Halyard House

설명

Halyard House sits at the end of Wharf Street in Port Wren, a lobster town of 1,900 on the Maine coast. Three stories of gray cedar shingles, a porch that faces the harbor, a woodstove nobody is allowed to light, and a widow's walk on the roof where the whole bay opens up. In summer the town fills with tourists. From October to May it belongs to the people who stay. The rent is cheap because the pipes knock, the stairs complain, and the Wi-Fi only reaches the porch.

핵심 전제

For forty-six years Dot Halloran rented rooms here to fishermen, cannery girls and summer kids under a hand-painted sign that said HALLORAN'S ROOMS. Two years ago her knees gave out and she moved into the senior apartments up on Church Hill. She kept the house, and handed the keys, the chore wheel and a rent break to the one tenant willing to take them. Five people live here now, each with their own reason to be in Port Wren in the off-season, or no reason to leave. The attic room under the widow's walk has been empty since March, and the house has a running bet on who takes it next. Everything happens on the Foghorn, the house feed the manager set up so people would stop leaving notes on the fridge: the chore wheel, rent reminders, missing-leftovers investigations, sunrise over the harbor, fog reports, the boat that came in late, and the things nobody can say to each other's faces. Only the five of them read it. All five of them read it.

로어

History: Captain Josiah Hale built the house in 1874 with money from the coastal schooner trade, and named it for the line that raises a sail. His wife Abigail watched for his ship from the widow's walk for nineteen years; the railing still has her initials carved into the post by the hatch. Frank and Dot Halloran bought the place in 1961. When Frank sold his boat in 1977, Dot started renting rooms, and the house has not been empty a single night since. House traditions from the Halloran's Rooms days: every tenant who ever lived here has a lobster buoy painted in their own colors hanging along the porch rail, more than sixty of them, and Dot can still name every one. A new tenant paints theirs on Buoy Day, their first Saturday in the house. On the first Sunday of every month there is Chowder Sunday: someone cooks, Dot comes down from Church Hill, and Dot judges. When the last boats are hauled out of the water for winter, the house eats dinner on the porch no matter how cold it is. The town: Port Wren is two hours past Portland on Route 1 and fifty minutes from the nearest Target. Wharf Street runs along the harbor: the Port Wren Lobster Co-op, where the boats sell their catch; Gull's, the diner that opens at 5 AM and closes at 2 PM all year; Marden's General Store, which sells bait, milk, ammunition and birthday cards; the library, open three days a week; and a strip of summer shops, the ice cream window, the T-shirt place and the kayak rental, that close on Columbus Day and reopen in May. The Little Wren ferry makes two runs a day in the off-season. The lighthouse at Wren Point has been automated since 1989. The old Marsh Cannery at the end of the harbor has stood empty since 2003. This fall a Boston company, Harborline Hospitality, has been buying up waterfront lots. They want to turn the cannery into a boutique hotel, and the town votes on rezoning the waterfront at Town Meeting in mid-November. Lawn signs on both sides have started to appear. Everyone in town has an opinion, and everyone in town is related to someone with the opposite one. The day: the lobster boats start their engines at 4 AM, and the diesel rumble comes straight through the walls. From 6:30 to 8:30 the bathroom is a war. Fog usually sits on the harbor until ten. Afternoons are quiet. Gull's early-bird crowd is gone by 2. At sunset someone always posts the harbor from the porch, and after 9 PM the Foghorn wakes up. Packages pile up on the radiator in the front hall; a package unclaimed for three days gets its photo posted. Rent is due on the 1st.

규칙

• Label everything in the fridge with your name and the date. Anything unlabeled after three days goes to the Free Shelf.
• From 6:30 to 8:30 AM the bathroom is ten minutes each. Whoever works on the water goes first.
• Quiet hours are 10 PM to 4 AM. The boats leave at four, so the house goes to bed early.
• Rent is due on the 1st. Anyone still late at noon on the 3rd gets their name posted on the Foghorn.
• Overnight guests get announced on the Foghorn a day ahead.
• Trash and recycling go to the town transfer station on Tuesdays and Saturdays, by the chore wheel.
• Oilskins, boots and anything that smells like bait stay in the mudroom.
• The woodstove is Dot's. Nobody lights it unless Dot is in the house.
• The widow's walk is closed in high wind and after midnight. Dot's rule since 1983.
• Don't use Dot's mugs. They're on the top shelf for a reason.

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