Going With the Grain
By Carol Polsky
August 2, 2007

The cupola atop the old gristmill in Plandome Manor is still there, the view of tidal flats and Manhasset Bay probably not too dissimilar in 1693 when the mill was constructed.

Only now Ted Goldsmith, a 69-year-old retired women's coat manufacturer, clims the spiral staircase to the cupola each morning to do tai chi.

It's a safe bet that no miller practiced his yang, chen or wu stances up there during the 213 years that the mill ground corn, rye and oats for local farmers.

But that sort of thing happens when old structures find new life as modern homes. The Plandome Mill — a steeply gabled building outlined sharply against the sky in old photos — was long a local landmark. It fell into disrepair after its abandonment in 1906 until its restoration as a home in the early 1950s.

Ted and his wife Judy, 67, a floral designer, moved in 19 years ago, and have been marveling at their unique homestead and its amazing views ever since.

Now screened by trees and other foliage, it is not easy to spy from the road the building where farmers once took their horse-drawn loads of grain. Walk around it, however, and it commands an open vista of sky, garden, tidal flats and sailboats bobbing on the bay.

Ospreys settle on an old tree. Occasionally, kayakers and swans paddle by and wading fisherman cast their lines. Kids in classes at a nearby science museum investigate the shoreline across Gull's Cove.

"I just get a good feeling," Ted says. "I never take it for granted."

"It's gorgeous," Judy says. "It's the water, and the mill is...warm and very inviting."

New cabinets, old tools

The first floor is a spacious open area, its low ceiling crossed by the original beams of rough-hewn hardwoods. The Goldsmiths installed a new white-cabinet kitchen, and filled the rest of the big room with cozy contemporary furniture and antiques.

On the third floor, beneath a steeply pitched roof, are two guest rooms with original wideplank floors and country in décor, kept ready for visits by their two grown children and grandchildren.

Down the hall from the second-floor master bedroom, with its wall of windows overlooking the bay, the heart of the mill survives, give the house its unique character. The original grain hoppers, French limestone grindstones and metal gears remain in the mill room, sharing space with an exercise bike and musical instruments.

A grain chute extends down to protrude from a kitchen wall next to baseball caps on a hook, and the 60-inch diameter bull gear continues life as a coffee table in a sitting area.

"This house is for a special breed..." Ted says. "Some people say it's a great house to visit but they couldn't live in it. They'll say, 'This is so you,' which means it's not for them."

The low ceilings, the modest entry, the informality of its spaces, don't "make the statement that they are looking to make," Ted says.

But it's all just fine for the Goldsmiths, who, Judy says, used to live in a formally decorated home until Ted decided he wanted a put-your-feet-up kind of place.

"When you have low ceilings, it's very comfortable," she says. "There's a feeling of intimacy."

The big new homes with 12-to 20-foot ceilings may look more impressive than the old mill, Judy says, but "we like the fact that it's not huge. We can find each other easily."

"It's intimacy rather than grandeur," Ted says.

The first family to move into the old gristmill, in the early 1950s, installed plumbing and skylights, and moved the building 70 feet up the shore from its original location, which abutted the narrow inlet between Leeds Pond and the bay where tidal flows turned the water wheel.

The next family came in 1973, and — to the dismay of some who disapproved of external changes to a much-loved landmark — the red clapboard that once covered the exterior was sheathed in brown shingles, and a deck and big rear windows were installed.

The people who made those modifications, the Clayton family, argued that the changes made the mill more livable and would preserve it as a viable residence for modern life. The original miller's house across the street, and the manor house for the estate on which the mill was built (by shipwright Joseph Latham, whose descendants operated the mill for much of its existence) have been demolished.

Expanding the vista

The Goldsmiths themselves added a screened-in porch, replacing half the rear deck, and demolished a neighboring home to expand their property and create an unimpeded vista. Their 2.5 acres, now under a conservation easement, stretch along Gull's Cove like a shore meadow. Beach roses, perennials and grasses line the boardwalk extending from the deck to a pool, hidden from sight at the far end of the property.

Queen Anne's lace blossoms at will, protected by the benevolence of Judy, who loves the weedy flower and allows it space it the gardens she develops with the landscape designer Christine Doctor of the Plant Doctor in Glen Cove.

Doctor's sculptor friend Cal Thompson recently turned a metal mill gear, which had lain outdoors attracting yellow jacket nests for years, into a yard sculpture by suspending it from a metal frame made from elevator posts.

While the home is comfortable and modernized, the 9-by-18-inch wood beams and mill workings assure its residents feel connected to the past.

"Sometimes I feel the sense of history," Ted says, "and I enjoy the wood all the time."

And Judy confides: "We think there are ghosts in our bedroom walls."