3 KYES LANE (Just-a-Camp)

Information from Anne Huberman:

Ownership:

These are the transactions for which we have the deeds—

June 15, 1918 — Samuel L. Elberfeld and Isobel R. Elberfeld sold a 50 x 100 foot lot on the shore of Sunset Lake to Marshall A. Derby and Rodney D. Ord for one dollar and other considerations.  The Elberfelds were my father’s parents, and I’ve been told that my grandfather Elberfeld bought the land to use as a Boy Scout camp during the time that he was the Unitarian minister in Peterborough (1913-1916).  At that time, he lived in the Unitarian parsonage (later the Goyette’s house and now the Christian Science headquarters) at 26 Concord Street, next door to my other grandparents, Karl and Violet Kyes (before the telephone building so rudely intervened).  Karl Kyes was the town dentist.

October 22, 1920 — Karl S. Kyes bought a 50 x 100 foot lot on the lake from William E. Hopkins of Greenfield.

June 13, 1922 —  Marshall A. Derby sold the lot he had bought from the Elberfelds (Rodney Ord had conveyed his interest in the premises to Marshall Derby on September 9, 1921) to Karl S. Kyes for one dollar and other valuable considerations.

June 13, 1932 — Leroy E. Hopkins, Lura M. Hopkins, and Nellie F. Heller (all heirs of William E. Hopkins) sold a 100 x 222 foot lot on the lake to Karl S. Kyes for one dollar and other valuable considerations.

July 28, 1949 — Karl S. Kyes acquired from Marshall A. Derby and Ruth A. Derby another parcel of land 200 feet wide on the other side of Sunset Lake Road behind the original 200 feet of lake-front lots.

July 9, 1960 — all of this land was conveyed from Karl S. Kyes to John Elberfeld and Catherine Kyes Elberfeld (my parents) for a consideration of less than one hundred dollars.

1981 — upon the death of John Elberfeld, Catherine Kyes Elberfeld became the sole owner.

August 23, 1985 — all of this land was conveyed from Catherine Kyes Elberfeld to her children, Anne Elberfeld Huberman and John Karl Elberfeld.

May 1, 1999 — John Elberfeld turned over his share of this land to his sister, Anne Kyes Elberfeld Huberman, and she became the sole owner.

The buildings:

My brother (John Karl “Tiny” Elberfeld) and I have done our best to remember the dates and stories of the construction of all of the buildings on this land.

We believe that when one of the parcels was in the possession of my paternal grandfather, Samuel Elberfeld, the Boy Scouts constructed a small shack with a wood stove for their own use (probably between 1913 and 1916).  Then, probably some time after 1922, when my other grandfather, Karl S. Kyes, bought the land, that little shack was expanded.  The story goes that my grandmother, Violet Kyes, was not well, and she needed a comfortable place to sit so that she could watch my mother and others when they were swimming in the lake.  So my grandfather and his friends built a porch out around the little shack, and while they were doing that, they added a kitchen area on to the side of the shack.  The kitchen had a dry sink (they carried pails of water from the lake), a two-burner camp stove, and an ice box (the ice man delivered ice cut from the lake).  Unfortunately there were several trees in the way of the porch and kitchen addition, and my grandfather hated to harm any living things.  So they built the porch and kitchen area around one large birch tree and several pine trees.  Eventually, they closed in the porch with shutters, and the pine trees couldn’t survive this treatment.  They died and were removed long before I was born.  But the birch tree survived very well, and it remained inside the cabin, right next to the table with benches all around it, until the building eventually had to be torn down (1966) because of a rotting structure.  My grandmother disciplined any grandchild who might even think of peeling the birch bark off the tree — an activity that always tempted me — because she said it would hurt the tree.  And every year, my dad would climb up on the roof to enlarge the hole the tree grew through and repair the little rain skirt around the tree so that the beautiful birch tree could grow unhampered.  Now the tree stands next to the sauna building, and you can see where the cabin roof once surrounded it.

My grandfather and his friends also built several tent platforms near the cottage, and many friends and relatives came during the summer to sleep in the tents.  They also built tables and numerous chairs and benches out of rough wood and tree branches, and these made a nice picnic and gathering area outside of the cabin.  I’m sure that, during this time, the first old outhouse (called the “greenhouse” because it was green and because my grandmother preferred that euphemism) was built.  It has been rebuilt and moved at least twice, but it is still in use.

In 1939, my parents, John Elberfeld and Catherine Kyes, were married in the Unitarian Church in Peterborough, and my grandfather agreed to let my father build a small cabin down the hill from his cabin.  The cabin was constructed from “hurricane lumber” — from trees knocked down by the great Hurricane of 1938.  It was a single room with two bunk beds, a fireplace, and a table.  It was sided with log cabin siding.  My parents used my grandfather’s cabin for cooking and eating.  My father built the fireplace, which still works beautifully, under the supervision of one of my grandfather’s dental patients who had been a very talented stone mason and who owed my grandfather payment for his services.

I was born in 1941, and my brother, John “Tiny,” was born in 1945.  The cabin clearly needed to be expanded.  We think that it was about 1945 that my parents built the second part of their cabin.  Because of the war, they couldn’t get log cabin siding to match the first part of the cabin, so they used a board and batten type of construction, and they built a long, narrow addition with room enough for a double-decker bunk for my brother and me.  At the far end of the addition, they put a small “bathroom” for a chemical toilet.

Then, in about 1950, they added another room the size of the original.  They were now able to buy log cabin siding (although it was a little narrower), so they could balance the look of the cabin.  They bought three old army surplus double-decker bunks, painted them red, yellow, and blue, and put them in place in this room.  Then they built walls between them to allow for privacy and to produce three bunk rooms and a small entry hall.  At that time, the second part of the cabin became the kitchen.  It acquired an old sink, stove, and refrigerator when we bought new ones for our home in Westborough, Massachusetts.   With that arrangement, we no longer needed to depend on my grandfather’s cabin for cooking, and our equipment was more modern.  At that time, my father also set up a pump to deliver lake water to our sink, so we had hot and cold running water — a great improvement.

In 1954, my father built our boat house.  He loved to sail, and he had always kept a small sailboat in our garage in Massachusetts.  He had to put it on a trailer, drive it 65 miles, and launch it at the end of the lake every summer.  He built the boat house so that he could leave it at the lake through the winter.  We also needed winter protection for a canoe and various rowboats and other boats we had been acquiring.

Sometime around 1960 my father took parts of a small camping trailer he had built for our 1955 trip across the country and used them to build a tool house, just large enough to store some tools over the winter.

Then, by 1965, my father had decided it would be nice to have a winterized building on the property.  My grandfather Kyes died in 1963, and his Peterborough house, where we had always come for skiing and winter visits to the lake, had been sold.  My father, an engineer, was fascinated by the insulation advantages of A-frames.  By this time, my grandfather’s cabin was nearly falling down, and they decided to tear it down and build the A-frame near its original site.  During the summer of 1966, my father, mother, and brother, with help from various visitors and neighbors, built the A-frame of wood and homasote.  It is very well insulated, and it has four electric baseboard heaters which can keep it nice and warm in the winter.  It has running lake water, a refrigerator, a stove, and a composting toilet.

In 1968, after finding a Finnish sauna stove for sale in the area, my parents built the sauna building near the A-frame.  My brother had been an AFS exchange student in Finland, and my parents had visited his Finnish family and enjoyed their sauna.  They asked this Finnish family for plans for an authentic sauna and built it to these specifications.  It is a wonderful way to warm up before going into the lake — especially on chilly days when we might not feel like swimming without it.

In 1979, two years before he died, my father built the newest building on the property.  By then he had three grandchildren, Heather (born in 1969 to my brother and his wife) and Julie and Amy (born in 1970 and 1973 to my husband and me).  Heather suggested that the kids needed their own cabin, so on one weekend in the summer of 1979, Heather helped her grandfather, father, and grandmother build what is now called “Grampy’s Kids’ Kabin.”  It is just one room with a little wood stove (that we never use), a double-decker bunk, a chemical toilet, and no electricity.  It continues to be used and loved by “Grampy’s Kids.” 

Children who spent summers here:

My mother, Catherine Kyes, from the age of nine, spent much of every summer at the lake.  Since the Kyeses lived in Peterborough, they went back and forth frequently.

From 1941 and 1945 until our graduations from high school, my brother and I spent each summer, from the time school got out until it started again in the fall, at camp with my mother.  My father joined us on weekends and during his vacation.  My grandparents came over from Peterborough often, and after my grandmother died in 1951, my grandfather joined us for dinner every night.  We took occasional breaks to go to organized camp or to take a trip to the ocean or across the country.  But for most of the summer we played with friends at the lake.  My very best friend was Mary Elizabeth Boyle, who came to the first cottage on the lake for the entire summer also.  We met when we were about six years old, and we spent every summer together until we were about fourteen years old.  We were often joined by Carolyn Parrott when she came over from Peterborough. 

We put on shows in our “badminton court” and spent a lot of the summer practicing acts for the show — puppets, marionettes, music, plays, etc.  We recruited other kids to perform with us.  I think Johnny Abbott played the trumpet, and Robin and Jere Morris did some sort of act.  We charged people on the lake ten cents for admission to our shows, and we donated the proceeds (always supplemented by a $25 donation from Grampy Kyes) to the Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center building fund.  My mother took several of us up to the Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center after it was built to help organize all of the books that were donated to their library (she was a librarian).  And my mother took Mary Elizabeth, Carolyn, my brother, and me to the country club in Peterborough for square dancing lessons with Ralph Page and Duke Miller.  We did all sorts of craft projects, and we played numerous card games (especially with David Abbott).  And at the end of the summer, when Grandma Boyle’s camp was out, we played rousing games of hide and seek in the camp woods with Mary Elizabeth’s brothers, Gerard, Bob, and Joe, and with Roger Buxton, sometimes Stuart Draper, sometimes Billy, Johnny, and David Abbott, and sometimes Robin and Jere Morris.

My own children, Julie and Amy Huberman, grew up coming to the lake every summer.  We never spent the entire summer here, but we came for some time every summer, and a few times we spent several weeks.  They are both devoted to this place and return as often as they can.  They planned weddings in Peterborough and Greenfield, with events at Sunset Lake.  They feel as if it is their “real” home.

The fifth generation, Emma (born in 2005) and Beth (born in 2008) Skennerton, live in Australia and can’t come very often.  Emma, however, has visited once (in 2007) and looks forward to coming again soon.