    Margaret Ross
    Mark Niedhammer
    Masonry
    Matt Holderman
    Memorial Day
    Memory Lane
    Metal
    Middle East Uprisings
    Mike O'connor
    Miller
    Mini-museum
    Modern Realities
    Momentous Occasion
    Mott
    New England Winters
    New York Times
    Octagonal
    Old Houses
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    Original Doors
    Outer Space
    Painting
    Peggy Obrien
    Plaster
    Plumbing
    Porch
    Pulley
    Pw Vintage Lighting
    Radiators
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    Riley's Furniture
    Rob Anderson
    Robinson Leech
    Ron Carpenter
    Roof
    Roof Raking
    Rudd
    Rudd Family
    Salisbury
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    Sarah Coit Day
    Scaffolding
    Scoville Library
    Seeing The Light
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    Sign
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    Simon & Schuster
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    Susan Rand
    Team Holleywood
    Theodore O'neill
    This Old House Magazine
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    Town Grove
    Town Historian
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    Upstairs Downstairs
    Vernal Pond
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    Vernal Pools
    Vintage
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    Wade Warner
    Wall
    Wallpapers
    Walls
    Wall Treatment
    Wall Treatments
    Welcome To Connecticut
    What-was-mine-book
    White Hart Green
    William Taft
    Windows
    Wononscopomuc
    Wood Burning Stove
    Woodchucks
    Writer's Hack
    Writing A Novel
    Writing On The Wall
    Xmas Trees
    Zordan Brothers

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