A tale of Dragons!

I passed many of my childhood hours sitting at the edge of a large pond, hidden deep within the woods, with my barefoot toes cooling in the soft mud at the edge of the water.  I was entirely fascinated by the dragonflies who would buzz past and alight on the nearby reeds.  I attempted to catch the reflection of their eyes in my own, trying to communicate with these beautiful creatures in whatever way I could.  Without even the slightest disturbance of the surface of the black water, I would carefully sink thigh-deep into the shallows, feeling the thick mud suck my feet more firmly against the layer of solid clay underneath.  I would inch toward the reeds where the dragonflies rested and by patient small gradual movements, position my fingers beneath their delicate legs until they would finally step up onto my fingers without their having even realized that they had done so.  With another slow series of movements, I could have them on my finger in front of my eyes for a closer inspection as I eased back in the shallow water toward the bank of the pond to sit comfortably, rest at ease, and ponder the myriad colors, reflections, and textures of their rainbow eyes. 

Most often they would remain, preening delicately for a few minutes before flitting off again.  Occasionally, they would fly, and return to their finger perch for another examination of this large unusual creature who was eyeing them so intently.  Once in a while I was rewarded with a particularly curious specimen who would return again and again to my immobile form on the bank to alight on that same finger, allowing me to carefully examine the transparent wings dotted with symmetrical dark bands, the slender abdomen spiked and angular, covered with the tiniest orderly rows of hairs.  It never ceased to surprise me to find the light reflecting off of iridescent green or blue bodies, which at a distance had appeared a dull brown.  I would watch as they would draw their forelegs delicately through their rhythmically moving jaws, and would be reminded of a cat licking a forepaw after a particularly satisfying meal.  The dragonfly is one of only a few insects with fully mobile heads on a delicate neck, and when they would turn to regard me with their faceted eyes, it felt like a thread of communication and understanding passed between us.

I have never lost my childhood fascination with dragonflies, and was captivated in my youth by books about their mythical cousin, the dragon.  Inspired by the fossilized remains of dinosaurs, dragons have haunted the dreams and fancies of humans for as long as stories have existed.  They have been feared as monsters, regaled as hoarders of great treasures, and occasionally cast as barely-tamed companions of people with extraordinary courage and a daring sense of adventure.  I never doubted that one day I would encounter such an extraordinary creature, and that it would somehow alter the course of my life.  While the other little girls in the neighborhood dreamed of fairies and unicorns and gentle rolling hills framed by rainbows, I dreamed of fire-breathing beasts, the metallic ringing of sword fights, and sacred oaths sworn in blood.  Needless to say, I was not popular with the other girls in the neighborhood.  Fortunately, I was completely okay with that.

For a time, I forgot about the dragons as I struggled to make ends meet while raising an infant on my own, and then later while picking away at my associates degree, bachelors degree, and eventually masters degree while working and fulfilling my role as a wife and a mom.  Though the wheel of time spins almost imperceptibly, somehow the years fly by at dizzying speed, until you wake up one day older than you used to be.  Suddenly we had time for more than school, work, raising a family, and completing our responsibilities.  Suddenly we had time to explore our world beyond the confines of our little house in our little town.

We began with what we both loved, and pursued the art underfoot.  Persian rugs captivated our attention and we read every book we could find on the subject; learned how to identify a Turkish knot from a Persian knot and began to train our eyes to the diffent patterns unique to each of the regions of ancient Persia.  We were awash in color, vegetal dyes, and silken wools.  As our collection grew, so did our knowledge and appreciation for the art form.

Our favorite rugs tended toward the last quarter of the 19th Century, a time when the art of weaving flourished, and shops labored to outdo each other with the quality and complexity of their products.  This was when the export of carpets to Europe truly blossomed, and the opportunities for weavers to profit from their incredible talents were vast.  The European continent was awash in colors and textures in no time.

Many of the carpets eventually landing in America at the turn of the century were brought back by wealthy travelers to Europe and the Orient.  These textiles blended perfectly into the surroundings of the era, when the decorating habits were eclectic in style and homeowners and decorators alike were masterfully combining forms and design from treasures collected from around the world.  They eased these objects into a sympathetic aesthetic that has not been seen since.

Many of the rug sales we attended also featured antiques from the same period, and we began to train our eyes in the forms set before us.  The telltale design elements of manufacturers from New York and Philadelphia as well as Boston and the Midwest began to come into sharper focus, and were distinct from those of Italy, France, or the U.K.  My favorite designs, of course, were those with mythical creatures frolicking along the borders, fanciful beasts snarling from below, and adorned with random carvings of bats and snails and lizards and frogs.  Still, I yearned for dragons!

Our collection of antique furniture soon outgrew our little house in Northern Virginia, and we as we set our sights on larger pieces of furniture, we soon came to realize that we would need the proper house in which to display these beautiful works of art.  That, along with finishing all of the major home renovations we could possibly conceive of in our little 1945 stone Cape, we began to look for a “project house” further afield and happened into our crazy adventure in the form of #878 Main Street.

Just as “claw feet” and brass hardware, broken arch bonnets and exquisite attention to detail are the hallmarks of early American furniture, so are gryphons, gargoyles, lions, and “Jenny Lind” faces the hallmarks of Victorian furniture.  Dragons were occasionally glimpsed, but were rare beasts indeed.  As Gryphons were accessible, and are the traditional Guardians of Wealth, they quickly became the symbol of our efforts.  I am particularly drawn to this creature, as it is one of the very few mythical beasts with no magical abilities.  It achieves its goals through courage, intelligence, and physical strength, and never backs down from a challenge.  The boldness of these creatures, their majesty, and poise always captivated me, and I wanted to surround myself with their varied likenesses.

Gryphons soon populated my living spaces, in furniture as well as in decorative objects.  I felt an affinity to these creatures, understood them somehow.  Over many years, I was fortunate enough to acquire two, very different, large cast metal gryphons.  One from atop a bank building in Pennsylvania, and the other, a Fiske, with a well-documented past including a kidnapping.  While I have told the story of two of my gryphons here before, a third gryphon came to me more recently while on a visit to New York City.  This one is a Mott done in the “Assyrian” style, and he soon joined his brothers and has settled in quite comfortably.

With the purchase of our house, came new responsibilities, and we began to break ground on some of the bathrooms.  One advantage of this house was that every bedroom had its own bathroom.  One disadvantage was that we had seven full bathrooms and one half bathroom to re-do, as they were installed from 1920 on through 1950, with few upgrades since. 

Our initial assessment of the bathrooms was encouraging, with copper water lines feeding every sink we could see.  After closer inspection, however (after the auction), we discovered that many of these copper lines were coming up through a floor of poured concrete.  One thing we learned from our 1945 home was the effect of galvanic corrosion.  The gist of it is this — when two different metals (or sometimes substances) touch, one will corrode because of its contact with the other.  You don’t need a chemical engineering degree to understand it, but breakdown of the metal is the end effect, and ultimately all that you need to care about as a homeowner.  Concrete in contact with certain metals acts as a galvanic corrosive, and particularly with copper. 

After passing through the concrete floor, the copper ended there.  We cut holes in the ceilings to investigate what lay between the joists, and discovered long runs of galvanized pipes.  Where the galvanized connected to the copper, you could already see the galvanic corrosion beginning.  As luck would have it, it didn’t end there.  As the galvanized pipe eventually joined into the main water feed for the house, it was clearly made of lead, of course.  In each bathroom and in the two kitchens, the feeds to the boilers and hot water heaters, and each of the exterior hose bibs, all had at least two points for galvanic corrosion to occur, and most had three. 

Looking at the vast expanse of ceilings, and the decorative surfaces we were planning, it only made sense to tear it all out now, or face a leaking or burst pipe causing damage to our painstaking efforts some time in the future. 

One lament I continue to see on almost every “old house” site or forum, is the wail and anguish of new owners of old homes who are “shocked, just shocked!!!” to find such a mishmash of plumbing lines.  This is second only to the absolute stunned comprehension that their new electrician found a tangled mess of wires in their attic, and he is surprised the place didn’t already burn to the ground.  If you figure that so many of these homes were built before the advent of indoor plumbing and electricity, why should you be surprised when they incorporate every single “new” material ever introduced to the market over the span of the last 150 years.  Add that to the gradual expansion of the homes themselves with wings and additions added over the generations, each incorporating the newest material of the day, and it would be more surprising to NOT find such a mess.  

Since none of the bathrooms in our house were original, we had the added advantage, of having to re-route all of the vent pipes which were simply punched through the ceiling of each bathroom and on up through the attic, wherever they happened to emerge.  In most cases, this was in the middle of the large open spaces of our third floor.

We then proceeded to re-visit the entire history of “Electrical Wiring in American Houses” through firsthand experience. 

Bare wire strung through the house on “knob and tube” systems were the earliest forms of electricity.  Two unshielded wires (bare metal) were strung parallel, but at a small distance apart from one another.  They ran through the house twisted around porcelain “knobs” along the way so as not to touch anything conductive, and when they had to travel through a wall or other solid house part, they were snaked through porcelain “tubes” again so that they wouldn’t touch a conductive surface.  They came together at the switch, and at the light fixture (or outlet) and diverged again and on to the next fixture or outlet, and on and on until the long trail of wires made it back to the electrical box.  Often entire houses were wired on a single circuit.  Ours appeared to have two.  This was actually quite safe, until the rat in your attic made contact with both wires at the same time and, electrocuted, burst into flame beneath your attic floorboards.  We found one such mummified rat when we pulled up a section of attic floor.  This one, fortunately, skipped the inferno portion of the scenario, with his jaws still firmly encircling bare wire.  My guess is that he was the unresolvable “short” that forced the circuit to be upgraded.

Over time, not only were newer electrical materials introduced that could bear a larger electrical load, as now required with the advent of electrical appliances such as wringer washers, electrical iceboxes, and toasters.  Eventually even more power-hungry appliances such as electric stoves and clothes dryers were introduced, which drew a demand for a more heavy-duty electrical infrastructure.  Electricity soon became the energy for producing more than just “light,” and it explains why everyone over 80 refers to their electric bill simply as their “light bill.”  These new materials incorporated those same two wires, but they were now “shielded” from each other and from conductive surfaces with a coating of cloth, and eventually early plastics, and twisted together into a single electric line. 

With the 1960s came the advent of new materials, like aluminum; probably as an offshoot of the space program, like Velcro, or something like that.  Aluminum, once more expensive than platinum, was now cheaper than copper, and aluminum wire was light-weight, more flexible, and a good conductor of electricity.  The new outlets were ingenious as well; instead of having to hook the end of each wire around a screw post and screw it tightly onto the outlet, the newfangled outlets came with holes in back that allowed electricians to simply strip the shielding plastic off the ends of the wires and poke them into the holes.  Switches and outlets were now being wired in seconds instead of taking 15-20-minutes each.  It was now cost-effective for you to have a convenient light switch near every doorway, and an electric outlet on every baseboard in every room.


Unfortunately, there were unforeseen consequences, well, unforeseen to everyone except electrical engineers, but unfortunately no-one asked them.  You see, when electricity flows through a metal, oxygen is attracted to and adheres to the surface of that metal.  This is called “oxidation” and the resulting oxygen-metal combinations are called “oxides.”  While copper oxide is a great conductor of electricity, aluminum oxide really isn’t.  The more often the aluminum wiring is used, the more it oxidizes, and eventually, the more poorly the oxidized portion conducts.  There was also corrosion occurring where the wires attached to the receptacles, but I won’t get into the mechanism of that, because really, it’s quite boring.  Let’s just say that the receptacles were never designed for aluminum wires and leave it at that.

Now you have a point where the electricity needs to leave the aluminum wire, across the now highly-oxidized surface, and flow into the corroded contacts on the receptacle.  This was tough work for the electricity, and it built up a lot of heat with the effort.  Well, the inevitable expansion and contraction that occurred as these wires repetitively heated and cooled, this started to work the ends of the wires out of those neat little holes that they were poked into on those newfangled switches.  You can see where this is going, can’t you… 

What was exciting was when the ends of the wires worked themselves further and further out of these corroded contacts until they were no longer in actual contact, but rather a gap had been created that forced the electricity to now have to JUMP across the gap to the contacts.  This is called an electrical arc.  Think lightning.  Think of that old monster movie with the cool contraption, called a Jacob’s Ladder, above the Frankenstein Monster’s head as it lay on the table awaiting new life, the little visible wavering horizontal lines of electrical energy moving upward, getting longer, longer, then disappearing, making buzzing, hissing, and sizzling noises the whole time.  Okay, so clearly I have been watching far too many 1930s monster films.  For all of you younger folks, just think of Star Trek’s Seven of Nine and her recharge station.  Anyway, electrical arcs make a lot of heat, and with enough heat, the old plastic melts, and when things melt, other things that were never meant to touch each other inevitably do, and the resulting fire is something you never want to happen. 

Knowing all of this, we cautiously started taking off switch plates.  At least the family had the good sense to upgrade most of the electrical system from the old knob and tube.  Unfortunately, it was all done in the 1960s, and unfortunately, the color of the wires coming into those outlets was not the comforting mellow orange of copper, but the awful silver sheen of aluminum jammed into the two convenient holes in the back.  Hey, at least no-one was using pennies to replace blown fuses in the fuse box.  Yes, fuse box.  We clearly had some work to do.

We had to start from scratch, and we replaced it all.  At least the family who buys this house 150 years from now will have only a single cohesive system to rip out.  I’m sure they’ll laugh at our hopelessly archaic breakers, ridiculous ground wires, and ancient plastics.  Heck, maybe by then they will have figured out how to deliver electricity without wires altogether.  Frankly, I wish they would hurry up with that technology, I’m already finding areas where I wished I had placed a switch or a receptacle, but it’s too late now…

Through all of this ongoing work, however, our hunt for gryphons and dragons continued.  On one foray, instead of discovering mythical beasts, we found a couple of more domesticated ones out in New Orleans; for a fair price, we became the proud owners of a pair of Italian greyhounds.

While the brilliant independent feline who inhabits our house, “Your Cat,” and our unintelligent but super sweet Amazon parrot, “Austin,” are not particular fans of dogs, we felt that these two canines would make welcome additions to our family.

“Your Cat” is the food slut of the neighborhood.  She will sleep on your couch in exchange for food.  Apparently we are the most eager to have a cat on our couch, as she spends more time with us than with her two other families (that we are aware of).  Austin is a third-hand bird.  His favorite words are “Don’t Do That!” “Austin NO!” “Bad Bird!” and “Why?, Why?, Why?!!!!” which he loves to repeat in that exact sequence at high volume.  This explains, on many levels, his failure to find a permanent home until now.  His cage is seldom closed and he will occasionally wander around to find something more interesting than the toys we have provided him; shredding an orchid or two usually satisfies his boredom, and candles are a particular favorite, the bigger the better.  I stress that this is his permanent home, only because he is so sweet.  Besides, it would be evil of me to knowingly foist such a destructive little creature on another unwitting and innocent family; though Tom would have no such qualms, and has offered him, for free, to many who were enamored of his instant affection.  Fortunately, I intervened in time on each occasion.

Between the cat and the parrot, there is a peaceful tension; neither trusting the other completely.  The formerly-stray cat is acutely aware that her presence is tolerated as long as she doesn’t eat the clumsy loud feathered creature, even if he does occasionally find his way over to sample from her food dish.  It has been a delicate balance, achieved over a long interval, so it was with some trepidation that we sought to introduce some new members.

The Italian Greyhounds, Don and Sly, were already house trained, and with temperaments as calm as could be.  They already knew how to “sit” and “stay” and were quiet dogs, not prone to hysterics or barking.  We arranged to have them transported to their new “forever home” and awaited their arrival.  It would, unfortunately, occur on a weekend we were scheduled to be out of town, but our daughter arranged to be at our house to personally welcome them home.
 

That evening, I got a call from our daughter that Don and Sly were home, but she was afraid to open the crate.  There had been an unfortunate “incident” while they were being delivered.  The driver had dropped them, crate and all, off the back of the truck.  She didn’t know if they were okay or not and really wanted me to decide what to do next.  Needless to say, we were quite anxious driving home that evening, and arrived at the house to find the crate sitting just inside the entry.  All was quiet in the house.

With “Your Cat” nosing inquisitively around and sniffing cautiously at the crate, we assessed the situation.  There was no way around it, we would need power tools to get the crate opened.  Applying the drill with a screwdriver bit to the dented crate, we unscrewed the sides of the crate and opened the top to reveal the sinuous forms of two pale Italian greyhounds nestled within their packing material.  The person who had placed the boys in this crate was a professional packer; wrapping their lively marble forms in plastic sheeting and liberally applying expanding foam insulation so that the stone figures were tightly enveloped in a solid shell of shock-resistant material.  They had survived the fall intact; an impressive feat given their delicate slender legs and enormous translucent ears.

To date, they have settled into their new home quite nicely, and repose upon the dining room table, alert to any scraps of food that might come their way.  I will say that they are well-mannered dogs, and don’t beg or disrupt our dinnertime, yet they bring a companionable presence to meals.  And the best of all; the cat and parrot have accepted them into the family without any fuss or drama.  I look forward to spending many years with these two delightful creatures.

Soon after the “boys” came to live with us, I received an unexpectedly high utility bill.  $1000.00 just for the water portion!  That was ridiculous, especially since we were only there every other weekend, and there wasn’t much going on in our absence.  My first call was to the utility department to have them confirm the bill, and they assured me that this number was a direct result of the meter having been read.  I requested that they read the meter again, and in the meantime I called my plumber. 

The plumber, Brian, was a personable guy, full of interesting stories of local tradesman and colloquialisms.  Once he told me to contact a particular guy who was good with carpentry, but told me to make sure that I had budgeted plenty of time for the call, since this guy could “Talk A Coon Hound Off A Garbage Truck.”  I had to have him repeat that three times before I understood exactly what his meaning was.  Anyway, Brian went over to the house to have a look-see and reported back that he had checked all nine bathrooms, two kitchens, two hot water heaters, two boilers, and four outdoor hose bibs and couldn’t find anything leaking.  He also confirmed that the water meter was spinning out of control, and the sound of water moving in the pipes was clearly heard in the basement.

I promptly corrected Brian, that there were eight bathrooms, not nine.  He politely insisted that he had physically checked all nine bathrooms.  I told him, with all due respect, that I was the homeowner and that I knew how many bathrooms I had in that house.  He insisted, somewhat more forcefully, that HE was the PLUMBER, and that he knew how many bathrooms he had checked.  At that point I gave in and asked where he had managed to find an extra bathroom.  “Well,” he replied, “you know that building you have attached to the carport where the pool filter and pumps are housed?”  Sure, it was an old shed or storage or something.  He then proceeded to ask if I had ever opened the OTHER door to that building.  I had not, assuming it was a potting shed or some other gardening accoutrement.  Since I have a completely brown thumb, I was not particularly interested in potting sheds.  “Welllll,” he drawled in his occasional Southern Virginia accent (somewhat out of place, since he normally talked like he was from New Jersey), “there is another bathroom out by the pool.”  I hadn’t been expecting that. 

As we still could not figure out what was leaking, we turned the water off at the main, and waited for our next trip down to investigate.  It was another two months and another $1,000.00 worth of water bills, but eventually, after much investigation, we would find an underground water line to a long-defunct fountain that had burst randomly in the middle of the Summer.  Let’s just say that ultimately, a stethoscope is good for more than just listening to hearts and lungs. 

Since half of our water bill is for the water we use, and the other half is for handling what goes down the drain; a leak into the ground is not subject to the “waste” portion of your bill.  So armed with evidence and expertise, I attempted to recoup some of the financial fallout from that little problem and challenged the bill.  What I learned was that if you ever have the opportunity to take a day off of work to challenge your water bill, pay a plumber to be present, and drive four hours each way for the thrill of sitting at a water board hearing…don’t.  It’s as painful as it sounds; they don’t call it a water board hearing for nothing.

Throughout the renovations and challenges of restoring the house, we continued in our efforts to find period-appropriate accoutrements to decorate its spaces.

Though I was able to capture three incredible wild gryphons, and enjoyed the carved adornment of that form of winged creature on many of the pieces of furniture we had acquired over the years, I still dreamed of one day finding an elusive dragon for my house.  Certainly, there were many dragon forms on furniture out of Asia, but we were limiting the scope of our collection to pieces with an American provenance.

One of our antique newspapers showed an advertisement for a building fragment they claimed was from one of the Newport mansions.  Our curiosity was piqued, and we proceeded to the auction website to find out more.  The auction house claimed that these were the two copper panels that sat atop the “gate” to the entrance of the Chinese Tea House on the cliff behind Marble House.  My heart started pounding as soon as I saw the full color photograph.  Here were dragons!  I tempered my excitement however, as so many auction houses make grand claims about the provenance of pieces;  claims of origin at a Newport mansion were always at the top of the list, right next to the White House, of course.

Skeptical, we did some further research and found that there indeed had been two panels on either side of the Tea House gate, dragons flanking a central “sun” shield.  This gate, however was known to have been blown into the ocean and lost forever when Hurricane Carol struck in 1954.  It was disappointing, for sure, but at least we knew the truth.  Anyone who has traversed the Cliff Walk trail at Newport, and gazed up at the mansions and the Tea House from below will understand that nothing falling from that height onto the rocks below during a hurricane could possibly be salvaged in any condition other than ruined.  These panels were in beautiful condition, and obviously had not been mangled and later banged back into shape.  It just wasn’t possible.  Besides, the Tea House used to be perched precariously on the edge of the cliff, not safely back from the precipice as it is now sited.

We continued our research, however, and came across an interesting book on Newport Villas, and damned if it didn’t contain a decent photograph of the Dragon Gate, where the dragons looked suspiciously like the ones on the auction website.

Photo from book: Newport Villas
Photo from book: Newport Villas

This prompted a call to the Newport Curator, and he also confirmed that the Dragon Gate was taken by the sea back in 1954.  He said he would look into it, however, and would let us know what he discovered.  Within a few days we had more information.  It turns out that this panel was purchased at an antique shop in the 1950s.  The owner of that shop claimed that they had picked it up at a yard sale.  Yes, a yard sale.  It seems that the Prince family, who purchased Marble House from Alva Vanderbilt, collected parts and pieces that had blown off or fallen off the building and sold them in a sale on the grounds of the mansion.  This sale was known to have happened, as some of the items sold at that time have since been returned to Marble House by the buyers who chronicled the event.  It turns out that the legend of the Dragon Gate having been blown into the sea was false.  It was simply blown over and later sold off.

The devastation after the hurricane
The devastation after the hurricane

At this point, it was clear that these indeed were the actual dragons from the Marble House’s Tea House.  It was also clear that they belonged in Newport.  The auction date was drawing close.  The Curator called just days before the auction was to commence.  There was no money for the acquisition of these pieces, and a donor could not be found to finance them, so the Preservation Society of Newport would not be bidding on them.  At that point, we were free to bid, and with fingers crossed, we set up a phone bid with the auctioneer.

A few weeks later, I called the Newport Curator with some good news — we had been the successful bidder at the auction.  The even better news was that we were sending two trucks to pick up the two panels.  While one panel would be crated and sent on its way to Danville Virginia, the other would be carefully packed and sent on loan to Newport, Rhode Island.  After all, who has room for TWO sets of dragons in their house?

The dragons arrived in Newport in July of 2013, just in time for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Tea House.  Marble House was built between 1888 and 1892, and was entirely the product of Alva Vanderbilt’s strong opinions and sense of design combined with the skill and talents of Architect Richard Morris Hunt.  Alva added the Chinese Tea House to the grounds, overlooking the cliff, in 1913.  It was a product of the Hunt firm, then run by the sons of Richard Morris Hunt.  Most notably, the Tea House was used by Alva as a meeting place for her group of Women’s Suffragettes as well as for smaller, yet still extravagant parties.

An article in the Architectural Record from June 1916 does an excellent job of describing the architectural and design features of this little temple.  https://archive.org/stream/architecturalrec39newyuoft#page/n543/mode/2up

Hurricane Carol wrought destruction on the little gem of a building in 1953, and it was subsequently boarded up to languish and decay.  The derelict eventually became a favorite place for hippies to sneak into in the 1970s, as attested to by the names and phrases, such as “L.S.D.” and “Joey Loves Sarah” found carved into the delicate interior woodwork before restoration began in 1980. 

By 1982, at a cost of almost $500,000, it had taken craftsmen from 15 different specialties to bring the building back to its original glory.  It was moved back from its dramatic perch on the edge of the cliff, the location no longer feasible due to erosion of the cliff itself.  Lost elements were replaced and existing elements restored, and it has been re-opened for use once again.  The one lost element which had to be completely replaced was the Dragon Gate, reproduced from photographs.

When we last visited Marble House, the Dragon Gate panel had been neatly incorporated into an exhibition on “Lost Newport” which also displayed a number of newly-unearthed photos of the components that made up the Chinese Tea House.  The architectural elements were pictured in black and white in a jumbled pile of ornament ready to be installed upon the newly-constructed Tea House.  There, we found a crisp and detailed photo of our Dragons, newly-minted and ready to be installed.  They were, indeed, identical to the ones now hanging on the wall of the exhibit.

As of the writing of this, our Dragon panel had been installed in the second-floor main hallway, was temporarily retired to the attic, and has since been newly re-installed over fresh plaster, wallpaper, and paint.  With the hardwood flooring newly-finished, and furniture being put into place, it is beginning to look quite at home in its new place.  Though eventually it will end up back in Newport with its mate, for the time being, it will provide a dramatic focal point for all of the dreamers and adventurous souls who pass through my home.  Finally, I have my dragons!

Carla Minosh

While I am new to Blogging, I have always enjoyed sharing the stories of my crazy life, so this is simply another medium to share, and hopefully entertain and enrich others. Perhaps you can feel thankful that your life is so steady and predictable after reading these, perhaps you can appreciate the insanity and wish you had more of it in your life. Either way, the crazy tales are all true (to the best of my spotty recollection) and simply tell the tale of a life full of exploration, enthusiasm, curiosity and hard work. I hope you all enjoy being a part of the journey.

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4 thoughts on “A tale of Dragons!”

  1. Shannon Dauphin Lee

    Hello! I am very intrigued by everything you are doing with your gorgeous house, and I would love to interview you for a magazine for old house enthusiasts. I'm having trouble finding contact information for you, so if you could get in touch at gwennydear at gmail, that would be awesome. I look forward to hearing from you!

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