I need to preface this account with the claim that we were basically good kids—Boy Scouts and altar boys, not troublemakers. Like so many 12-year-olds in the rural small towns of the 1950s, we were also semi-feral. During the high summer days, when camps and lake houses were beyond our means and the only television shows were reruns on two channels, we roamed aimlessly, coming home when we were hungry to slap together peanut butter sandwiches and drink cherry Kool-Aid.
Most of the houses in my hometown of Lyons Falls, New York, ranged from modest millworkers’ bungalows to a few stately Victorians on the nicer streets. The outliers were the limestone Gould estate, whose owners ran the local paper mill, and a circa 1886 gabled house bearing the grandiose name “Florissante.” We villagers always referred to the latter simply as “the Mansion.”
Located on a quiet lane with a view of the Black River, the Mansion was surrounded by broad lawns and mature trees. It had been built by the Lyon family, the namesake of Lyons Falls (no relation to Arlington developer Frank Lyon), and was still owned by that family’s descendants, although no one had lived there for years.
One sunny afternoon, a friend and I rode our bikes around the outskirts of town and lingered near the grand home, seeking an antidote to our boredom. To me, it seemed mysterious and beckoning. Though it had been vacant for some time, the lawn was mowed and the property appeared well-maintained. Passing through the carriage portal, we dismounted and crept onto the front porch, peering through windows to admire the generous entry hall with its cherrywood paneling and broad staircase.
The air was quiet, save the hum of grasshoppers chirping, and there seemed to be no one else within miles of us. For some reason, I felt a compulsion to go inside. I can’t explain the logic that turned casual sightseeing into breaking and entering, but the illicit nature of the choice was clearly an attraction—a bit of a thrill.
I was curious about the interior, which was so different from any home I had ever seen. It was elegant in a town where elegance was rare. My boyhood fascination with the Hardy Boys mystery series, whose main characters were constantly stumbling in and out of pickles, may have also emboldened me. The locks posed a fun challenge. I was an admirer—not a vandal or a thief—so it seemed entirely proper to enter the house and look around.
My friend was understandably hesitant, but accompanied me as I looked for a way in. Everything was tightly locked, as it should have been, except for one small window. Success! I hoisted myself onto the sill, pushed up the sash and lowered myself into what turned out to be the kitchen. It was cool inside, dark and dusty, and even quieter than the outdoors. My friend followed and we began to explore.
The interior was truly extraordinary. The first-floor rooms felt cavernous, with rich, dark wainscoting on the walls, high ceilings and hanging chandeliers. The wide staircase was beautifully designed, with intricate carvings on the railings and bannisters. Many of the windows contained stained or beveled glass. The attic had a huge wooden water tank with a galvanized inner lining, which I suppose at one point provided water for baths and showers.
Most wonderful of all was the rope-pulled dumbwaiter designed to move food and other sundries between floors. Upon discovering that I could actually fit inside it (as the smallest, I was the test pilot), we began using it to transport each other. We raised and lowered the dumbwaiter and called to each other from different floors through the home’s laundry chute.
We returned several times that summer, sometimes inviting other friends to join. After a while, the place became familiar. We were respectful, awed by its craftsmanship and decorative details. I felt welcome, somehow. We never disturbed anything except the dust—and once, an old, varnished wooden boomerang that sat on a shelf. I experimented with it a few times in the front yard, throwing it to see whether it would arc back to me. It never did.
After school started, our visits came to an abrupt end. I was in class one day when I was called to the gym, where a number of my fellow classmates were sitting in the bleachers, looking sheepish. The sheriff was there.
As the last student to be summoned, I was apparently viewed as the leader of a major criminal enterprise—which perhaps I was. When asked what “we thought we were doing,” I babbled something nonsensical about curiosity and the Hardy Boys. We received a lecture about trespassing and the dangers it posed to the property and ourselves, after which our parents were alerted to our misbehavior.
In my case, my grandmother (who raised my brother and me) got the call. Although she was deeply embarrassed—she was friendly with the then-owner of the house, Sally Trube, a direct descendant of the Lyon family—she never chastised me for the escapade, other than to note that “at least it involved some of the best families in the neighborhood.” Our gang included the sons of the local pharmacist and the town doctor, plus a few other kids that everyone knew not to be “delinquents.”
Our punishment was swift and fair. We spent several weekends cleaning out the Mansion’s attic and other rooms in preparation, I think, for an estate sale. Mrs. Trube was very gracious and treated us with care as we worked. She seemed amused by our intimate knowledge of the house, the workings of the dumbwaiter and our deft use of the laundry chute to move linens in need of washing to the basement.
Sixty-five years or so later, the Mansion has been transformed into an upscale bed-and-breakfast, still called “Florissante.” The house has fared far better than the village, whose principal employer, the paper mill, closed in 2001 after 100 years of operation. Center Street, once home to numerous small shops, is now almost entirely vacant. The population of Lyons Falls has shrunk from nearly 900 in the 1950s to barely 500 today.
The kids, though, are likely no different than we were—largely unwatched and just as impulsive and curious. I sincerely hope that, when facing their own misdemeanors, they are treated with the same strain of small-town justice, heavily tinged with forgiveness.
John F. Seymour is a retired attorney and a 45-year resident of Arlington.