Sunday Drivers

A photo in this morning’s paper of a spunky Irene Gossin speaking in 1970 about environmental issues in front of a map of Irondequoit Bay caught my eye. She is in her nineties and went on to become Penfield Town Supervisor. The article rattled off all the issues she fought against over the years, some of them the same issues my father battled.

They described the home she and her husband built – three acres of land at the edge of a high bluff with a sweeping view of Irondequoit Creek and the wetlands that surround it. The article described the “home’s clean lines, open plan and careful situation in a copse of trees atop the bluff, concepts that Gossin said were meant to echo Frank Lloyd Wright, embraced the home’s location and, perhaps, helped inspire Gossin’s ardent defense of the wetlands so close at hand.”

I stopped right there. This must be a Don Hershey house. Sure enough Peggi found it in her database but we had no address. We have no pictures on the site and of course she is an original owner so there are no real estate photos online. We headed out to track down the house and spent the better part of the afternoon driving around. It took us to a neighborhood we had never really explored with dramatic views of Irondequoit Bay. We were essentially east of Tryon Park, south of the bay, west of Creek Street and north of the old Browncroft Boulevard.

I like to think Don Hershey’s design of the house fit Irene like a glove and she in turn was inspired to defend the beauty that surrounded her whole life.

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