History of the House

Our summer cottage was constructed in 1924 and 1925. Local Greensboro resident George Fowler was the contractor – his picture is on the living room wall and he is buried up the hill at the Lincoln Noyes cemetery.

“The Big House” was the summer cottage of Babette and Stanley Eisner and their 5 children, Edith, Kathryn, Bill, Lila and Alice. They were northern New Jersey residents who first came to Greensboro, upon suggestion from their minister and rented a cottage on nearby Aspenhurst. Getting to Greensboro from New Jersey in the 20’s and 30’s was quite an undertaking! It involved loading the car with kids, the dog, a nursemaid as well as luggage and enduring a two day journey, which always involved the car overheating as it crossed “the mountains” in southern Vermont on the way to Greensboro. Greensboro was awfully far and additionally, according to Kathryn (mother to Richard Ohlrogge and Anne Percival), Greensboro was to be kept a big secret so that “everyone doesn't find out about it.”

The Eisners were a busy, noisy and very lively family! Friends were always welcome at the Eisner dinner table. They had a family code expression in the event that too many guests were invited for dinner and therefore the worry was that there might not be enough food for everyone – that expression was “FHB” which stood for “Family hold back.” Caspian Lake was never too cold for swimming and swimming out to the rocks on the way to Aspenhurst or racing across the lake were regular events. Stanley Eisner was a fisherman and taught his children and their friends to fish; he always insisted “you catch it, you clean it!” His granddaughter Anne Percival remembers him asking “Do you want to go big fishing (not as much chance of catching one) or little fishing” (perch etc. – a better chance!)  There was no TV in those days so that evenings were spent playing competitive board games or cards, or running around outside with flashlights, playing hide and go seek or catching lightning bugs.

 The house is little changed from those early days. The room next to the kitchen, which is now the laundry room, was the maid’s room. There used to be a passage from the middle bedroom, which was the master bedroom, to the bathroom. There was no shower in the bathroom, only the clawfoot bathtub though one was considered kind of a sissy to actually have to take a bath. A bar of soap was kept on the big rock at the bottom of the steps and one bathed, as well as washed one’s hair, in the lake, something that would be very frowned upon nowadays! The brown boathouse, built over the lake but torn down several years ago as it was in disrepair, was not only a home for the canoe and rowboat but was a beloved haven for all the younger Eisners – several generations of them! Bill Eisner senior (1921-2011) occupied the boathouse upstairs as a teenager and nailed bottle caps from Barr’s Better Beverages (as well as beer bottle caps) to the wall. If the boathouse could have spoken it would have whispered tales of teenagers trying cigarettes for the first time, games of spin the bottle and strip poker and who knows (use your imagination) what else.

 When the Eisner children were grown with families of their own, Babette and Stanley Eisner built a small cottage across the road, which was christened “The Studio” as Babette (Bobsie) was a painter. The Big House was shared by their children until Bill and Alice built their own cottages, with Lila owning a cottage in Edgewood Lane. Kathryn (Katy) and husband Arnold along with their 2 children, Anne and Richard (Richie) became the owners of The Big House in the early 1960’s. More recently,  (2013 and 2014) Anne’s son Nicholas (Nick) along with his wife Katherine and daughters Elizabeth (Izzy) and Alexandra (Ally) have taken over ownership. Lifestyles have changed a lot since the 1920’s and 1930’s! In those days the lady of the house along with the children spent the entire summer in Greensboro, with the father coming up for shorter vacations.

Below are family movies of the Eisners, with many of these shot at the Big Brown House in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Current Owners