Hell Gate Cabin burns, and other news

Posted on 21.11.2019 by Regisseur

Valley News reports that the 1974 Hell Gate Gorge Cabin in the Grant burned to the ground this week.
A Dartmouth News story profiles the Band; at the recent Yankee Stadium football game against Princeton, the marching bands of the two schools combined for a halftime performance.
Construction on the Irving began in October and will involve the demolition of the northeast corner of Murdough. The current rendering of the interior atrium of Irving is labeled “no beehive.” Presumably the beehive is the stepped hemispherical-roofed conference room (?) that dominated the lower left corner of earlier renderings. Presumably the roof is just omitted from the rendering rather than dropped from the design; the boat-hull jetty on the left side of the stair looks like the base of the beehive.
Valley News reports that DHMC has submitted its expansion plans to the Town of Lebanon; the hospital is going with a bigger parking lot by Jesse’s rather than a multilevel parking deck.
Ledyard Canoe Club is celebrating its centennial.
There are more twists and turns in the story of the plans for the new heating plant (Dartmouth News). The college seems to be looking at options other than a biomass plant.
VTDigger has an article on petroglyphs in Brattleboro submerged since 1909.

An addition to the Rowing Boathouse

Posted on 21.10.2017 by Regisseur

The 2012 Milone & MacBroom riverfront master plan suggested sites for additional rowing facilities, and for a while the Web page for the Ledyard Canoe Clubhouse replacement has stated that construction on that project “will be coordinated with renovation to the Rowing project.” About a year ago, the Beyer Blinder Belle “Green to Blue” framework plan (a larger image) depicted an intriguing ell coming off the bashful landward facade of the rowing boathouse. It turns out that the college is renovating the Friends of Dartmouth Rowing Boathouse and building a training room addition to a design by ARC Architects of Cambridge, Ma.

This is the site of the addition:

The addition will feature a set of rowing tanks to replace those in Alumni Gym. In plan, the tanks are reminiscent of a Mississippi River “steamboat” casino, only nominally in the water. And one wonders whether there is any way to harness the energy from the erg machines.

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Update 12.07.2017: Link to ARC Architects of Seattle replaced with link to ARC Architects of Cambridge.

Image of new Ledyard; selecting Ravine Lodge timbers

Posted on 28.11.2016 by Regisseur

The Moosilauke project is beginning. Wow. See the aerial of timber framing. And see the unique, oddly-shaped timbers destined to become crucks and idiosyncratic railings and so on. Much of timber, the update states, was harvested under the direction of the College Forester from college lands on Trescott Road, off Grasse Road in Hanover.
The project page for the Ledyard Canoe Club replacement has a depiction of the future building. Taking advantage of the slope like a Pennsylvania bank barn, the clubhouse will stand three stories high.
The Rauner Library blog has a post on Dartmouth Night telegrams and a post on the Old Pine, particularly the fragment of the pine kept in the archives.
A presentation (pdf) from the summer shows possible bike lanes connecting Hanover and DHMC.
Speaking of Schinkel (in a post of two months ago), Adobe has produced a time-lapse video of Mike Campau recreating Schinkel’s lost painting Cathedral Towering Over a Town using thousands of bits of stock photos.
The 2015 Jones Media Center interior renovation in Berry Library was designed by Jones Architecture and built by North Branch. Jones also designed the DartmouthX Studio around the same time. It occupies the far east end of Berry.
What if the college, finding itself expanding onto the south end of the golf course, simply added another nine holes to the east (by the Rugby Clubhouse) and to the north (behind the Fire Department, even into the Fletcher Circle neighborhood)? The Times had an article on swapping the front and back nine on a golf course.
Microsoft’s Bing has its Streetside view (like Google Street View), and the service has come to Hanover. Are its photos taken at shorter increments than Google’s? It does seem easier to navigate, but it offers less coverage nationally and in Hanover. The photos seem less sharp. The aerial and bird’s eye views are superior to Google’s.
Some of the best photos yet of the DEN space in 4 Currier (project page) are in the Truex Cullins blog.
If the Dartmouth Cup (see the post from the summer) does not fill the role of a mace, the college’s eagle feather staff, featured in Dartmouth Now, surely could.
Dean of Libraries Jeffrey Horrell retired in June.
The Valley News reports that the owners of the Salt Hill Pub have bought the Seven Barrel Brewery in West Leb and that the college has sold its interest in Centerra Marketplace, the suburban mall partway to the hospital that houses a Co-Op Food Store location.

Co-Op Food Store in Centerra

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11.28.2016 update: DEN project page link added.

Ledyard Canoe Club demo ahead

Posted on 21.11.2016 by Regisseur

A campus construction update has a few details on the soccer pavilion expansion out at Burnham Field.
The Valley News reports that the new Dartmouth Coach bus station is opening in Lebanon.
An architect has been named for the Ledyard Canoe Club replacement. The historic clubhouse will be demolished and a new building built in its place by Charney Architects of New Haven.
A newsletter last month described the installation of a solar array at ground level on Berry Row.
The Moosilauke Ravine Lodge replacement (project page) is going ahead, and one can’t help but worry about the success of its central feature, the great stone fireplace-staircase (HearthStair?). Will it be plausible as a work of masonry, a little bit of Machu Picchu in the White Mountains? Or will it read as Formstone, with no visible means of support?
An item on memorializing the Lodge mentions some interesting digital projects and quotes OPO Director Dan Nelson: “Memorabilia will be saved, safely stored, and reinstalled; interior log elements will be reused; timbers that can’t be reused in construction will be sawn into planks for wall paneling.”
“Work is underway … planning for future renovation of the Hopkins Center” (news release; see also the story in The D).
“Also in the future is consideration of the north end of campus, focusing on the demolition of Gilman Hall — and creation of green space in its place” (The D). Let’s hope that this is a way of saying the Gilman site will not become a parking lot.
“— coupled with the complete renovation of Dana Hall for faculty use” (The D). Interesting — wasn’t the library moved out because Dana was to be demolished? Is that move now looking like a mistake, or would the renovation have required the building to be emptied anyway? Whatever the case, it’s good to hear that Dana is being renovated. It seems like an underappreciated building that might have some merit to it, some endearing features. The small size and the scale of the building are appealing.
The Rauner Blog has a post on the Surveyor General of the His Majesty’s Woods during the 1740s. It is worth noting that John Wentworth later became Surveyor General, and Eleazar Wheelock was accused of illegally harvesting pines marked with the King’s broad arrow.
Dartmouth is building a timber-framed pavilion at the Organic Farm to shelter a wood-fired pizza oven (Planning Board minutes 6 September 2016 pdf).
Dartmouth Engineer Magazine has a long article on the Williamson Translational Research Building by The Map Thief author Michael Blanding.
The D has an article about the end of football game broadcasts on campus radio; this year the football team switched to 94.5 ESPN. Dartmouth licensed athletic multimedia rights to Learfield Sports late last year. Learfield created Big Green Sports Properties to handle “all corporate sponsorship endeavors for the Big Green, including venue signage, promotions, radio advertising and ads on DartmouthSports.com” (new general manager announcement).
Mad River Glen ski area in Vermont is the only ski area on the National Register (history, NR nomination form pdf).

Moosilauke demo official; other items

Posted on 10.05.2015 by Regisseur

Dartmouth Now reports in “House Professors Named to Residential Communities“:

The house professors will each serve a four-year term beginning July 1, 2015, and will move into on-campus residences near their respective house communities the following summer.

In fact, other than the current East Wheelock professor, who will continue, none of the professors has been publicly named to a particular residential community. See also The Dartmouth.
A new sport to try: the primitive biathlon (a href=”http://www.vnews.com/home/16288958-95/a-snowback-throwback-biathlons-receive-a-retro-makeover”>Valley News).
The Food Co-Op has posted a video of the renovation and addition project as it stood in March.
The Rauner Library Blog has a post on the remarkable collections of digital photos that are coming on line. Among the topical Photo Files:

As of this post, approximately 34,000 images representing topics through “Lacrosse, Womens” are available.
Charles Gibson Design did print design and logo and stationery for the Lebanon landscape architecture firm of Saucier & Flynn.
The Dartmouth reports that the trustees have finally decided to replace both the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge and the Ledyard Canoe Club clubhouse. Although the article uses the word “rebuild” several times, the buildings are not going to be carefully dismantled and put back together like the Ise Jingu grand shrine (Smithsonian mag), and they will not be replaced with replicas as Dartmouth Hall was. Each one will be demolished and have a novel building designed by Maclay Architects put up in its place. Given the past work of that firm and collaborator TimberHomes LLC, the timber-framing company co-founded by D.O.C. historian David Hooke, the results should be excellent. Built of posts and beams instead of stacked logs, a new Ravine Lodge could really be “an unlikely cathedral,” as the film calls it.
Dartmouth Now reports that the William Jewett Tucker Foundation is splitting into the Dartmouth Center for Service, so named for the time being, and the William Jewett Tucker Center. The endowment funds whose donors are no longer living will be split evenly between the two new foundations.
The football team has unveiled its new black uniforms; Big Green Alert has photos.
With the 250th anniversary of the charter grant approaching on December 13, 2019, the newly-admitted Class of 2019 is being called the Anniversary Class (see The Dartmouth).

Building projects budgeted for; other news

Posted on 16.03.2015 by Regisseur

The Town budget includes funding for construction of walk/bike path along Lyme Road to the Reservoir Road roundabout. The paved path will be separated from the road by a tree lawn (The Dartmouth).
Tri-Kap appears finally to be tackling its Fuller Audit improvements, planning to erect an addition designed by Domus Custom Builders (Zoning Board minutes 22 January 2015 pdf).
Earlier this year, the Hood Quarterly reported that work on the museum’s addition and renovation would begin during the Spring of 2016.¹”Anonymous $10 Million Gift Will Transform Teaching at the Hood Museum of Art,” Hood Museum of Art Quarterly (Winter 2015), 10, available at http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/docs/2015webreadyquarterly.pdf. The college trustees met last week and approved a capital budget that includes $8.5 million “for completion of design and preconstruction activities for the Hood Museum of Art renewal and expansion project” (Dartmouth Now). The Hood project, by Tod Williams Billie Tsien, “is being coordinated with a Hopkins Center for the Arts planning study” by Boora Architects.
Also in the new capital budget (Dartmouth Now) are:

– Funds for the planning and design of a restoration project for Baker Tower.

– “$11.75 million for design and construction of facilities related to initial work on the configuration of new residential housing communities.” That is likely work by Sasaki Associates, with the funding presumably going to build something less than the total number of dining-hall additions, faculty houses, or other “neighborhood” improvements the firm is proposing.

– “$100,000 for planning and conceptual design for the Ledyard Canoe Club replacement project.” The growth of mold in the clubhouse has sealed its fate; the designer of the replacement has not been named.

– “$200,000 for schematic design for renovation of Moosilauke Ravine Lodge.” After Maclay Architects studied the feasibility of preserving or replacing the Lodge, it was not known which route the board would take. Maclay even sketched a design for a possible replacement. Now it seems that the Lodge is going to be preserved.
The Planner’s Blog mentions that there are more than 42 types of bollard on campus. Almost as impressive is the fact that all the bollards have been cataloged and are being evaluated in a critical way.
Dartmouth Now has a nice post on the Book Arts Workshop in Baker.²Hannah Silverstein, “Book Arts Workshop: Hands-On Learning, Global Reach,” Dartmouth Now (25 February 2015), at
http://now.dartmouth.edu/2015/02/book-arts-workshop-hands-on-learning-global-reach/.
The feasibility study for that future Mass Row renovation was conducted a couple of years ago by Lawson Bell Architects.
Miller Chevrolet Cadillac, down on Route 120 not far from Fort Harry’s, has been sold, and its site is to be redeveloped:

Although Cicotte declined to identify the buyer, she said it wasn’t a hotel developer, Dartmouth College, or Hanover developer Jay Campion. The Miller Chevrolet Cadillac property, which is accessed on Labombard Road, is adjacent to the New Hampshire National Guard Armory on Heater Road. The property is also next to a planned hotel and conference center under review by Lebanon planning authorities, and near a natural gas depot under development by Campion.

One possible buyer mentioned is Dartmouth Coach, which has a facility on nearby Etna Road.

(Valley News). If I’m not mistaken, Miller is the dealership that eventually acquired Rodgers’ Garage, the REO/Packard/Chevrolet dealer on Lebanon Street where the VAC now stands.
That natural gas project is by Campion’s Valley Green Natural Gas, which plans to transfer gas from tanker trucks on Route 120 and then send it by pipeline to Hanover, particularly to Dartmouth (Valley News 18 May 2014, 4 November 2014). Dartmouth will finish analyzing a possible fuel switch this fall (Valley News).

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References
↑1	”Anonymous $10 Million Gift Will Transform Teaching at the Hood Museum of Art,” Hood Museum of Art Quarterly (Winter 2015), 10, available at http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/docs/2015webreadyquarterly.pdf.
↑2	Hannah Silverstein, “Book Arts Workshop: Hands-On Learning, Global Reach,” Dartmouth Now (25 February 2015), at http://now.dartmouth.edu/2015/02/book-arts-workshop-hands-on-learning-global-reach/.

The inevitable demolition news

Posted on 15.11.2014 by Regisseur

First, the Brown game takes place today. It will be the last game played before Jens Larson’s 1923 West Stands at Memorial Field. The steel-framed concrete seating terraces will be demolished and removed from behind the brick facade, which will remain, beginning this week.

Second, The Dartmouth reports that:

The College also plans to rebuild the Ledyard Clubhouse. The clubhouse, which used to house a few students, was vacated last fall following water intrusion and mold buildup. Hogarty said the College will eliminate the residential component when Ledyard is rebuilt.

“Rebuilt” means “replaced,” of course. This news has also been a long time coming. Students have been designing replacements for years — the original 1930 building was designed by a student, in fact — and the Milone & Macbroom Riverfront Master Plan showed a replacement building in the long term. It is worth mentioning that the Ledyard Monument is not in its original location and so probably needn’t be kept where it is.

Ledyard Canoe Club interior photo by Meacham

Interior of Ledyard looking north in 2005

Third, the focus of the article in The Dartmouth is the news that the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge feasibility study recommends demolishing and replacing the Lodge. Maclay Architects, which conducted the study, includes a drawing of the main (west) facade of a possible Ravine Lodge replacement:

Detail of Maclay drawing of west facade of new Ravine Lodge

The drawing shows a building that seems both grander and more rustic, or more self-consciously rustic, than the 1938 Lodge. It lacks the extremely broad gable of the old lodge, but it has a signature form of its own. Maclay has extensive timber-framing experience, and with big logs scarce these days, this lodge appears to be a timber-framed building clad in shingles.

The Board of Trustees could decide whether to demolish the old building in the spring.

Ledyard clubhouse in danger?

Posted on 05.10.2013 by Regisseur

Maybe this is a cynical view, but the framing of the story in The Dartmouth, with its quote from the college spokesman about the inevitability of mold, suggests that people are thinking about demolishing the Ledyard Canoe Club’s historic clubhouse.

The Riverfront Master Plan (image) is a guide rather than a manifesto, but it shows the building as being replaced during the next 10 years.

The Riverfront Master Plan

Posted on 15.11.2012 by Regisseur

The College Planner has made available long-term proposals of the Riverfront Master Plan (pdf) by Milone & MacBroom of Waterbury Vt.

The plan contains several intriguing ideas:

New buildings behind and next to (north of) the Friends Boathouse.
The expansion of the Fuller Boathouse and the rebuilding or removal of the singles shed next to Fuller.
An addition to Ledyard Canoe Club (one hopes it is an addition: it could be a replacement) and the removal of the three boat sheds behind Ledyard.
On Tuck Drive, a Sewer Pump House.
The transformation of much of the current large parking lot into parkland.

Jens Larson’s own house, etc.

Posted on 29.07.2012 by Regisseur

Jens Larson’s house and studio on East Wheelock Street are for sale.
The Dartmouth has an article on Shattuck Observatory.
The Valley News reports that the New London, N.H. realtor Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty has opened an office in Hanover. It is on Lebanon Street, east of C&A’s Pizza.
A traffic study (pdf) raised the possibility of erecting a 663-car parking deck atop the Ledyard lot at the bottom of Tuck Drive. A shuttle bus would ferry employees from the lot up to campus. While a pine-screened parking garage alongside the river could be an interesting thing, Dartmouth seems wise to have avoided this scheme, and the consultants declined to recommend it.
Too bad there’s no tram to the Hospital. The idea of a little train through woods is neat, but it wouldn’t save much time compared to the road, which is relatively direct; it is probably not worth the hassle. And on the other hand it could not run through the woods the whole way: it would have to go down Park Street and then along Lebanon Street.
The great Reggie Watts (video) was photographed eating a sandwich at Amarna on East Wheelock.
The computer store is moving to McNutt (The Dartmouth).
The LSC got LEED’s platinum certification. See also sustainability in The Dartmouth.
The Radcliffe Observatory Quarter of Oxford occasionally receives coverage here. The old hospital north of the university is still visible in this excellent and somewhat outdated oblique aerial from Bing, with the eighteenth-century observatory owned by the newly-formed Green Templeton College prominent. Most of those buildings have been demolished, as this Google aerial shows:

And now some construction has begun, as this Bing aerial shows:

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[Update 08.19.2012: Tram comment reworded.]

A Ledyard Canoe Club addition?

Posted on 11.05.2012 by Regisseur

Alumna Emily Singer Yen has posted an impressive portfolio that includes a set of 2010 designs for what appears to be a large addition to the Ledyard Canoe Club.

This is not simply a student project: the designer “[c]ollaborated and interned with the selected architect to prepare schematic designs for preliminary State and Town permitting meetings[.]” Back in 2010 Ledyard was raising money for the addition, and in February of 2011 the “rebuild” was said to be going ahead.

Completion of the new dock

Posted on 13.10.2011 by Regisseur

The Dartmouth reports on the project, and the Planner has some closer photos. The D also had an article in July. (The Planner’s Office now has not only a blog and website but also a domain name, dartmouthplanning.com.)

Although the dock project includes bank stabilization and plantings, it continues the trend of intensified development on the east bank of the river between the bridge and the canoe club. As recently as 1985, the docks were less noticeable, the bridge was smaller, lower, and much less prominent, and the assertive boathouse was nonexistent.

Instead of maintaining the fiction that this limited site is a part of nature, could it be developed heavily, with a broad granite pedestrian corniche? Let’s promenade on the Ledyard Malecón.

Connecticut River from Ledyard Bridge, 2008

A brief history of DOC Trips

Posted on 11.10.2011 by Regisseur

The Rauner Library Blog has a nicely-illustrated set of posts on the first Freshman Trip in 1935, Trips during WWII, and Trips in the present. The program is celebrating its 75th anniversary.

Robin Meyers created a time-lapse video of scenes at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, focusing on a feed and square dance (via Dartmouth College Planning).

Almost a bathing pavilion

Posted on 14.05.2011 by Regisseur

Dartmouth will build a relatively elaborate ADA-compliant swimming dock and a kiosk upstream from the bridge (The Dartmouth).

The College Planner’s blog has a post with a plan (pdf) and a detailed regulatory submission (pdf). This project is part of something bigger: a master plan for the riverfront (Planning post, post).

Ledyard Canoe Club addition scheduled

Posted on 26.02.2011 by Regisseur

The Ledyard “rebuild” (The Dartmouth) is going ahead, notes an article on an elaborate swim dock to be built upstream of the Friends of Dartmouth Rowing Boathouse.

Ledyard to expand

Posted on 24.08.2010 by Regisseur

Ledyard Canoe Club is raising money to add to its clubhouse and boathouses, The Dartmouth reports.

Ledyard Canoe Club in 2005

Eugene F. Magenau of the Class of 1930 designed the building, which was built in 1930.

Titcomb Cabin burns

Posted on 13.06.2009 by Regisseur

Titcomb Cabin, the one on Gilman Island, just below the bridge, burned to the ground on May 6. Titcomb was built in 1952 as a replacement for the Ledyard cabins up and down the river that were flooded when Wilder Dam raised the level of the river. Power company employees even helped build it.

Ledyard interiors

Posted on 24.07.2005 by Regisseur

A pair of views of interiors in the Ledyard Canoe Club:

Dartmo.

The Buildings of Dartmouth College

Category Archives: Ledyard Canoe Club