Kris - Kristen Ann McLaughlin

Broken Oar Outpost

It was a dream come true–we had our own getaway in the New Hampshire woods. And all for only $150 a year. How could this be?

“You all have house karma,” a friend once told us. And apparently this was true; we had a great apartment in Greenwich Village and now a rustic wilderness retreat cottage. Or “camp,” as the New Hampshire natives called it.

Since the place had been built in the 1950s, used for awhile, and then abandoned, a few improvements had to be made before we could settle in. The exterior needed painting, so we chose a warm shade of red. There was no bathroom, so we built an outhouse and rigged up a port-a-potty for nighttime use. We hooked up the old propane refrigerator and stove.

How we got here, part 2

Late in the summer of 1980 we drove up from our Jane Street apartment in Greenwich Village, New York City, for a week’s stay at an Adirondack lodge located deep in the wilderness of southwestern New Hampshire.

Today an upscale wedding venue , the lodge then rented weekly for $150 and featured an enormous great room with an imposing, walk-in stone fireplace, vaulted beamed ceiling, and arched, floor to ceiling clerestory window overlooking a small private pond with its own waterfall. At that time there were several small, simply furnished bedrooms and a functional kitchen, but the setting was–and still is–spectacular. Getting to the lodge involved driving carefully over a winding, rutted gravel road lined on either side by thick woods, but once there, we felt like we’d arrived in paradise.

How we got here

We were living in New York City in the West Village, on Jane Street. Actually in the top floor of an historic brownstone where Alexander Hamilton died after his fatal duel with Aaron Burr. There was a plaque to this effect on the outside of the building until “Hamilton” became the Broadway rage and the owners took it down. But we lived there many years before that time, when our rent for a 4th floor, 2-bedroom Greenwich Village walkup was $700 a month, not $10,000 as that particular apartment rents for now.

Monastic living

It’s just the two of us, me and Buzz, in our own private monastery.

The daily routine is simple and rhythmic: wake between 5 and 6, have coffee in bed together for an hour or so, talking through possibilities in the coming day or family issues or whatever is going on in the world.

Then he goes down to the studio to feed the cat and do his hour-long exercise while I shower, dress, make the bed, do my own exercise, and pray through The Magnificat.