Remembering Wicks

My Great Grandfather, Architect, Visionary, Naturalist

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Adirondack Express

Adirondack Express.

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Less Personal - More Historic

Less Personal – More Historic

Less Personal – More Historic

Today I have been in communication with a wonderful Acquisitions Editor with Syracuse University Press. Although there is still interest in pursuing the possibility of publishing “Rabbitwild”, the introduction to the book must be attuned to the historical significance of William S. Wicks.

After combing through hundreds of personal records, archives, articles,…

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Re-Imagining Rabbitwild

Re-imagining Rabbitwild …

  Rabbitwild was real.  Here it is in it’s rustic beautiful splendor on Honnedaga Lake, oh so long ago when Wicks designed and built this camp among the first within the Adirodack League Club.  Family and friends in Victorian whites on the porch … maybe that’s my grandmother or her sister living a life that looks quite wonderful in every way.

In the book, Wicks provides…

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Study it as you Would a Painting

Study it as you Would a Painting

Source: Town of Webb Historical Association:

On April 14, 1913, a massive fire destroyed the Adirondack League Club’s Mountain Lodge, the ice house, laundry and storehouse at Little Moose Lake. Local firemen were able to save the Club’s boathouse and several adjacent cottages. The Directors met two days later in New York City and a decision was made to have Augustus D. Shepard design the new…

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Black Bears Were Unusually Numerous - ADK 1886

Black Bears Were Unusually Numerous – ADK 1886

Mountain Lodge – Green & Wicks

Sketch from the Syracuse Sunday Herald, “Adirondack League Club,” January 8, 1893, p. 2.

Source:

Adirondack League Club Early History Transcribed in 2009

by Town of Webb Historian Peg Masters

News Notes

1886 – Utica Weekly Herald, “Rod and Gun,” November 9, 1886, p. 12. “Black bears are unusually numerous in the Adirondack region this fall. Charles A. Nicholson…

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I am very happy to be in communication with Syracuse University Publishing and the offer to submit the story of “Rabbitwild” & personal introduction for their consideration. 

Remembering Wicks,

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and so the hope & process of publication begins … I am very happy to be in communication with Syracuse University Publishing and the offer to submit the story of "Rabbitwild" & personal introduction for their consideration. 

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The Firm

For Rick – the Green & Wicks Firm was housed in an old Unitarian Church in Buffalo for sometime. I haven’t taken the time today to check times, place and dates, or have even tried to guess. But, for now here are some photos that have somehow survived!

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A Beautiful Mystery

I am so happy to have found one more photo of “Rabbitwild” shared with me today by Rick Franklin, a descendant of Grace, Ruth’s sister. I love this photo! The cabin porch and layout kissing the shore of Honnedaga Lake is an element I couldn’t have imagined.

We don’t know if the girls in the photo might be Grace, Ruth, Emma or a guest. I love the flag, setting, everything that was not captured in…

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A Beauiuful Mystery

I am so happy to have found one more photo of “Rabbitwild” shared with me today by Rick Franklin, a descendant of Grace, Ruth’s sister. I love this photo! The cabin porch and layout kissing the shore of Honnedaga Lake is an element I couldn’t have imagined.

We don’t know if the girls in the photo might be Grace, Ruth, Emma or a guest. I love the flag, setting, everything that was not…

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Class is in Session - Kind of

Class is in Session – Kind of

What does one write when trying to encapsulate the intricacies and  complexities of a story of a man like Wicks without becoming verbose or draconian or even predictable?

This is what I want to know.

So, on the most glorious day in southwest Florida, I left my post as a Sierra Club volunteer at the Indian Rocks Beach Greenfest to find out.  Apologizing to my sister activists, I rushed away with…

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Introduction - First Draft - "Rabbitwild"

Introduction – First Draft – “Rabbitwild”

First Draft: Introduction to “Rabbitwild”

In 1896, “Rabbitwild – A Shelter in the Wilderness” was written by William S. Wicks for my Grandmother when she was just 12 years old. My father gave me this book rather offhandedly when my childhood home was being prepared for sale. Years later I realized that “Rabbitwild” is something rather special and rare. I’ve read it many times since, imagining my…

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It was a simple task, sending out the query letter,  a prospectus,  a synopsis of the “Rabbitwild” story to appropriate publishers or publishing houses.  But, no … the story of William S. Wicks took on a life of it’s own. I think as partner to E.B. Green, the body of design work produced by the turn of the century Green & Wicks Architectural firm was and is remarkable by any standard. Although Wicks designed the behemoth albeit well designed Adirondack League Club Mountain Lodge (lost to fire), at the end of the day,  Wicks was a trail blazing, professionally trained pioneer in creating the phenomena of the architecturally correct and beautifully designed “Small Camp” in harmony with nature.

Wicks camps and cottages were designed to enhance the pervasive wild landscape while providing a cozy retreat for nature lovers to commune with nature. Wicks camps were not designed as trophy “Great Camps” for the railroad barons, Rockefeller’s or Vanderbilt’s of the day.  Instead his tiny treasures were to be found hidden in the forest as a tribute to found art in wild places. At least, that’s the way I see it.

I have been reminded by a very nice group of writers that the story of Wicks will unfold in his own words, in his own way found on the pages of “Rabbitwild”.  The rest of the story can be saved for another day,  and I am thankful to them for bringing me back from my immersion among the archives of lost work, articles and stories of one remarkable life. How lucky by the simple fate of birth that I am connected to this timeless visionary,  naturalist and artist: William S.Wicks.

And now, it’s time to get to work!

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Remembering Wicks

          The Story of Rabbitwild & Back to Basics It was a simple task, sending out the query letter,  a prospectus,  a synopsis of the "Rabbitwild" story to appropriate publishers or publishing houses.  

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Over 100 Years Later ... Ce est dommage & a Blessing

as New York Publishers find the allure of republishing a book written by one of America’s gifted, early professionally Cornell,  M.I.T and European trained Architects worthy of ink & paper … with the original & sixth edition of  “Log Cabins How to Build and Furnish Them” published in 1908, it is telling that the book, 108 years later is still in print, by an array of publishers. (Also, I think…

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Remembering Wicks turned 1 today!

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Cleaning House at the Albright

Albright-Knox Art Gallery …. Published on Facebook today …So glad both Architects were…

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The Blue Crystal Water of Jock's Lake . Wicks & Rabbit Wild

“The blue crystal water of Jock’s Lake stretched before them, changing far off where the sun fell…

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