15 SUNSET LAKE RD (Summer Daze)

Charles and Hilda Parrot

A HISTORY OF 15 SUNSET LAKE ROAD - July 4, 2009

At the time I first rented, 1977, and then purchased, 1978, the cottage at 15 Sunset Lake Road, Greenfield, New Hampshire, was simply known as “the first cottage on the Lake” or “the Boyle’s Camp.”  This camp had been in the Boyle family since about 1907, owned last by John Boyle of Quincy, Massachusetts. John, his wife, his boys, Mary Elizabeth and Grandma Boyle spent many summers at their camp during the 1940s, 50s, 60s and early 70s-- neighbors to the Parrott Rest, next door.

Shortly after purchasing this camp, I closed in the then screened  porch on the north and east sides, extending the interior so that there would be more indoor living space for those “rare occasions” when it rains and pours or turns cold during the summer months. More recently, Hilda and I undertook substantial renovations providing a third bedroom, a master bedroom and full bath (Chris Robbins, second son of Roy and Sylvia was the contractor for both renovations).

More important than the physical changes to the camp — over time it became known as the Parrott’s Cottage as a result of the constant use of it by Charles and Hilda, Charles’s older children, Nancy, Jane, Bryan and Laurie — then Taylor and Anna who began summer occupancy in 1985 and l987, respectively. As time passed, Parrott’s Cottage hosted numerous Fathers’ Day celebrations, Fourth of July parties and Labor Day “goodbye to summer” grieving weekends. (John Wheeler and Roy Robbins were observed crying on several Labor Day weekends). Extended Parrott family birthday parties were notable on the 75th, 80th, 85th, and 90th birthdays of Ray Parrott (but he failed his 95th birthday party by six months due to a higher calling). 

Over these past 30 years, our children and grandchildren (Hilda’s four step-children and six step-grandchildren) have thrived on Sunset Lake swimming, canoeing, rowing boats, sailing  our Sailfish, playing tennis and lately, a little water skiing (counter-clockwise only during the hours of 4:30 to 7 PM Monday through Saturday). Proudly, Taylor and Anna earned certificates for swimming across the lake and back issued and awarded by Our Lady of the Lake, Sylvia Robbins.

Shakespeare said “What’s past is prologue.”  We subscribe to that as we look forward to many more years at the Parrott Cottage while Hilda and I anticipate the children of Taylor and Anna when they come along and have the opportunity, as we have, to enjoy Sunset Lake as much as we have.

Information from Mary Elizabeth Boyle Fox (2007)

John and Agnes Boyle ran Sunset Camp in the 1920s. Before that, they ran the “Big House” (in 2007 remodeled into a storage building up the hill across the road from the cottage) as an inn with seven or eight bedrooms. Postcards show that the inn was called Boylehurst. Their son, Jack (Mary Elizabeth’s father), went to school in Greenfield for a couple of years because they lived there all-year-round.

Later Mrs. Pickles ran the camp as Birch Hill Camp.

Children in the Boyle family who grew up coming to the lake all summer (late 1940s and early 1950s): John J. “Joe” Boyle IV Robert Francis “Bob” Boyle Gerard Edward Boyle Mary Elizabeth Boyle

Joe, Bob, and Gerard played on a Greenfield baseball team during the summer. They earned money by picking blueberries up on Crotched Mountain and selling them to people on the lake.

Information from Greenfield, New Hampshire: The Story of a Town, 1791-1976, written and compiled by Doris E. Hopkins, published by the Greenfield Historical Society in 1977:

“Birch Hill Camp for boys was operated on Sunset Lake from 1925-1931 on property owned by Joseph Boyle, which had formerly been Boylehurst Inn. In 1937, Mrs. J. M. Pickles of Quincy, MA, leased the property and operated a camp accommodating about thirty boys and girls between the ages of six and fourteen for some years.”

Information from A Brief History of Greenfield, New Hampshire, 1791-1941, written by Henrietta M. Hopkins and Ruth W. Ledward:

“Some years after Joseph Boyle closed Boylehurst Inn at Sunset Lake, he ran a boys’ camp on 4 the same property from 1925 to 1931. In 1937 Mrs. J. M. Pickles of North Quincy, Massachusetts, leased the property and since that time has operated Birch Hill Camp, accommodating about thirty boys and girls between the ages of six and fourteen.”