Kenneth Roberts – The Unofficial Site

Perhaps I may be regarded as allergic to noise.  Possibly I am – and then, again, I may merely be one of a multitude who realize that noise is a form of torture created and tolerated by idiots.

-Kenneth Roberts in I Wanted to Write (pg. 189)

***The following is part of a series to promote Rocky Pastures and the Design Show House the Kennebunkport Historical Society is sponsoring at the estate on June 23 – July 14. You can visit the KHS site here. One of the designers, a friend of this blog, can be visited here.*** 

Kenneth Roberts’ search for solitude culminated with his building of Rocky Pastures in 1938, but as stated in my previous post, his search first led him to what he eventually called Stall Hall.

Stall Hall is the subject of his humorous essay “The Little Home in the Country” in For Authors Only.  In this essay, he comically relays his toils and trials of making his home a fortress against the outside world and the noise it brings.  I contrasts his toils of renovating Stall Hall with the supposed ease of renovating as presented by the “experts” of his day. 

These experts paint a picture of idyllic serenity, where foliage and flowers bloom with ease, and one “by digging occasionally in the damp and fragrant earth, one easily induces unbroken slumber and raises gargantuan vegetables.”   Just as easy is the remodeling of a farmhouse, where:

In most of these whimsical pieces, a young wife leads her husband into the country, shows him a semicollapsed  cottage, and talks him into buying it.  Then the two of them, with an old hammer, a borrowed saw, and a few secondhand nails, proceed to hammer it into perfect condition.

Little did he know, he would be renovating or remodeling some aspect of Stall Hall practically every year he lived there.  He says:

I do…desire to cry a bitter cry against the manner in which occupants of little homes in the country, and prospective occupants of such homes, are led to embark on ventures without being warned of the grief that may await them if they permit themselves, as I once did, to believe implicitly in catalogs and incomplete directions.

In honor, I’m sure, of his toils with Stall Hall, Roberts’ developed a motto for his home, “Nobody Ever Told Me About That.”  As stated in my previous post, the solitude of the area in which Stall Hall resided would soon be disturbed by the “first green, first and second fairways, and second tee” of Webhannet Golf Course (see an article dated in Oct. 2010 on the then-sale of Stall Hall from which this quote came) and his neighbor’s garages.  Upon making the decision of devoting his energies to writing historical fiction, Roberts, along with his friend Booth Tarkington, purchased another stable nearby and converted it into a “New England-Spanish workshop with a courtyard capable (I fondly imagined) of frustrating people determined to drop in for a cozy chat when I was most eager to work” (I Wanted to Write, 169).  He would name this Blue Roof.

I’ve yet to find in any of the resources I have what Roberts’ thought of Rocky Pastures after its construction, but I can only imagine that he had found what he was looking for.  Surrounded by natural beauty, his study walled in by the walled garden-far away from any neighbor or golf course-and separated from the highway by a half mile driveway, Roberts could now write without the distraction of the world.

***Note: Stall Hall was for sale at the publishing of the Oct. 2010 article “Kenneth Roberts and His Beloved Money Pit” in the online version of Portland Monthly. According to verani.com, Stall Hall sold in March of 2011 for $755,000.

View of the outside of the walled garden from potting shed. Courtesy of Paula Robinson Rossouw

The french doors of the study lead out to the walled garden. Immediately to the left upon exiting is the water feature. Photo courtesy of Paula Robinson Rossouw.

The last photo here is of Roberts’ study today.  This room, among others in the house, will be transformed by various designers, including Paula Robinson Rossouw, from June 23 – July 14.  Be sure to visit!

Filed under: For Authors Only, Rocky Pastures | Tagged: Blue Roof, Booth Tarkington, Kennebunkport Maine, Paula Robinson-Rossouw, Portland Monthly, Rocky Pastures, Stall Hall, The Little Home in the Country | Leave a comment »