Well, we still don’t have our story about our famous boxers ready yet. We will get around to it. But in the meantime, I’ll tell you about a remarkable woman I met recently and about her home which I hope I get to see one day soon.
Her name is Paisley Robertson, and years ago, when they were hippy musicians in a band together, she was the bride of Billy Keith Bucher. I’ve written about Billy here before. He’s the fellow who came to Cedar Lake Nursing Home for Rehab, and stayed to help us with activities, especially of the musical variety. Even though they parted ways long ago, Paisley and Bill have remained good friends, and she came up to visit him last week.
Paisley is my kind of person, marching to her own drummer, bright, outgoing, laughing easily. We became friends right away. She told me a lot of interesting things. One of the most interesting things was about her house. And since I don’t have anything else to write about, I’m going to tell you about it.
It is named Southwind, and is, she says, “an acre of privacy in the middle of everything Austin.” It started out as a barn, albeit a very substantial barn, built in the late 1800’s by a Dr. Hachenberg, a physician, anthropologist, and inventor. It had fallen into disrepair when noted muralist and architect Seymour Fogel bought it in 1952, and remodeled it into his home and studio where he created some of his most significant works before returning to New York in 1960.
I don’t know what happened with the house before Paisley found it at a yard sale 20 years ago. Maybe she will tell me about the old lady who sold it to her later. But Paisley has now lived there and loved it for a long time.
But now she has a problem. She shared with me the letter she sent to her friends explaining it: Austin real estate taxes have become more than she can afford. She has now found a temporary solution; she has applied and had her taxes deferred, buying her time, as she says, “to find the next keeper of Southwind.”
I’m going to quote directly from her letter now:
“ I can stay here at my home for a while as I go about (finding that keeper.) I still would like for it to become some sort of artist residency program, a non-profit that promotes music or art. Need an angel! I’m wanting an angel! I’m asking the Universe!
IF YOU know anyone that can help make this happen and I haven’t talked to them PLEASE send them my way.
And if this albeit farfetched dream does not become real I will look for someone to love and protect and cherish her as much as I have but has a whole lot of money. I have time to go for plan A and in two or three years if that doesn’t happen I will go for plan B. And I will look for The One.
I came to a yard sale over twenty years ago and I walked into this house and I knew it, I felt like I had finally come home. A little old lady was sitting in a broken down lazy boy rocker watching all the leavings of she and her sister’s and mother’s life be sold off piece by piece. I sat down by her and we talked. And what we said made her decide that I was The One. If it hadn’t been for her I would have never possessed Southwind. We became close and sometime later when I went to visit her in the rest home she said “Honey, I knew you were The One when you walked in.” I am hoping for the same.
Forgive my long windedness.( Is that a word?) But this is so awfully important and serious. Plan A could happen.”
You can see some pictures of the place online at http://www.artofseymourfogel.com/southwind. If you are the angel—or if you know the angel Paisley is looking for, let me know and I will get you in touch with her.