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in-depth
FACES
community on zoning laws and regulations. By late
2016, they hope to open their doors to their first guests.
"We want to be sure that the memory of Eliot re-
mains alive in America," Reihill says. Unlike England,
where many of the places where Eliot lived and worked
are recognized as literary landmarks, Reihill fears
that there are no such memorials to the poet in Amer-
ica. There are in St. Louis, where Eliot was born, but
the Gloucester home bears no plaque or insignia. It sits,
nondescript, toward the top of Edgemoor Road.
The house is quite difficult to find, and is located in a
slightly different spot than is suggested by the black dot
on the hand-drawn map in many Eliot bios; it is closer
to Niles Beach than Brace Cove. The landscape sur-
rounding the home looks different, too. The young Eliot
would have been able to clearly see the ocean from the
home's hillside porch in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. However, 100 years of the landscape's growth
has obstructed that view.
Still, the home remains mostly unchanged. Hawkes
took great pains to maintain the historical accuracy
of the house. From the interior paint to the hardwood
ȵoors to the large hearths, the house looks much as
Eliot would have remembered it. It resembles the mem-
ory Eliot shared with his second wife, Valerie, when he
brought her to see it in the 1950s. "He was excited to
show it to her," recalls Reihill.
Valerie Eliot, who dedicated her life to overseeing
and promoting her husband's legacy (Eliot predeceased
her by 47 years), would be pleased to know that the
home has been purchased by the Estate and will con-
tinue to honor the poet who was a mix of the Midwest,
Cape Ann, and England. "We want the house to be used
in a positive way," says Reihill.
Since Eliot's time, the landscape has matured and blocks views to the sea.
Photographs
by
Gretchen
Parker
