The Barn 1900

The road down into Glen Spey ca. 1900 with the school visible in the center of the photograph.

The school was built with the help of George Ross Mackenzie. It is now used as a town hall.

Eldred looking west about 1900; the library is now where the barn is in the photograph.

William Fash Proctor about 1895

Vouletti Theresa Proctor 1894

Vouletti 1896

Ross, Elizabeth Singer Proctor, Vouletti 1897

Elizabeth Van Heusen, William Ross Proctor Jr, Vouletti 1897

Vouletti 1897

Vouletti and Ross 1898

Ross & Vouletti about 1900

William Fash Proctor on the right and friend fishing on Lochada

Swimming in Lochada 1901

Vouletti Theresa Proctor, William Van Heusen, Elizabeth Van Heusen, Ross

The Van Heusen children are cousins to Vouletti and Ross. Their mother, Ada Olive Proctor Van Heusen, was the sister of William Ross Proctor who had her own house overlooking Lochada.

Motoring around Lochada ca.1900

William Ross Proctor about 1905

Elizabeth Singer Proctor about 1905

Brookwood 1906

The rear courtyard 1906

Bessie Proctor (Elizabeth Singer Proctor) and Guest 1906

Bessie Proctor entertains a guest

The boat landing beneath the house with steam launch and catboat

Vouletti Theresa Proctor 1906

William Ross Proctor with one of his prize winning Sealyham Terriers 1906

Bessie Proctor and guests admire the lily pond 1906

The lily pond in 1910

Notice the lions on either side are not in the 1906 picture. After the fire that destroyed Brookwood in 1924, the lions were sold to Mr. Reber. They graced the front of his restaurant in Barryville until the 1980s when everything was sold. The lions now in front of the Carriage House, the former Reber's, are reproductions and not stone.

William Ross Proctor 1908

Ross and Billie about 1908

Winter 1908

En route to Shohola July 29, 1909

Vouletti with the camera and guests in WRP's car

Bessie Proctor and Billie 1910

Dr. Robert Milligan, Elizabeth Proctor, Marguerite Singer Milligan, Vouletti, Ross, W. R. Proctor behind with Mr. Root standing 1910

Marguerite Singer Milligan is Elizabeth Singer Proctor's sister

Vouletti and Ross with guests about 1910; the woman on the far right is Mercedes de Acosta

When I returned from school in France, my sister Aida introduced me to Mrs. William Ross Proctor's daughter Vouletti, and we formed a close friendship which has lasted to this day.

In spite of their wealth the Proctors lived with simplicity and the utmost good taste. On his estate at Shohola Mr. Proctor had built an Elizabethan house overlooking a lake. The estate covered thousands of acres and included a large farm with many barns where he raised cows. He modeled his way of living after the English gentleman-farmers, but he fraternized with his tenants and the country people as only an American could. Vouletti and her brother were brought up unaware of their wealth and never even remotely made anyone conscious of it. Vouletti, like her mother, has always managed to help people without any show and without appearing to be helping.

I spent the happiest days of my youth in the Proctor's two houses, one on Thirty-ninth Street and the other in Shohola. There in the wooded Pennsylvania land broken only by the lovely streams rushing down from its mountains and hills, we often came upon wild deer, beaver, raccoons, bears and snakes. Whatever my worries were or my adolescent yearnings, there, removed from the city's touch, I often forgot them or was at least able to arrive at a correct evaluation of them.

During the winter months the lake in Shohola often froze completely over with black ice. It was so smooth that an iceboat could travel on it at a terrific speed. I remember iceboating there, the only time I have ever done so in my life. We used to skate too - sometimes all day - and when evening fell we'd go home to a great warming fire.

Mercedes de Acosta in Here Lies the Heart, 1960

Ada Olive Proctor 1912

The boathouse and bridge were built about 1910 and still look about the same today.

WRP, Bessie, Ross Jr. about 1912

Yes, those are the fingerprints of the man who processed the film.

Maney's mill, dam, and bridge 1917

Maney's house is to the right. Subsequently it became known as Hank's house after the man who lived there and managed the barn for decades mid 20c. when Sand Pond was a working farm.

Maney's Mill and Proctor road approaching the entrance to Sand Pond

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