A Marvelous Time

Thom and I drove up to New London to help Randy move heavy things.  He's furnishing his new home in the Pequot Colony Historic District on the western shore of the Thames River.  Let's hope his eventual garden includes these complex blooms.

The Pequot Chapel, built in 1872 for summertime worshippers, offers non-denominational services and Tiffany windows.

Randy treated his luggers to yummy lobster rolls at Sellfish.

Afterward, we headed to Harkness Memorial State Park, once a 200+ acre dairy farm that employed dozens of Guernsey cows.  Randy and Thom posed in the cutting garden.

A child left behind a stuffed animal.

Here's a view of the water tower necessary to keep the gorgeous landscape green.

Edward Harkness, an heir to the Standard Oil fortune, and his wife Mary built Eolia in 1907 before giving it to Connecticut nearly half a century later. They named their Gatsby-era summer retreat for the island inhabited by the Greek god of winds. Here's a rear view. Prior to the pandemic, it was mostly used for weddings and other special events.

Beatrice Jones Farrand, the only woman among the eleven founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects, designed the extensive gardens. 

 

You couldn't ask for a prettier place to exercise.

There's a public beach, too.

Eolia's backyard extends down to the Long Island Sound.  Edward and Mary had bragging rights to the longest private shore line on the Eastern Seaboard.

Least terns and piping plovers find safe haven at the William A. Niering Preserve next door.

Randy has claimed this spot for setting up his reading chair when he's solo.

To quote Taylor Swift, we had a marvelous time.  Her song "The Last Great American Dynasty," one of the standouts on "Folklore," chronicles a Midwestern divorcee who married into the Harkness family before building "Holiday House" in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Taylor bought the place for nearly $18 million in 2013.  Her snooty neighbors gave her a hard time for partying too much, too.  Songwriting is the best revenge!