While looking through some old photos, I found the underside of the main entrance to an old Hudson Valley estate as seen from the service entrance. In other words, this view, looking from the main house to a storage area, was never meant to be seen by the owners of the estate or their guests, only by servants and tradespeople.
That’s a Guastavino groin vault supported by some granite arches and walls. In my opinion, beautiful, although taste varies. There’s some kind of fill above the vaulting and then the paving of the bridge that leads to the entrance. Based on my medium-level understanding of Guastavino, the crossed ribs were probably built first and then used as the base to build the rest of the vault.
You might notice the snow. According to the metadata, I took this photo at 12:47 on January 29, 2021 in Garrison, New York. Here’s the record from the closest major weather station:
You don’t soon forget a site visit at 13 degrees below freezing with a 20 mph wind. Particularly since I had planned my trip by looking at a map, saw that the site was well under a mile from the Garrison train station, and walked there…not thinking about the elevation change from the Hudson Line, down by the river, to the site, up on a hilltop. Of course, the exertion kept me warm.
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