Three miles north of Peekskill and two miles east of the Hudson river lies this farm place that I have named Happy Hollow. It looks to me as if God had just taken a big handful of earth out from between these hills of Putnam County and made a shelter here for man and beast.
"Happy Hollow," Mr. Irvine's Present Home Near Peekskill, New York[ToList]
The Hollow is meadow-land through which runs a brook. Across the meadow in front of the house, rises almost perpendicularly a hill five hundred feet high. It is clothed now in autumnal glory. On the summit there are several bare patches of granite rock surrounded by tall dark green cedars that look like forest monks, from my study window. There are over two hundred acres, two-thirds of them woodland. Through the woods there are miles and miles of old lumber roads over which my predecessors have hauled lumber since the days of the Revolution.
"Is there a view of the Hudson River from any of these hills?" I asked when buying.
"Somewhere," said the owner, but she was not quite sure.
One day I was exploring the fastnesses and came upon a rock ledge standing a hundred feet high. I walked to the edge, pushed the branches of the elder bushes aside and out there in front of me lay that glorious valley and beyond the valley over the top of my house lay the mighty river like an unsheathed sword!
On that ledge I have built a platform of white birch and behind the platform a bungalow from the window of which I have a full view of the valley, the Westchester County hills and the river. I have named the ledge "Ascension Point" in memory of the valued friendships formed at the church on Fifth Avenue.
On the edge of the amphitheatre-shaped meadow, beside the old road that leads to the river, stands the farmhouse. It is sheltered from winter winds by the hills and from summer sun by elm, maple and walnut trees.