The Veblen Legacy on Exhibit

Coincident with my upcoming presentation on the Veblens and the Veblen House, at the Princeton Environmental Film Festival on Sunday, Feb. 10 at 11am, the archive room at the Institute for Advanced Study is currently hosting an exhibit on mathematician and visionary Oswald Veblen. There is, according to past director of the Institute, Peter Goddard, an increasing appreciation of Veblen's legacy.

Most people associate the Veblen name with Oswald's uncle Thorstein, the famous economist and social critic, who coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption". Mathematicians are aware of the Oswald Veblen Prize in geometry, awarded every three years. There is, however, no prominent book, phrase, building or nature preserve that bear's Oswald Veblen's name, and yet his influence and vision left a lasting mark in Princeton and beyond, across a broad range of pursuits.

One of the documents on display provides a succinct summary.

Veblen brought to Princeton elements of his bucolic midwest upbringing and his family's European roots, made manifest in his efforts to consolidate land for Herrontown Woods and the Institute Woods, and his influence in improving U.S. academic standards to better compete with European universities dominant at the time.

Nature for him was a place for both physical work and intellectual contemplation. His environmental interest was both outdoor and indoor--preserving forests while also designing innovative interior spaces such as Old Fine Hall (now Jones Hall) that set a new precedent for mathematical accommodations and later served as an initial base for the Institute.

From the exhibit's materials: "With a passion for the outdoors and physical labor, Veblen often brought colleagues with him on trips to the forest to chop wood and was very involved in the construction of the Veblens' Princeton residences on Battle Road and in Herrontown Woods."

The Veblen House in Herrontown Woods reflects these twin legacies, with its European touches and bucolic setting.

The influence of mathematicians on those who follow is actually tracked and, not surprisingly, quantified. As stated in the exhibit, "The Mathematics Genealogy Project credits Veblen with 8,495 descendants, a number that is especially impressive given that he served as the formal advisor to very few students after he moved to the Institute in 1932."

In another quote from the exhibit, "Essentially all of the (Institute's) early School of Mathematics Faculty--Albert Einstein, Hermann Weyl, James Alexander, von Neumann, Marston Morse -- derived from suggestions from Veblen.

The exhibit at the Institute continues at least through mid-April.

Veblen Chapter in Turing's Cathedral

Sections of George Dyson's book on early computer development at the Institute for Advanced Study, including portions of the third chapter entitled "The Veblen Circle", can now be accessed online via Google Books. Dyson spent, if I have the story right, ten years researching and writing the book, including a year at the Institute going through the archives. The chapter tracks Oswald Veblen from his birth in Iowa through his college years (with time out for a trip down the Iowa and Mississippi in the style of Huckleberry Finn), to his transformative career based in Princeton, including the key support he provided to John von Neumann's development at the Institute of one of the world's first computers.

Buildings, Trail Trees, and a Sense of Place

(First posted at PrincetonNatureNotes.org)
Sense of place is the theme for this year's Princeton Environmental Film Festival, which begins its three weekend stand at the public library this Thursday. In adapting that theme to my presentation about the mathematician/visionary/outdoorsman Oswald Veblen, on the last day of the festival, I followed a trail of thoughts that led surprisingly to my birthplace near Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. The thoughts took this cross-country route:

Walking the boulder-strewn slopes of Herrontown Woods in northeastern Princeton, it's easy for those who haven't learned the trails well to get lost. Detours around the many storm-blown trees make it even harder to keep one's bearings. Several of the trails, though, converge on a 19th century farmstead where Veblen had his study. Out with my family recently, not completely sure of where we were in the preserve, I was relieved to finally catch sight of the red barn in the distance.

Across town, the house and restored dams at Princeton's Mountain Lakes Preserve serve the same role, as a reference point for walks in the woods.

The houses that often come with preserved land, then, do not necessarily detract from the natural setting but instead provide landmarks--a sense of place, a feeling of departure and return. Historical structures add even more to a natural area, endowing a spot with a story and an added dimension of time.

Sometimes fictional stories have particular power, such as the belief that Veblen's study had actually been lived in by Einstein.

The opposite of this, a spot with no sense of place, no stories to tell, might be a deep, flat woodland without any boulders, streams or other features to distinguish one direction from another.

This led to the memory of so-called trail trees--the trees American Indians would bend over, forcing the saplings to grow sideways and up in a distinctive shape, to mark a little used trail or the direction to a water source. White oaks, which can live for hundreds of years, were commonly put to this purpose.

The tree in the old photo is shown in a wikipedia post describing a series of trail trees that once led north from what is now Illinois up to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, which happens to be where I grew up.

Another photo on that webpage showed a trail tree in Traverse City, Michigan, close to Camp Innisfree, where I first developed an interest in learning wildflowers and improvising melodies on clarinet. Whether this trail tree still survives, it's still doing its job, helping navigate to places of great meaning in the deep forest of memory.

Making the Farfetched Practical

During his life, Princeton mathematician and visionary Oswald Veblen made the case for many things that may have seemed farfetched. In the early 20th century, he dreamed of American academic institutions gaining parity with the European universities dominant at the time. His ideas about how to house and promote mathematical research were incorporated into Princeton University's Old Fine Hall and the Institute for Advanced Study. He argued in favor of the Institute acquiring lands that later became the Institute Woods. What is remarkable is how he was able to gain the support and funding necessary to help bring these dreams into reality.

The Veblens had a dream for the house and farmstead they left to the county back in 1974, but its rather sketchy. (On February 10, on the last day of the Princeton Environmental Film Festival at the public library, I'll present a talk on the Veblen legacy and the house they left to the public trust.) A "library and museum" are mentioned in their wills, and their wish for the land they donated with the buildings, Herrontown Woods, emphasizes providing a place where people can experience and learn about the woodlands.

For some reason, the county did not follow up on the Veblens' expressed desires, rented the house instead, then closed the house altogether in 2000. Given this voiding of original intent, the abandoned house and farmstead at the edge of Herrontown Woods have attracted many dreams to flesh out what the site could be used for. The pieces of that composite vision range from the practical to what seems like the farfetched. Most of the ideas have to do with changing the way we see the world and live within it, but when demonstrating a different approach to life, what's practical and imperative for one person sounds farfetched for another.

In a recent visit to Willow School, about an hour north of Princeton, I had a chance to see some of the pieces of the composite vision for the Veblen site applied to a school that hosts students from preschool through middleschool.

Pieces of that vision include:

• Make use of pre-used materials when possible, rather than buying new.
• Stress resourcefulness rather than consumerism.
• Promote and demonstrate the utility and beauty of native species for landscape and food.
• Demonstrate ways to minimize use of climate-changing fuels.
• Treat wastewater with a wetland/septic system instead of tying in to town sewer.
• Bring back some of the components of a rural life that are lacking in our more urban experience, such as the rewards of physical work (Veblen loved to chop wood), and the wonder of the cycle of life (kids growing up in town seldom get to see baby animals grow up). (A small example of this played out in our family a year ago, when my 12 year old daughter wanted to get chickens. Having never been around them, I argued the impracticality of the idea. But she persisted, and found validation for her view on the internet. Assisted by some testimony from friends of mine who have chickens, she was able to convince us to give it a try. Now, what began as farfetched seems highly practical and rewarding. Related post here.)

Farming and History Near Veblen House

Looking down Herrontown Road from the driveway to the Veblen House, five acres of land in farm easement lie on either side. The Veblen House and cottage are located in a part of Princeton that one sources claims was originally called Herringtown, whose many small 19th century farms contrasted with the larger farms elsewhere in Princeton. Apparently, the name comes from the practice of bringing wagon loads of herring back from the coast to fertilize the fields. Fertilizer was a big deal back before they started manufacturing nitrogen fertilizer from fossil fuels.

The October, 1981 Princeton Recollector newspaper featured an article on the microfarming in this area of eastern Princeton, written by Jac Weller, whose farm is now Smoyer Park. The interest in saving the Veblen House includes an interest in bringing back some of that farming tradition. Currently, the owner of five acres in farm easement on the west side of the road, John Powell, who previously managed Jac Weller's farm, still grows a couple head of cattle every summer. Quonset huts can be seen in the distance.

On the other side of the road, just down from this well, the other five acres in farm easement includes a historic horse stable once used by the Pyne family back when they lived at Drumthwacket, which is now the official residence for the governor of NJ. They'd come across town to ride their horses along the Princeton ridge.

Historic Structures at the Veblen Site

This post contains an informal inventory of the structures the Veblens donated to Mercer County, to be used to complement the 95 acres of open space they also donated, known as Herrontown Woods. The structures have been empty for many years, but the roofs have protected the interiors to some extent.

The Veblen farmstead is really two separate sites next to each other. What is known as the cottage, acquired by the Veblens in 1936, is actually a farmhouse dating back to the 1870s. On a map of the microfarms in the Herrontown area of eastern Princeton, it is labeled as the Dauer farm. Local legend has it that Einstein once lived here. More likely is that he was a frequent visitor back when Veblen used the cottage as a study. There's also a story, told to me by a woman whose ancestors rented the cottage back in the 1930s, that her great grandmother would occasionally see Einstein strolling by, and invite him in for a sandwich.

A small barn still stands near the cottage, kept in decent shape by the tin roof.

Next to the barn is a small corn crib, which in this photo looms much larger than it is.

Here, in three photos from the 1950s, one can see how the two homesteads connected. Heading from the cottage down a short path through the woods, following along one of the many stone fences left from the farming era,

one would have encountered these intriguing structures standing next to the Veblen House. On the left is a hay barrack, a structure whose design may have originated in Holland and spread to other parts of Europe. The roof is designed to rise and fall on the four corner posts, to accommodate hay as it was stacked. You can see how the four corner posts extend up through the roof, which slides up and down on them. Very few remain in the U.S., and this one was torn down by the county in 2008 or so.

The metal structure on the right is a dove cote, meant to house pigeons. Whether the pigeons were for eating--a delicacy--or for carrier pigeons is unclear. I've heard that the dove cote was likely installed not by the Veblens but by the previous owner. A recent article describes the historic and possible future uses of carrier pigeons in the French army. It would be interesting to know if the Veblens used the dovecote, and if the past use of carrier pigeons in the military might have given it special meaning for Oswald, who used his mathematics and leadership skills to improve the U.S. military's ballistics during the two world wars.

Just behind where the hay barrack stood, shown here in another photo from the 1950s,  is a circular wall, about 50 feet across, built of large stones. (Beyond the circle is where a barn once stood.)

The stone wall must have been well built, given that it has kept its form all these decades, though now grown over by Elizabeth Veblen's still-thriving wisteria vine. There are two openings into it, at roughly "one and three o'clock", if the circle were a timepiece.

An internet search yielded something called a "sheepfold", which is described as one of the oldest types of livestock structures. According to an entry in Wikipedia, "In British Engish, a sheep pen is also called a folding, sheepfold, or sheepcote." My understanding is that the Veblens built it. Elizabeth may have used it for growing a garden.

This 1950s photo shows another circle of stones, unstacked, which I've been told is a funerary circle where the Veblens' ashes may have been placed. The Veblen House is in the background.

Thanks to the above photo, I was recently able to find the circle amidst dense invasive shrubs.

Also hard to reach through all the fallen trees and dense undergrowth are a couple wells, with water still visible in the bottom, located south of the house.

Continuing the theme of stone circles, the Veblen House, too, was surrounded by an oval of stone, reminiscent of an Ark. The 1950s photo shows the southern end of this oval.

The Veblens had quince trees planted around the house, and this photo from the 1950s may show one of them in bloom. The redbud behind it still stands.

A Mathematician's Dot and Line Forest

(originally posted at PrincetonNatureNotes.org)

This shot was taken while walking down off the Princeton Ridge towards the small farmstead in Herrontown Woods, in eastern Princeton. It was a clear, crisp afternoon earlier this fall. The boulders, which diminish in size as one walks downhill, add punctuation to the woods--dots to go with the trees' lines.

Which reminds me of one of my favorite books growing up, "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics", in which a line falls in love with a dot and seeks to win her over from her squiggly boyfriend by overcoming his stiffness and learning how to make all sorts of magnificent shapes. It's still available online, and there's even a ten minute animated movie version on youtube.

The first 81 acres of Herrontown Woods were donated to Mercer County back in 1957 by the famous mathematician and his wife, Oswald and Elizabeth Veblen. They lived the last decades of their lives there, in the Veblen House, clearly in love with the dot and line woodlands of the ridge.

Though my daughter didn't know it, her pause next to the trail to gaze across the light-filled woodland was exactly what the Veblens had in mind. According to a New York Times article at the time of the donation, "Mr. and Mrs. Veblen donated the tract because they felt this rapidly developing area was in dire need of a public park. 'There is nowhere around here where you can get away from cars and just go walk and sit,' Mrs. Veblen said. 'Princeton, when we came here in 1905, was a lovely village,' Mrs. Veblen declared. She explained that the donation was made in the hope that a little bit of this outdoor atmosphere will be preserved.'"

And so it was, and so has much more been preserved over the decades, building on that simple but central vision of a place to go walk and sit. The romance of the dot and the line ends with a moral: "To the vector belong the spoils." We are surely the vectors, imbued with direction and magnitude, with many hard-won trails and vistas to call our own.

Veblen: Open Space and Buildings As Environment

The Institute for Advanced Study's website offers a compelling account of Oswald Veblen's instrumental role, not only in convincing Flexner to locate the Institute in Princeton but also in acquiring land for the Institute campus. Veblen was a multi-faceted environmentalist, in that he designed the environment (old Fine Hall) in which the university's mathematics department (and for its first few years the Institute for Advanced Study) would prosper, and then helped to acquire the land for the Institute campus. Once he had convinced Flexner in 1934 of the value of locating the Institute on the edge of town, Veblen bargained with landowners over the next decade to help acquire 610 of the Institute's eventual 800 acres.

Most of those acres became preserved open space fifty years later. According to the NJtrails website, "A coalition of nonprofit organizations, with support from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Green Acres program and Princeton Township, in 1997 preserved as open space a 589-acre property owned by the Institute for Advanced Study." About half of that acreage is woods, the rest of it farmland that continues to be farmed. 

While he was seeking land for the Institute to acquire on the east side of Princeton, Veblen was also acquiring land of his own on the west side of town. Those 100 acres were later donated by Veblen and his wife to Mercer County as Herrontown Woods. Veblen's initiative and "ground-saving" work in the 1930s and 40s can be seen as laying the foundation for the remarkable efforts to preserve open space in Princeton a half century later.

It is worth noting that Veblen, over the course of his life in Princeton, was not only interested in open space where scholars and the public could walk, dream and reflect, but also the buildings within which scholarly work and nature study could be pursued. He took great interest in the design of the university's old Fine Hall and the Institute's Fuld Hall, and when he and his wife donated their house in Herrontown Woods to the county, they did so with the intent that it become a library and museum. He must have viewed the buildings, then, as an integral part of the beneficial and nurturing "environment" we inhabit.

It is up to us, even at this late date, to see this vision through, to view the Veblen House as a vital part of the Herrontown Woods nature preserve.

More Evidence That Veblens and County Envisioned a Museum

Further evidence has come to light that the original vision for Herrontown Woods was to include preservation and utilization of the house and cottage the Veblens donated with their land. In an article (or here) published July 26, 1957 in the New York Times, which reports on the Veblens' donation of 81 acres to the county, the Mercer County director of parks and rec, Richard J. Coffee, says of the new arboretum: "Eventually, we envision a nature museum, a system of trails through wooded areas, with trees and other plants labelled." He said that the county hoped to provide lectures and opportunities for nature study.

Elizabeth Veblen states in the article, "There is nowhere around here that you can get away from cars and just go walk and sit." "Princeton when we came here in 1905 was a lovely village." She explained that the donation was made "in hope that a little bit of this outdoor atmosphere can be preserved." The Veblens' donation was valued at the time at $154,000.

I should think the Veblens, if they were able to return to see how things are going, would be delighted at how open space advocates have preserved hundreds of additional acres east and west of Herrontown Woods, but would also be wondering when the buildings are going to be fixed up and put to use.

Veblen House and the Princeton Ridge Corridor

This map shows the corridor of greenspace that extends east and west from the Veblen House site. Part of the proposal for restoring the house and cottage, recently submitted to the county for consideration, is to take advantage of this strategic location to provide a destination that could help draw people to this extraordinary greenspace corridor along the Princeton ridge.

What the Veblens began, by donating 81 acres for Herrontown Woods in 1957 and 14 additional acres in 1974, has been expanded on by conservation organizations, including recent acquisition of three of the parcels listed below.

78 acres: Autumn Hill Reservation
142 acres: Herrontown Woods
14 acres: Ricciardi Tract
35 acres: All Saints Church tract
17 acres: former Lowe property, donated by J. Robert Hillier

286 acres total, which then extend into the SOC and Gulick tracts, in turn connected to the long DR Canal State Park corridor.

Andrew Appel on Veblen's Role in Early Computers

A friend at Princeton University's Keller Center pointed me to a talk by Princeton computer science professor, Andrew Appel, with reference to old Fine Hall and Oswald Veblen. The talk is entitled "Turing, Godel and Church at Princeton in the 1930s". The references to Veblen occur about eight minutes in, at 8:30 and 9:30 respectively in the video.

The Keller Center, by the way, has as its mission to "Educate leaders for a technology-driven society." Its archived videos start with a snappy little musical number I composed and recorded on sax and piano--my thirteen seconds of fame.

The Veblens' Desire for a Library and Museum

While the Veblen House has been sitting boarded up since 2000, there has been debate about what the Veblens' intentions for the house had been, having bequeathed it to Mercer County after Elizabeth's death in 1974. I had heard that they had wanted it to be used as a nature center, but there was nothing in writing to prove it.

Finally we had the brilliant idea of looking in the Veblen papers at the Institute archives, where we found their wills. Both the 1960 will of Oswald and the 1974 will of Elizabeth's contain the following language:

"I give and bequeath all of my pictures, radio receivers and phonograph records to the said County, to be kept by it in the house herein devised as a part of the proposed library and museum of Herrontown Woods."

Oswald Veblen's Role in Early Computing

Recent publications describe one of Oswald Veblen's contributions that I had not been aware of: his crucial role in the development of the first computers at Princeton back in the 1940s. One of those publications, Jon Edwards' article on The History of Early Computing at Princeton, grew out of Edwards' work in organizing the Turing Centennial Celebration at Princeton University back in May. 

This link to that Centennial includes a video interview of Andrew Appel, Princeton computer science professor, giving a brief history of early work on computers at the university. He describes how the mathematics department at Princeton in the 1930s had been built by Veblen, who "recruited some of the best mathematicians and logicians in the world." The department was housed at old Fine Hall (later renamed Jones Hall), which Veblen designed. Appel also mentions the afternoon teas where Turing, Church, Von Neumann "and even Einstein" would have discussed early concepts for computers. Oswald Veblen's wife, Elizabeth, was from England and instituted the tradition of tea at the math department and later at the Institute for Advanced Study, where the tradition continues. 

Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe, by George Dyson, (available locally here) provides some wonderful information on Veblen's background, personality and many contributions on so many levels. Interestingly, Dyson's second chapter, "Olden Farm", begins with a discussion of the Lenape Indians, and its third chapter is entitled "Veblen's Circle".

Dyson and Edwards provide tremendous insights into Veblen's contributions to society--locally, nationally and internationally--some of which I list here:

Veblen convinced Abraham Flexner, founding director of the Institute for Advanced Study, to acquire hundreds of acres for what is now the Institute Woods. Meanwhile, Veblen and his wife were acquiring open space parcels on the other side of town, which he and his wife would later donate to the county in 1957 as Herrontown Woods Preserve. These two preserves speak to Veblen's legacy as an early advocate for open space preservation in Princeton.  

As chair of the Rockefeller Foundation's Emergency Committee for Displaced German Scholars, Veblen helped get German math and physics scholars out of Germany before World War II, "undoubtedly delaying the development of Hitler's bomb." 

In his work on ballistics for the military beginning in WWI and continuing through WWII, Veblen "undertook the creation of trajectory tables", the complex calculations that increased the accuracy of Allied artillery and stirred early interest in developing machines that could expedite the computations.

Oswald Veblen, according to Jon Edwards' research, "arguably had a more lasting impact" than his uncle, the more widely known economist and sociologist, Thorstein Veblen, who famously coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption" in his Theory of the Leisure Class. 

Below is a quote from another recent book, Andrew Appel's  Alan Turing's Systems of Logic: the Princeton Thesis.

"OSWALD VEBLEN, chairman of the Princeton University Mathematics Department and first professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. His students include Alonzo Church (PhD 1927), and his PhD descendants through Philip Franklin (Princeton PhD 1921) via Alan Perlis (Turing Award 1966) include David Parnas, Zohar Manna, Kai Li, Jeannette Wing, and 500 other computer scientists. Veblen has more than 8000 PhD descendants overall. He helped oversee the development of the pioneering ENIAC digital computer in the 1940s."

The Veblen House in the 1950s

 I recently obtained some photos of the Veblen House from the 1950s. At that time, it was two-tone, with the top floor brown.

Near the house were a woodshed and a so-called dove cote, which is meant to house pigeons. I've heard that the dove cote was likely installed not by the Veblens but by the previous owner. By coincidence, a friend and I were talking a month ago about how extraordinary it would be for kids to witness a carrier pigeon in action, and thought of the Veblen homestead as one place such an activity could take place.

The woodshed in the background, torn down in 2008 or so by the county, was a very unusual structure, originally designed for the roof to rise and fall to accommodate hay as it was stacked. You can see how the four corner posts extend up from the roof, which slides up and down on them. (Note: Some internet research since writing this post shows that the woodshed was a rare example of a hay barrack, a structure that appears to have originated in Holland to store an overflow of hay from the main barn. The footprint of an old barn is just behind the hay barrack in the photo.)

The living room, with chestnut paneling, was a lovely green color enhanced by light streaming in the large, semi-circular windows. Einstein and others of considerable fame frequently visited the Veblens. My original understanding was that a painting by Robert Oppenheimer of a beloved New Mexican desert landscape had hung above the mantle. More likely is that the painting was one of two the Veblens owned by Charles Oppenheimer, a British painter. The paintings were to be left with the house, but have yet to be found.

Even the garage looks attractive, ornamented by azaleas, mayapples and other spring flowers.

Elizabeth Veblen was quite a gardener, and hosted meetings of a local garden club (most likely the Dogwood Garden Club), members of which continued to care for the grounds even after she died.

Not sure where this photo of Elizabeth was taken,

but this one is out in the field next to the Veblen House.

I believe Max Latterman helped with the grounds, and appears in this photo to be as enthusiastic a wood splitter as Oswald Veblen was reputed to be.

A Giant Hole Is Dug

 

Over the past few weeks, there's been a lot of activity in front of the Veblen House.

Where before there had been a lawn, a garden of irises, and the walkway frequented by Einstein and other friends of the Veblens, a giant hole is being dug.

If you were to look closely at the groundwater at the bottom of the 15 foot deep hole, you'd see a glaze of oil. The remediation probably had its genesis back in August, when I emailed Mercer County asking if they were aware of the underground storage tanks at both the house and the cottage. The vent pipes that stick a foot or two out of the ground above buried oil tanks had been overlooked all these years.

The tanks had held fuel oil for the houses' furnaces, and had been at some point abandoned. Usually one pumps out any remaining oil, due to the risk that the tanks will begin leaking oil into the groundwater. Remediation can be extremely expensive, as all the contaminated soil needs to be dug up and disposed of according to regulations.

Here is the soil horizon. The oil spread through the gray shale rock down below the less pervious five foot layer of brown clay on top.

I of course wished there was a way to take advantage of the hole--perhaps lay pipes in it before refilling, to be used later on for geothermal heating of the house. But there was no time for such planning.

The photos above were taken two weeks ago. Here's what it looks like today, after all the contaminated soil has been hauled away and the hole filled with clean dirt. Fortunately, they were able to leave Veblen's walkway intact, and part of the garden bed with irises.

New Book on the Institute for Advanced Study

A new "Images of America" book, the Institute for Advanced Study by Linda Arntzenius is now available at the Regulator Bookstore in Princeton.

Oswald Veblen (on the right) is included on the cover photo with Einstein. The book includes this text under a photo of the Veblens: "Veblen loved the outdoors and promoted a wooded site in Princeton Township for the institute. The 'wood-chopping professor' would lead groups of IAS members on brush-clearing expeditions in the woods."

Ways To Save The Veblen Farmstead

Since happening upon the Veblen farmstead in March of 2007, I've been puzzling over how to save the famous mathematician's house and cottage. The 14 acre farmstead was added to the county-owned Princeton nature preserve, Herrontown Woods, in 1973 after Elizabeth Veblen died. The house was rented for several decades after that, but all the buildings have been boarded up for more more than ten years now. Given the neglect, it was clear from the beginning that only a strong vision could drive the investment needed to restore the buildings. In the process of exploring options and talking to people about the farmstead, I've met many people intrigued by the houses and the peaceful, wooded site.

Here's a list of the site's assets:

• Veblen Farmstead as key destination: The farmstead is centrally located along a corridor of preserved open space that includes the River Road property, Autumn Hill Reservation, and Herrontown Woods. Efforts are well along to extend this ribbon of preserved greenspace westward all the way to Bunn Drive and beyond. By creating a destination to help draw people out to the area, investment in this centrally located infrastructure will enhance public usage of an extraordinary ribbon of greenspace.
• Proximity to Smoyer Park: Any activities developed at the farmstead, such as summer camps, would benefit from the proximity not only to hundreds of acres of greenspace but also to the facilities at township-owned Smoyer Park. Developing complementary missions will enhance the usefulness of both facilities to Princeton.
• Preserving Princeton's Heritage: Two traditions come together at the Veblen Farmstead--the micro-farming that was common in the Herrontown area of eastern Princeton early in the 20th century, and the movement of European intelligencia to Princeton in the 20s and 30s. Einstein was a close friend of Veblen's, and a frequent visitor. The "house in the middle of the woods" is also a European tradition, which Veblen's Scandinavian heritage speaks to. Elizabeth Veblen grew up in Yorkshire, England, and became a central figure in Princeton's social circles.

The following are some ideas that have been offered for taking advantage of all these assets, with much overlap among all the proposed uses:

A SUSTAINABILITY CENTER: The first idea was for a sustainability center, incorporating and demonstrating the many home and landscaping practices that come under the broad heading of sustainability. Off-the-grid living, low-maintenance landscaping, demonstrating home energy monitors, utilizing urban timber that currently gets ground into woodchips, fixing slightly broken items for reuse--these are some of the projects that could show how to shift towards lifestyles that will leave a healthy planet in our wake. Relevant to this cause, the phrase "conspicuous consumption" was coined by Veblen's uncle Thorstein in The Theory of the Leisure Class.

NATIVE EDIBLE PLANT CENTER: Another concept is for a little demonstration farm dedicated to growing edible plants native to America. Some, like corn, squash, beans and potatoes, have been mainstreamed in our diets. Others, like ground nut and sunchokes, have not as yet. This concept dovetails nicely with the farmstead's location at the edge of a nature preserve, where the proximity of the cultivated native food crops and the wild edibles would replicate an earlier time in agriculture when the distinction between wild and cultivated foods was more blurred. Some of the many edible wild plants growing in Princeton are wild rice, cattail, groundnut and black walnut.

MICROFARM: One great thing for kids is to have easy access to farm animals, the chance to see baby animals grow up, and to be able to learn about and help out with some of the tasks involved in raising plants and animals. Related to the first two ideas, a small farm would bring back the tradition of micro-farming that was common in the Herrontown area of eastern Princeton early in the 20th century, the last example of which was the Weller Farm, which became Smoyer Park in 2001. An important element would be community outreach, serving as a location for youth to participate in farming activities, and as a source of knowledge that Princeton residents could put to use on their own "miniature farms", be it a garden or a backyard chicken coop or orchard.
          Though it's unlikely that much of the farmstead could be cleared for farming, two neighbors who border the farmstead have an interest in farming their properties. One already has chickens; the other grows two head of cattle each summer. The farm would then be a cooperative venture, utilizing the facilities of all three properties, including an existing pond, horse stable and meeting room.

PI FARM: This is a fun nickname for a farm for both mind and body, where the intellects of great figures like Einstein and Veblen are celebrated alongside the growing of all the sorts of things that can be served in a pie. Just about anything grown on a farm, be it fruits, vegetables or meats, can end up in a pie, or variations on the pie, like an empanada. Raised beds arranged in the shape of pies will make this farm recognizable from the air. The pi symbol also looks a lot like a house, so alludes as well to shelter and sustainability. The house even appears to have once had pie-shaped windows in the attic. A Pi Farm would explore the relationship between mathematics and various aspects of architecture, carpentry and farming.

Reminiscences of a Friend and Neighbor of Elizabeth Veblen's

As chance would have it, a woman who knew Elizabeth Veblen lives three doors up from me. I was told about her by a former tenant of the Veblen House, and was finally able to meet with her this past July to learn something of her memories of the Veblens. She wishes to remain anonymous, but I can say that she is a painter, 81 years old, and once lived in the Herrontown area not far from the Veblens. Elizabeth would have her over for tea sometimes. They shared a common origin--Yorkshire, England. One or both of them were specifically from Halifax, in West Yorkshire.

Here are my notes, with question marks where there is some uncertainty about what was said or known. Some useful chronology: The Veblens bought the house in 1941. Oswald lived until 1960, Elizabeth until 1974.

General memories about the Veblens:

• Elizabeth met Oswald Veblen in Germany (?)
• The Veblens arrived in Princeton before there were any cars, and would go into town on a horse and carriage.
• The Veblen House was a weekend retreat. The Veblens had a busy social life while Oswald was alive.

Memories particular to her visits with Elizabeth:

• Elizabeth had a maid who made tea. Elizabeth would have a fire burning, and they'd sit in comfortable chairs near the fire in the living room.
• Elizabeth gave the painter's 2 year old daughter a dress.
• She describes Elizabeth as unprepossessing, down to earth, direct, straightforward, not fancy, very pleasant.

Biographical Information About Oswald Veblen

Here's a link sent to me by a friend, compiling biographical information about Oswald Veblen (1880-1960), including his birthplace, publications, some correspondence, and obituary.

Veblen Designed the Old Fine Hall

This from page 50 of A Beautiful Mind, the book about John Nash:

"Designed by Oswald Veblen, a nephew of the great sociologist Thorstein Veblen, it was meant to be a sanctuary that mathematicians would be "loath to leave.""

And from a page on the Princeton University website:

"Veblen was instrumental both in envisioning the Institute before the circumstances led to its creation as well as in the design of Fine Hall and in the initial selection of members for the Institute."

"In the 1930s, a remarkable mathematical community was born in a building built specifically to house such an unusual community: Fine Hall at Princeton University (now Jones Hall, reverting to the donors' names with the construction of the new Fine Hall and Jadwin Physics complex in 1970). The Mathematics Department of Princeton University, then emerging as a world class center for mathematics, shared its new quarters with the Department of Mathematics of the Institute for Advanced Study for six years while the latter's facilities (Fuld Hall) were planned and constructed nearby. During this period, the beginning of which saw the arrival from Europe of Einstein and Gödel, Fine Hall served as a mathematical club in which graduate students, faculty, Institute members, and many visitors mingled together in an atmosphere of exchange, including close ties with the adjoining Palmer Hall and its physics community, including some joint members of both the math and physics departments."

The old Fine Hall is located next to the Frist Center on campus.

Laying Plastic in the Crawlspace

This is the walkway that Einstein walked on his way to visit his friend and colleague, Oswald Veblen, who lived here with his wife Elizabeth. When Elizabeth died in 1972, she donated the farmstead to Mercer County. The Veblens had previously donated the land known as Herrontown Woods to the county, and their desire was to see the house and cottage be turned into a nature center.

Local arborist Bob Wells lived in the house for some 25 years, and raised his family there. But after Bob moved out, the house was left boarded up and empty. Vandalism and neglect have taken their toll, but people have come forward of late to help stabilize its condition and find a new use for the house and farmstead.

The first step is to dry out the basement, which means improving drainage around the house. The copper roof gutters are long since gone, and downpours deposit great amounts of water next to the foundation.

This past weekend, Josh and Liz helped extend a ditch for carrying water away from the house.

Meanwhile, Madeline and I worked to spread black plastic over the dirt crawlspace, to serve as a vapor barrier and hopefully keep the floor joists a little drier. Not exactly glamorous work, but a little cooler than most activities in this fiercely hot weather.

The next step will be changing the contour of the ground around the house, so that runoff from all the land sloping towards the house can be routed away. That may take help from a county crew with a backhoe.

The Fix-It Club

One idea relevant to the Veblen House is the Fix-It Club. The Fix-It Club concept involves rescuing stuff headed for the landfill that deserves a second life. Participants bring stuff that can be easily repaired to a workshop, and share tools, knowledge and conversation while fixing the stuff up.

On June 17, we had our first Fix-It Club meeting in my garage. Here is the "diagnostic center"--a solid oak table I rescued from the curb that's in need of a bit of glue. In the meantime, it's a handy surface for setting tools, abandoned A/C units, lamps and what have you. A Kill-a-Watt meter allowed us to measure energy use of the various items.

A couple hours of light work, expedited in particular by my neighbor Mark, who has insight into electronics, expanded our inventory of functional items to two microwaves, a mini-frig, two computer monitors and two lamps. A couple fans also turned out to work just fine, but still need cleaning. Liz and Jill came by to help out.

There is, of course, the question of how to find these items new homes. But the front side of the project--the rescuing and repairing--turns out to be straightforward and rewarding.

The Veblen House and Farmstead

Seeing as this is a website about efforts to restore the Veblen House and develop a vision for the farmstead, it might be a good idea to actually include a photo of the Veblen House. Here it is from the side, in all its boarded up glory. Though the house has not been occupied for eleven years, and shows it, the European touches are still visible in the stair railing and in the woodwork inside.

Next to the house is a horse run--essentially a very well-built circular wall in which horses were once exercised. Andrew Thornton is in the process of removing the wisteria that has run rampant over this area. Beyond the horse run is the footprint where a large barn once stood, now grown up in trees.

In the absence of human occupation, nature has moved in. Though the flash on my camera makes them look like exhibits in a museum, these are a couple of the flying squirrels found living in the small barn a month ago.

In the Beginning, There Was Drainage

This past Sunday, some progress at Veblen House. Andrew and I first installed a better ladder for accessing the basement. In keeping with the sustainability theme of the project, the ladder was rescued from the curb and is being given a second life.

The situation in the basement is something of an emergency. The floor joists are dripping wet from the humidity. One can see where runoff from outside flowed in through a vent, most likely from roof runoff that falls next to the foundation for lack of gutters.

In an email, architect friend Heidi recommended covering the bare dirt in the crawlspace with plastic. I've also put in a request to the county for roof gutters (the old copper ones long ago disappeared, probably stolen for their metal). In the meantime, it will be necessary to cover the ground next to the foundation with plastic so that the water pouring off the room during heavy rains can flow away from the house.

The step taken on Sunday was to dig the beginnings of a ditch to carry water away, so that at least it will not flow into the basement.

One idea Andrew had for the open field next to the Veblen House is a community garden. We visited the existing one nearby at the township's Smoyer Park, which may or may not be maxed out.