Those Hot Summer Nights
Emily & Stephen wanted their engagement shoot to be at a place that was sentimental to them, with family history, and of deep connection, so I drove to the Finger Lakes to meet them (the drive was majestic, Id happily do it again) Upon arrival, I was awe-struck at the vastness, craftsmanship, personality and impressed by the level of maintenance it must require to keep it in harmony. It was really hot, and the main cabin doesn’t have a/c, so we started with an ice cold beer in the cool, basement level stone bar. After that we cruised all over the property in a golf cart, and jumped out here and there to take some pics, all the while hearing stories about her Grandpa. With the help of his construction buddies, they built everything. Grandpa was a master of sourcing from the land & even dug the lakes himself (who does that?!) I wish I could’ve had a cold one with him too - may he rest in peace.
The property being so rare and rich in history, I felt it deserved direct quotes from the source, so reached out to Emily and her Mom Anne to get the full story. Anne even provided me with a few old photos of her Dad which I feel make this post a thousand times more special. A reminder to always photograph what may seem like just another day doing chores.
Grandpa, moving small tress sometime in the 1970's
Anne: All the tall pine trees that line the front of the property were once seedlings dug up from the back field. With scarce funds for landscaping, we helped my Dad find and carefully dig up the tiny trees, put them in five-gallon buckets and replant them along the road. It took 50 years for them to grow so tall!
Emily The Farm started out as a weekend retreat for my Grandparents & six kids, but became the center of our extended family life. My family moved around a lot when I was a child, so the Farm is the closest thing I have to a childhood home. My favorite memories as a kid involve swimming in the pond, giggling in the bunk room, and celebrating birthdays and Christmas with Nana, Papa, my aunts and uncles, and our group of 18 cousins. Sadly, my Papa passed away from melanoma in 2008 at the age of 68. My Nana would follow in 2015. Since then, my mom and her siblings have split ownership of the Farm and lovingly continued caring for and maintaining the property. The place keeps their memories alive! We had a big party to celebrate the Farm's 50th anniversary in 2022.
Anne: The property was an old potato farm and the owner, a widow, only sold the land to my father in 1972 if he promised to never sell the land to New York State. (The state had been trying to buy it for years as it fronted Rochester's water reservoir - Hemlock Lake and contains the state's last remaining intact old-growth forest.) He promised the widow he would be a good steward of the land and, upon his death, made my siblings and I make the same promise. The house grew as the family grew. Emily's impending birth in 1992, the first grandchild, was the inspiration for the first addition.
Anne: The cabin is log needed to be encased in cedar when termites ate most of the western wall. One evening, maybe 25 year ago, my Dad was coming in from the back fields and thought the back of the cabin looked funny. Upon examination he discovered the wall was mostly hollow. I was more distraught than he was... perhaps it was his construction background that helped him take it in stride. "You just handle the problem," he said. The bar in the basement is made out of an old black walnut tree that came down in a bad storm that hit the farm my Dad grew up on. When my grandfather called my Dad for help in clearing the tree, my dad saved the wood to make the bar. He used the crotch of the tree to make a perfect spot for four people to be able to play cards.
Emily All three bodies of water on the property were man made by digging down to hit the natural spring. All of the stonework on the exterior and the fireplaces were created by collecting rocks from the property. The interior is filled with furniture and knick knacks collected over and inspired by a lifetime of travels (the 'snug' we took photos in was modeled after the ones in the pubs visited on a family trip to Ireland in 2005), taxidermy sourced from hunting trips, and endless bits of my Papa's silly, bold personality.
Anne: The Hot August Night boat is an old Coast Guard boat that was being scrapped. It was rotting in a corner of one of his construction sites in Annapolis MD and he got a crane to hoist it onto a trailer. It sat in front of the barn most of my childhood, only getting moored (again, using a crane) at the lower pond about 30 years ago. The name comes from his favorite Neil Diamond album. That high diving board at the lower pond came out of a public swimming pool in Rochester. Deemed too dangerous for public use, my Dad thought it was a perfect addition to the family swimming hole. He lugged it down to the Farm and gleefully installed it three meters high.
Emily Since Stephen and I have been based in Switzerland this year, we used the Farm as our home base leading up to the wedding. I knew it would be worth it to take portraits there, both because the scenery and interior are so unique and beautiful, and because the place is so sentimental to me.
