Rumsey Hall

Rumsey Hall, that great, vine-covered castle of decrepitude in Cornwall center, finally met its end Monday morning. I’ve written about this old girl so many times that I can recite its history by heart:

Built in 1848 as a school called the Alger Institute, it later was home to a boarding house, the Rumsey Hall prep school, and in the 1960’s, the Marvelwood school for boys. It was left to the town by its last private owner, Nora Wise, who died in 1987. In 1989, a storm tore part of the roof off. There was a preservation movement in the early 1990s to turn it into the town library (which is instead now a fairly new building next to the town hall), but it was instead sold to a realtor named Andrew T. Hingson, who lives in the building behind it, and claimed he would turn it into a single-family residence.

Last year, he applied for a demolition permit instead, and the town building inspector declared the place uninhabitable. I have not met Andrew T. Hingson or ever talked to him on the phone.

I traveled up to lovely Cornwall from my ghetto hovel in Danbury last Saturday to take a few pictures of it before it was no more.  Unfortunately, my Nikon died and my photographic skills are about on the level of a blind chimpanzee holding a camera stolen from an unsuspecting tourist. so I got my friend Jack to take a few for me. Here they are:

Here's me (at left) and the neighbor (right):

View from the church parking lot next door:

The fellow who owns the house next door—which was originally the Rumsey Hall headmaster’s house--dropped by while we were shooting and chatted with my friend and I about the place. He mentioned (if I recall correctly) that Nora Wise was instrumental in keeping a main highway running through Cornwall’s town center, which is why the area—compared to almost any other New England town center—is now almost completely free of traffic.

On Monday afternoon I was interviewing a fellow at the Cornwall Historical Society and stopped back at Rumsey around 3 p.m., where the backhoes from R.V. Noad construction were still running. My camera had been left at home, so you, readers, are instead going to be subjected to my terrible filmmaking skills! Here you go:

 I’m sad as anyone else to see an attractive old building loaded with history like this one hit the wrecking ball, but then again, Cornwall has no shortage of beautiful places. Speaking of which, here’s another photo my friend snapped for the hell of it of the famous Rock Cottage in West Cornwall, located behind and above the post office and built by a prominent Cornwall lawyer in the 1800s; I have never wanted to own a house quite so badly as this one:

Stow a few thousand books and antiques in there, and I'd never leave.

Until next time.

--Max