The summer of 2025 on the Isle of Springs has been named the  “Year of the Cottage,” thanks to the initiative of The NeKrangan  Museum Committee, led by Susan Reece, the Island’s resident keeper of IOS history. The group chose to feature the 35 island cottages as  focus for the  2025 exhibit. The curators collected two photos, one old, and one recent, from each owner. They were hung in order of the year they were built. Toshow my appreciation for the NeKrangan Committee’s efforts and honor my own cottage, I decided to devote this week’s column to the Miller cottage. 

My family says I have an odd love affair with this134-year-old structure -- ever since 1981 when we purchased the house from Mrs. Gremley, who had lived here since her mother bought the house in 1908, when her daughter was five. I admit I have been persistent in preserving the “IOSness” of the cottage. The old-fashioned interior landscape was furnished with many of the long-gone NeKranganHotel’s oak tables, chairs, rockers, cabinets, a high boy. The kerosene stove with its turquoise burners made a unique side table in the dining room. She bequeathed three wooden tennis rackets to us which I have hung on the wall where we keep our tennis equipment. I shall not abandon these treasures from the past.  

The number of chairs generates the most controversy connected to my press for maintaining  the  Gremley  Cottage look. Some members of my family complain silently, some loudly. At the same time, I persist in pressing on. Preservation is not just for me, but my progeny, future owners, and Mrs. G.  

I confess my deep affection for chairs. In the attic, the fourth floor, I have stored two small rockers noted for their graceful lines, honey colored oak and caned seats in perfect condition. I refuse to part with them in case the other twin rockers I use downstairs fall apart. The outlier, a children’s maple rocker, does not qualify as an antique, but it is old.I also retired one broken-down farm chair, missing three of its rungs, just in case we need some parts available for repairs.

On the lower three levels of the cottage, I show off (or use) 20 sturdy chairs, all still alive. Of the nine members in this sturdy farm chair variety, seven have served their time around the painted oak table during the Gremley era and ours. Someone, years ago, antiqued the oak table and chairs with a sage green paint. Two of the unhealthy ones had developed split seats or lost one or two rungs. One sat cock-legged on the large rock in the cellar for 40 years until I gave in to my husband’s pleas to deep six it. To add charm to the back porch, I perched a pot of geraniums on the seat of the other wounded chair which I set in one corner of the porch.  

MrsG. also left us a swarm of straight chairs, cousins to the caned rockers. The intact ones we bring down to theroom when we host more that seven people.Several members of this caned chair crewhave seats that require the attention of an expert chair caner. Due to the cost of caning, they serve instead as hangers or shelves in thefour  bedrooms for our clothes, or a home for books, pill containers, the hair dryer, and wet towels. We usually  deposit things on them as we hurry to run off to the next island activity. The stuff covering up a good-looking chair, despite its imperfect caned seat, often remains longer than I wish.  

You will find the the rest of my chair inventory here and there in the bedrooms or living room. Twins to the twin small rockers in the attic get used mostly as decor in a hall way or the living room. The two bulky wooden arm chairs, one a desk chair with an ancient leather-like seat, like a gentleman’s chair at a men’s club or the Auburn Bank office where Mr. G worked. The other heavy piece of furniture is definitely too stiff to provide a comfortable seat. Fortunately, we rarely use the living room which serves as my rationale for holding on to the Shaker inspired chair.  

Whoops. I almost forgot two other rockers that Mrs. G left behind. They are gems. My favorite one is a well worn  medium size wicker rocker. The  artisan must have softened the wicker and wove designs almost like crochet, to form the back, the sides and the seat. Most folks would not even have saved it in the attic. Despite its rickety posture, I sprayed it dark green to match the trim of the house. I positioned the chair in the corner of the front porch which allows the sunny yellow color of our cottage to poke through the green spaces in the chair’s back. Depending on the how you focus your eyes, abright  yellow or a forest green silhouette of the pattern forms.    

I am going to spare you my love letter to the (again) large green rocker in a corner of the kitchen. Mrs. G. made the spot cozy by flopping a large pillow covered with fabric, almost as old as the cottage. I keep it because it matches the sage color of the dining room furniture. Mrs. G knew her color compatibilities. 

Now, you might understand how my preservation mind-set creates family controversy. Our son, Eric, when he first arrives for the season, almost before he walks through the cottage door, greets me and exclaims: “CHAIRS, Mom. Chairs, chairs, chairs!"