Steepletop

It's all about having a bright, modern kitchen.

Edna St. Vincent Millay followed the path of a million authors and artists before her when she escaped the noise and confusion of NYC and headed to the solitude of the woods.  She choose the woods of New York State and a town called Austerlitz to make her home in a farmhouse on 600 acre blueberry farm.  

She named the farm Steepletop after the pink wildflowers that grew everywhere and even though she did build a secluded writing cabin, there was always a steady stream of friends pouring in and lots of parties to take advantage of her grown up playground.

Steepletop is just barely located in New York, right across the border from the Berkshires (and Edith Wharton’s home) and technically located in the Taconics.  Edna and her husband, Eugen got to work on the property right away and build a tennis court, pool (perfect for skinny dipping), outdoor bar, rose and vegetable gardens, and a barn with plans purchased from Sears. There was also a roomy guest house across the drive.

Like Edith Wharton, Edna created an “inner sanctum” that was apparently off limits to anyone but her.  She kept her own bedroom, a large bath, and a work room that led to her personal library.
She also had two pianos in the living room, one for herself and one for a guest.  

Despite Edna’s achievements as a writer, Ladies Home Journal decided to remodel Steepletop’s kitchen and use it as a feature in the magazine in 1948.  While I was researching the kitchen remodel I stumbled upon Writer’s Houses, Where Stories Live, a superb website started A.N. Devers but with entries from many authors .  

Megan Mayhew Bergman was lucky enough to visit Millay’s retreat last February.  She describes the property as authentic, still holding clues to Millay’s penchant for perfume, roses and gin.  The remodeled kitchen is crammed full of floral plates and knick knacks, and became a “mid-century electrified dream” thanks to the Ladies Home Journal.  There is an awesome slideshow of the ‘modern’ kitchen at www.thekitchn.com and I must admit I far prefer the before pictures.  After reading about Edna for a few days I already know she had zero interest in streamlining her domestic duties or decorating her kitchen.

Bergman also describes some of the reasons that Edna might have wanted to be far from prying eyes, including a morphine addiction, chronic pain, intestinal problems and alcoholism.  
Edna’s sister, Norma, lived in the house 25 years after Edna’s died after falling down a flight of stairs with a glass of wine in her hand.  She was only 58 years old.  

Norma appreciated Edna’s connection to Steepltop and kept the house just as it was.   An article for the AP by Michael Virtanen says that the house looks as if Edna just stepped out for a minute.

Behind the house there is a poetry trail, dotted with Millay’s poems and leading to her gravestone, next her husbands, two simple stones in the frozen earth that mark the place that she finally found peace.

Surprising Role Model

Both levels of the Camden Library

Edna St. Vincent Millay would be surprised to find that she is the literary icon of the Camden Library.  

Yes, she did grow up in Camden, attend Camden High School, get a scholarship to Vassar, thanks for her poem Renascence about Mt. Battie, the hill/mountain that provides the background for the port town , but she never returned to Camden, never went to the library and was as unconventional as the library is traditional.

My mom and I stood under the dome of the Camden Library addition, a floor build under the original library, and read the first words of Millay’s Renascence Poem about Mt. Battie, written when she was only 20 years old.

“All I could see from where I stood,
was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.”

Millay, who called herself Vincent, was born in Rockland, Maine in 1892..  She lived in poverty with her single mother and two sisters on her Aunt’s property in Camden.  Vincent’s talent as a poet emerged early; she wrote and published poetry while still attending Camden High School and began collecting awards soon after. Her tuition to Vassar was picked up by an wealthy Camden admirer who heard her recite her poetry during a public reading in town.  

Millay’s relationships with other women and her refusal to follow conventions also began early and continued through her time at Vassar College, Paris and Greenwich Village.  She was an early feminist, an open bisexual and never shied away from exploring new adventures, saying what was on her mind and having a good time.

Vincent was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923 for “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver”.  She was the second woman to accept the award in its history.

The Camden Public Library is a study in opposition.  After a few false starts, Camden residents voted to establish a public library in 1896.  The Public Library seemed to be the real deal and the town began raising money and making independent plans for a building, the website makes it clear that Andrew Carnegie had no part in the project.  

In 1916 Mary Louis Bok donated her harbor front property to the library and in 1928 the doors to the modest, but elegant, building were opened to the public.  Vincent left for Vassar in 1917 and  hadn’t resided in Camden for a decade.

The connection to Millay came later, much.  In 1996 the library went underground to create an expansion that would leave the original building untouched.  The new subterranean floor boasts the dome inscribed with Millay’s words and a wall honoring Millay Society members (residents and businesses who contribute $1,000 or more).

The library website states that Millay’s “life and her poetry are celebrated examples of freedom and individualism. Millay was committed to intellectual pursuits and the liberation of ideas – ideals kept alive at the Camden Public Library.”  

The summary of Millay’s life is accurate, in a politically correct kind of way, and a good ideal for a library but the upstanding, good citizen aura of the library doesn’t match my impression of Millay as a rule breaking bohemian.     When Millay returned to Maine with her husband Eugen Jan Boissevain,  (the marriage was an open one and they both continued to have other relationships)  in 1933, it was to Ragged Island, a small island in Cumberland County.  They summered on the island until the end their lives.

The Bangor Daily News published an article about Millay in 2009.   “She was an unusual girl,” historian Barbara Dyer said. “She rushed impulsively into the world, as if to make her mark, and she did make her mark.”
The article explains that Millay’s mother, Cora, struggled to keep the family afloat and made up for a lack of money with an “abundance of creativity.”  
“Her mother told the girls they could leave the dishes in the sink and the beds unmade, as long as they were reading literature and playing music,” Dyer said.
Christine Buzzelle, a distant Millay relative,  is quoted as saying, “I’ve just always been fascinated by her,” Buzzelle said. “She was a wild and crazy woman.”

I admire the Camden Library for shining a light on  Millay’s fascinating life.  Maybe we should all, libraries included, consider Millay’s example and live louder, make more mistakes and follow our own rules.