Charity Robey

A 19th C Shelter Island gristmill is coming alive

A team assembling at Sylvester Manor’s Dominy windmill Feb. 13 to install the fourth sail. (Credit: Charity Robey)

On Saturday, Feb. 13, a team of 10 people led by a millwright from Saugerties, N.Y. maneuvered an enormous handmade wooden lattice high on a windy hill across a sheet of ice, to install the fourth and final sail on Sylvester Manor’s historic 1810 Dominy windmill.

Onlookers in hats and very sensible footwear took pictures and provided moral support. It was a modern-day barn-raising, a community bringing muscle and craftsmanship together to erect something tall and proud that works for all of us.

Times are tough for windmills. In Texas last week lawmakers blamed frozen ones for the power grid collapse that left millions without heat or light.

South Fork residents are objecting to a cable carrying wind-generated electricity, and the wind turbines that will produce that power. Homeowners fear the towers and blades will be visible from oceanfront homes, and people who fish worry the enormous windmills may pose a navigation risk.

But the reconstruction of the Island’s windmill is a cause for celebration for many residents. 

The leader of the rope-pulling, ladder-climbing, sail-heaving folks working to install the last sail on Shelter Island’s mill was Jim Kricker, a man who has been making a living restoring old mills for 40 years.

He didn’t think birds had much to worry about from this antique gristmill — which will likely operate more infrequently — with much bigger sails, operating at slower speeds and being closer to the ground than the modern wind turbines that produce electricity.

Mills were important community spaces in the 19th Century. If you wanted to make bread, eat hoecakes or feed your livestock, you needed the services of a gristmill.

Wheat was a locally-grown product in the days before preservatives and shelf-stable commodities, and since it would go rancid or be eaten by pests if stored too long, every community needed a local gristmill in the pre-IGA era.

The Dominy mill originally twirled in Southold, but when a fire destroyed Shelter Island’s only mill, the Southold mill was moved and installed in the Center. In 1860, it ground 900 bushels of grain in a year when the population of the Island was about 500.

TEAMWORK

Mr. Kricker brought along a team of fellow millwrights and people with good upper body strength, several of whom were close relations: Amy Boyce, Michael Chrobot, Peter Kricker, Matthew Kricker and Jim Whelan. Gunnar Wisseman, Cristina Cosentino and Steve Searl worked alongside Mr. Kricker’s team to raise the last sail, paying particular attention to the installation procedure, since they may have to take down a sail themselves in the event of a catastrophic wind event.

The mill at Sylvester Manor is a type known as a smock mill because the flaring shapes of the tower and cap resemble a loose dress. Eleven smock mills are still standing on the East End of Long Island, the largest concentration of windmills in the country. The best of them were built by Nathanael Dominy.

Although Mr. Kricker does his restoration work with an eye to local materials, when the Shelter Island mill needed to be replaced, he knew he’d never find a piece of White Oak or Black Locust of the kind that would have been used in the 19th Century.

“Trees straight enough, tall enough and free of knots just don’t exist here anymore,” he said. 

The wood replacement for the shaft is greenheart from Guyana, a durable substitute. Mr. Kricker’s wife, Jean Whelan, will use a sewing machine as well as hand work to make the cloths: cotton canvas covers, similar to traditional boat sails, that cover each sail when the mill is operating. 

The Sylvester Manor mill has a number of features that enhance its functionality. Atop the tower is a rotating cap with the sails attached, which allows the miller to rotate the sails to take advantage of the direction of the wind. There are doors on two sides of the tower so it’s possible to enter and exit through one door if the other is blocked by the turning sails.

The mill stands on high ground, with few trees and no wind-blocking structures nearby. Its location sets it apart from the 10 or so remaining windmills on the East End, most of which still have the internal gears and wheels to transfer power from the sails to the millstones, but are not operational.

HISTORY ALIVE AND TURNING

Records of the building of the mill in Southold in 1810 list the names of craftsmen who were paid to work on it, including Asa Miller, Merry Parsons and Lewis Parsons. “It’s a window onto someone’s personality,” Mr. Kricker said. “How skilled they were, how concerned about the fairness of a curve or a surface finish.”

He estimates he worked on upwards of 50 mills over the years, and it’s no exaggeration to say he’s seen it all when it comes to gristmills. Some of the antique mills are now someone’s home. While restoring a mill that was being lived in, Mr. Kricker saw hand-washables hung to dry from the large wooden gears.

Mills designed by Nathanael Dominy are distinctive in their craftsmanship, he said. “One of the things that endears me to these mills,” he added, “is to see the hand of the people who made them, the fine work that was done over 200 years ago.”

Shelter Island’s Dominy windmill is a link to our past, and its context is food and community, not power. The installation of the sails is an important and visible step in the restoration of the mill.

The next stages include a “tune-up” of the internal system of gears and wheels, sharpening the millstones, and installing the cloths.

This writer is not going to plant wheat yet, but the wheels are turning.

Metered Spot on Columbus- Metropolitan Diary, Sunday February 7, 2021.

        

 

 

 

Despite pandemic, volunteers pitch in to provide Thanksgiving to 70 seniors

Brian Westervelt and Cathy Driscoll stand by at 18 Bay Thanksgiving morning to deliver hot meals, as soon as Mary Faith Westervelt and Father Peter DeSanctis get them packed and blessed. (Credit: Charity Robey)

 

 

 

 

THE UNMISTAKABLE FRAGRANCE of roast turkey flowed through the kitchen door at 18 Bay on Thanksgiving morning, as a team of volunteers assembled a feast of turkey, green beans, dressing, gravy, and cranberry sauce for a party of 70 scattered all over the Island.

The elegant front room of the restaurant was taken over by long tables holding rows of paper sacks, and plastic clamshell containers, each with a generous slice of pumpkin pie.

Working down a list of names and addresses put together by the staff at the Senior Center, Lions Club volunteers Mary-Faith Westervelt and John D’Amato packed the stay-warm containers of turkey and fixings as fast as Chefs Jaime Cogan and David Juzapavicus could bring them out of the kitchen.

As each meal was packed, it passed under the eyes of Father Peter DeSanctis just long enough to receive a quality control check and benediction. “That’s 15 done,” Ms. Westervelt called to Chef Cogan as the first wave left. “We’re ready for more.”

A volunteer deliverer stuck his head in the door about three minutes before his shift, and was met with a look that went through Ms. Westervelt’s glasses and right over her mask.

“Later,” she said. “You are here too early. Everybody is spaced apart for a reason.” 

Fifteen minutes later he was loaded with dinners and rolled out. 

The delivering volunteers who fanned out across the Island in a race against cooling gravy included Brian Westervelt, Cathy Driscoll, Lucy Browne, Mike Russo, Jeanne Woods, Thom Milton, Anna Marie Rampmaier, Jo-Ann Robotti, Joe Messing, Chuck and Linda Kraus, Ken and Marilynn Pysher, Suzanne Louer and Glen Whelpley.

The recipients were seniors, living alone with few possibilities for visitors in this terrible year. One of them was George Strom, celebrating both Thanksgiving and his 94th birthday without family.

A birthday card packed in with his dinner brought a smile to his face, which lifted the hearts of the volunteers who delivered it.

Hirotsugu Aoki, an artist afoot

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last spring, a man commenced to walk the roads of Shelter Island every day. Accompanied by a beautiful brown dog, he carried a camera. Hirotsugu Aoki, (everyone, including his wife calls him Aoki) follows a daily ritual — walk seven miles, and take pictures. Soon he noticed that he had become an object of curiosity,

“There are not too many little Japanese guys around here,” he said.

Last week, Aoki agreed to sit for a few minutes outside STARs Café and tell me who he is and how he got here.

He was frequently interrupted to greet friends and allow Finnegan (the aforementioned beautiful, brown dog) to accept high-value treats. 

Aoki was born in Yokohama in 1943, the fourth of five children. His parents were doctors.  A traffic accident when he was 15 left him hospitalized with a brain injury.

“I heard the doctor saying to my mother that he did not think I was going to make it,” he said. “Somehow I survived, but I stopped growing.”

He graduated from high school, but admits he didn’t go much in the last year, in part due to the lingering effects of his brain injury. “I realized how fragile and unreal life is, and that I could be gone forever,” he said. “I think that’s why I stopped going to school.”

Trained as a painter after seeing a show in Tokyo of contemporary art including paintings by Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Josef Albers, he decided to move to New York in 1967 to pursue his interest in avant-garde art.

“At that time in New York, you didn’t have to do much to support yourself,” he said. Working as a carpenter, he painted and hung out with a lot of other poor artists, some of whom, such as the conceptual artist On Kawara and the video artist Nam June Paik, later became famous.

“I was a hippie,” Aoki said. 

In 1969, living in an unheated loft with winter coming on, Aoki met Teresa O’Connor, a professor at CUNY. “I needed a girlfriend with a nice warm apartment,” he said. “And I needed to learn English, and she was an English professor.”

They married in 1972.

A commercial photographer asked him to construct a prop for a photo shoot, and impressed with how much money he was paid, Aoki decided making models for commercial photographers was a good way to make a living.

In 1974, he was one of a group of artists who bought 132 Greene Street, a 19th-century cast iron loft building in SoHo. He took an entire floor of the empty warehouse — 3,000 square feet, as his studio and home.

“I had to make it livable and I needed a lot of money for lumber,” he remembered. “So, it was good that I got into model making.”

Aoki’s and Teresa’s son Owen was born in 1981. Eight years later, they adopted a boy they named Siever. Their third child is Leilei, who Teresa met and fell in love with in China. Leilei became their daughter three years after Siever arrived.

Today, Owen works for a financial company and lives in Singapore, and Siever and Leilei came to Shelter Island from New York with Aoki and Teresa in April.

Aoki’s side of the family still lives in Japan, including his mother, who is 107. “I think she’s tired of living, but she’s OK,” he said. “Every time I go to Japan, I say this is the last time.”

As his career developed, Aoki began to work in movies, where his designs and creations had to do things, like explode, or move across the sky. He began to design and direct his own special effects. In 1990, he worked on “Back to the Future … The Ride,” visualizing and designing the film effects for the wild ride in a flying DeLorean that thrilled visitors to the Universal Studios theme parks.

Aoki’s talents were in high demand, but 60 to 70 hours per week of work was ruining his health, and in the early 80s he was diagnosed with angina. He resolved to change his living habits by getting outdoors and out of the city on weekends.

He and Teresa had been regular visitors to her brother Jack O’Connor’s Shelter Island home but after his death in 1983, they decided to buy a house and land in the Catskills for weekends, which they later sold when the kids lost interest.

A second health scare in 2011 prompted Aoki to begin walking seven miles every day around his SoHo home. In April, with the virus raging in New York, they left SoHo with Siever and Leilei for Shelter Island, and in December they’ll move into a rented house owned by an old Shelter Island friend, Wendy Murdock. 

When Aoki began his long daily walks in April, he was one of very few pedestrians on the Island. “I took photographs of scenery at first and it was so boring,” he said. “As I got to know people, I could ask people to be in my picture.”  

Finnegan made many friends too, and Aoki took pictures of folks holding Finnegan’s leash. “Taking pictures is kind of a hobby but I really enjoy doing it. I just want to do it for myself, but I would like to be better,” he said. “I’m not a weird guy.”

The images of Shelter Island on Aoki’s Facebook page are luminous; a spacious, open-hearted take on the Island’s big skies, scenic corners and unusual architecture, starring the dogs and people who live here.

In Aoki’s eye, an abandoned boat in an untended lot is a still life. The hundreds of images he has posted are a portrait of an unpretentious place during a fraught time in its history.

He said, “Some people here have a lot of money, but there is less concern with social status than East Hampton. I like that very much.”

The O’Connor-Aoki family have been celebrating Thanksgiving in SoHo with at least 30 people for many years, a sort of friends and family pot luck. This year there will be just five around their Shelter Island table. Although they have been invited to join friends on the Island, they’re staying close.

Aoki said, “I’m enjoying my life, and I don’t want to make it any shorter.”

Lightning Round

What do you always have with you? A camera.

Favorite place on Shelter Island? I like the Heights because of the architecture.

Favorite place not on Shelter Island? London.

What exasperates you? Mr. Trump.

What is the best day of the year on Shelter Island? When Cristina Cosentino at the Sylvester Manor Farm told me I can just go in and walk around the farm. I didn’t know that.

Favorite movie or book? ‘The Deer Hunter.’

Favorite food? Sushi.

Favorite person, living or dead, who is not a member of the family?  The painter, Vermeer.  

Most respected elected official, present or past? Mr. Obama.

Love in a cold climate: The secret to finding true love? Shop local

I WOULD NOT wish any companion in the world but you.

— Miranda to Ferdinand in “The Tempest,” by William Shakespeare

There’s something special about finding true love on an island. Here are the stories of four Island couples whose love was kindled on Shelter Island. Some required more kindling than others, but all have stood the test of time.

Pat and Steve Lenox,together for 52 years

In 1968 the Chequit had a great bar on the ground floor, and when Pat and Steve Lenox met there a band called Jacob’s Ladder was playing. Before that night, Pat had already decided she was moving to Boston to try big city life, but in three months she was back.

“She couldn’t live without me,” said Steve, and there must be some truth in that because they were married a few months after, and are still inseparable five decades later.

Asked what was (so far) their best moment as a couple, Steve said, “First child, second child, third child. I told Patty, I wanted to have three children, and she kept saying two’s plenty, two’s plenty. She walked in one day and said, “You got your damn wish.”

In 1998 they built a diner-style restaurant called Pat and Steve’s that quickly became a center of Island life. “Doing the restaurant, that was a big thing in our lives,” Pat said. “It was something that I always wanted to do, and I was lucky enough that Steve agreed to it.”

Today it’s still going strong, called The Islander, and owned by Ashley Knight and Chris Chobor.

Pat and Steve are in Florida right now, fishing and getting outside, and on a recent drive Pat saw a billboard offering quickie divorces. “Holy cow, a divorce for $350?” she said.

They have a way of agreeing on most things, so they won’t be taking advantage of Florida’s bargain prices on divorce.

“We’ll be back next month,” said Steve.

”He’s always there,” Pat said. “My best friend.”

Mary Fran Gleason and Tom Bliss, together for 20 years

Mary Fran and Tom met in high school on Shelter Island in the 1970s. “We met on the basketball court, I was playing basketball and she stole my sunglasses,” Tom said. 

But then there was that thing at the tree. Tom had been seeing other people, and Mary Fran asked him to meet her under one of the Island’s oldest trees to talk it out. 

“I never showed up,” Tom said. “Shortly after that I left the Island and headed for California and I never did get those sunglasses back.”   

Thirty years passed. Mary Fran and Tom married other people, lived far away, and established careers, but something was missing. 

At the Shelter Island School’s all-class reunion in 2000, they found each other again. Initially, Mary Fran thought she’d skip it. “I never liked anyone in my class, and then my sister said, ‘Tommy Bliss is here and is asking about you.’”

Tom confirms that he wondered aloud if his old flame might be there. “When we met at the reunion, we knew there was still something going on.”

In the reunion’s golf tournament, they played in different foursomes and when Mary Fran told him she shot a 46, he said, “I knew I had to bring up my game.” 

The end of the reunion left them both shaken; married to other people, regretting what could have been. “When I got home I wrote him an email,” Mary Fran said.

It took a few years to sort it all out but by 2002 they were married, this time to each other.

One thing that’s remained unchanged in the 50 years since they met in high school, is Tom’s unique way of showing affection. “I like to pinch her ear,” he said.  “Yeah, we tease each other incessantly,” Mary Fran said. “He’s a pest. I hit his arm, like a little kid would hit his mean brother. We’re very compatible that way.”

The matter of who is the better golfer remains contested.

Marie Eiffel and Jason Penney, together for 12 years.

Marie Eiffel’s life on Shelter Island started after a 2002 automobile accident that very nearly killed her. In 2005, living in an unheated garage in Sag Harbor, she opened a consignment store in the Center, and one day Jason Penney, a New York-based photographer with a wife and two kids walked in and bought a lamp.

Marie found out later that a mutual friend advised Jason to visit the shop, “and see if you can buy something because that poor girl has no money.” When he bought the lamp, she told him it was her favorite piece, “It was!” she said. “And because I thought he was cute I added, “I want to see how it looks in your place.’”

Whenever Jason visited the Island, he stopped by Marie’s store, and one day he asked her where she was living. She confessed she was living in the unheated garage, and was totally broke. “He said, ‘But it’s so cold,’ and I thought, this guy has a heart.”

He offered her a room in his under-construction home while he was away for three months, and Marie later found a heated apartment on the Island.

During the 2008 recession, Jason lost most of his photography clients, separated from his wife, sold his apartment and was looking for a place to live. “When I said, you can stay with me … we started kissing. He moved in to my apartment and that’s how we started our relationship.”

He brought along the lamp.

Marie Eiffel has expanded her businesses since then, with Jason at her side.

“Everyone says it’s impossible to meet someone on this Island. I always say maybe you want a job with me. It’s a great place to meet people.”

Shelby Willumsen and Michael Mundy, together for 10 years (unless you count elementary school).

Mike and Shelby were childhood sweethearts, although Michael swears he was still playing the field at the Shelter Island elementary school. “I was always looking around,” he said.

When it got too weird in middle school to be dating someone who was more like a sibling than a sweetheart, their relationship became a friendship, and they dated people they didn’t know so well.

In 2010, Michael enlisted in the Marine Corps and was deployed to Afghanistan. Shelby was at college in North Carolina, and missing Michael, she wrote him a letter. They started corresponding, and every three or four weeks, when Michael could get to a computer or phone he’d call her.

In 2012, when he arrived at Newark Airport at the end of his deployment, his siblings were holding a welcome home poster large enough to hide Shelby, who popped out from behind it.

“I was in complete shock,” Michael said. “I had no idea that anyone knew we were talking to each other.”

“I think his mom got excited when I said I wanted to come along to surprise him.” Shelby said. “They knew something was up.”

After being apart during his second deployment to Okinawa, they were finally able to live together, and married in October of 2018.

A year later, they experienced what they both say is their best moment as a couple, the birth of their son, Maverick.

“It was hard. A lot of sleepless nights, of Michael seeing me the most emotional I’ve ever been in my entire life,” Shelby said. “Needing him to be there to tell me it’s all right, we’re doing this together. It’s definitely opened up our communication even more.”

While Michael and Shelby were telling their story, Shelby had given Maverick some cherry tomatoes to play with, and the toddler was happily making a marinara sauce as she described the support of their large Shelter Island-based families. “I love Michael’s family. I love his sisters. They’re my sisters now. ”

“Starting a family,” Michael said, “puts a whole other level on it.”

via shelterislandreporter.timesreview.com