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Alone on an Island

West Point Closes Writers’ Home

By Rebecca Rego Barry | Online Only | July 7, 2009 

The Warner House, part of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, is temporarily closed for structural repairs, but visitors still flocked to Constitution Island last month for the annual seafood gala.

Credit: Constitution Island Association

For more than a century, the U.S. Army has kept a summer cottage on a tiny island in the Hudson River. Known as Fort Constitution during the Revolutionary War, the island, off of West Point, N.Y., anchored the Great Chain placed across the river to repel the British. These days, though, Constitution Island draws more attention from literary tourists keen to see the rooms where the Warner sisters, 19th-century writers of popular novels and hymns, lived and wrote more than 100 books.

But not this year. In late April, The United States Military Academy at West Point, which owns Constitution Island and its structures, announced that the Warners' deteriorating house was no longer safe for public access. Although the house is closed temporarily while workers make structural repairs, visitors are allowed on the 287-acre grounds.

"We want to take care of it and get it in better shape for our guests," says Theresa Brinkerhoff, West Point spokeswoman. "Repairs are constantly being done on the home. … When you get to a certain point, the Band-Aid approach doesn't [work]. They're going to do it right this time."

However, the Constitution Island Association, which formed in 1916 to take control of the Warners' collections and archives, says West Point's track record, when it comes to preservation, is spotty. "It's difficult for us because West Point is not in the preservation business," says Richard de Koster, the association's executive director. "The government has preservation protocols that they are supposed to follow, but they are the government, and they do what they want to do."

For example, West Point wanted to build a conference center and golf course on the island in the 1960s, says de Koster, but backed off of the project. More recently, West Point covered the existing milk-painted interior with latex paint, which began to chip almost immediately. Most egregious to the association has been the reconstruction of the island's old boathouse in 2002. De Koster questions the project's standards and calls the results "really disturbing." Even the New York Times picked up the story, highlighting the amount spent by the Army to restore the shed-sized structure: $250,000.

Compounding the problem, West Point's top brass rotates out every three years. "We are constantly trying to raise the consciousness of the site with West Point," de Koster says.

Constitution Island's Literary Ties

The island's history can be a hard sell. There is, of course, the glorious Revolutionary War aspect: Constitution Island was a highly successful fortification, and later, a veteran's hospital. Then the civilians advanced.

The Warner House contains a wall from the original Revolutionary War structure; most of it dates to the early 1800s.

Credit: Constitution Island Association

In 1836, Henry Warner, a lawyer from New York City, bought the island as a summer residence. He added a Victorian wing to an existing Revolutionary War-era structure (one wall from that era remains today). Warner moved his two daughters—Susan, 18, and Anna, 13—to the house after he lost his fortune. The girls never married, and they lived a frugal, industrious life on the island, writing 106 books between them. Under the pseudonym Elizabeth Wetherell, Susan Warner published her first and most famous work, The Wide Wide World, in 1850. The sentimental novel sold more than a million copies and is widely considered America's first bestseller. Anna wrote the famous hymn, "Jesus Loves Me," as well as a guide to organic gardening, Gardening by Myself.

When Susan died in 1885, Anna lived on the island alone, beloved by cadets, who rowed out to the island for Bible study and conversation. In 1908, the land was deeded to West Point, although Anna continued to live there until she died seven years later.

The Future

The Warner House has changed very little in a century. The Warners' cradle is still there, as is their mother's wedding china, a medicine chest, hundreds of books, and tattered area rugs. Though shabby, it has a rare authenticity that restorations often lack.

There is an "intact-ness to the site," de Koster says. "One has the sense of a different era."

West Point allows cadets to use the island for recreation, and visitors are welcomed seasonally—half a million people, including school groups, disembark on the island each year. Just prior to opening day this year, West Point informed the association's trustees the house would be closed. They were instructed to remove all of the furnishings in preparation for a full architectural and engineering study.

"We all knew this was coming sooner or later," says David Reel, director of the West Point Museum and a U.S. Army employee who acts a liaison between West Point and the Constitution Island Association. He says the association had notified West Point of its concerns about the structure. According to Reel, after the Army Corps of Engineers pronounced it a hazard last winter, West Point had no choice but to shutter the house. "Heaven forbid something happen; the government would be liable."

For years de Koster had been lobbying West Point to repair the house, but his association's trustees were caught off guard by the suddenness of West Point's decision. They concede that the house needs a water remediation system and a new roof: the last time the Army replaced it, they used a plywood base under the shingles, which traps moisture.

Thus de Koster is apprehensive of major construction and would like more preservation oversight in the process. It has been suggested that West Point will "brace," or straighten, the structure. Reel says some changes are inevitable, for emergency or handicap access, but that "the government is going to do everything they should do appropriately to follow standards."

Each year, half a million people visit the grounds of the Warner sisters' house on Constitution Island, across from West Point, N.Y.

Credit: Constitution Island Association

Unstable?

The association hired preservation architect Stephen Tilly to do an independent study of the house's condition. Tilly and two associates examined the Warner House in June and declared the structure essentially good.

"The characterization of it as unstable, which served the purpose of calling attention to the site, is not accurate about the structure," Tilly says. In his estimation, West Point should focus on the moisture and drainage problems, including replacement of the rotting sills and installation of a ventilated roof. Following that, the interior surfaces can be refinished to remedy the peeling "potato chip" paint.

Although Tilly was not given the opportunity to bid on the Army's study of the Warner House, he says he will help the association evaluate West Point's tactics as they move forward. West Point awarded the contract to Albany-based Einhorn, Yaffee & Prescott, a move that makes Tilly "cautiously optimistic." He has worked on several projects at West Point, and though he believes the Army follows standards and is reviewed by the state historic preservation office, there are troubling exceptions. About a decade ago, Tilly was developing plans to reuse a historic double-house known as Quarters 124. The Army chose instead to demolish it.

"I'd like to think that wouldn't happen today," Tilly says. "I'd like to think there is more concern about historic structures."

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