Golfing with Rudyard Kipling
Well, not exactly. First of all Mr. Kipling is dead these 85 years, so it would be a dull game. Though the way I play, he might be a good partner for me.
Nevertheless, my wife and I had the good fortune to attend an open house and garden tour of a house that Kipling lived in right here in Brattleboro. Called "Naulakha," after the book he co-wrote with his father-in-law (now there's a good son-in-law), it's a marvelous mansion that sits atop a hill in Dummerston. Owned by The Landmark Trust USA, the house is rented to well-to-do vacationers who can thrill to live for a weekend in the house where Kipling wrote "Captains Courageous," The Jungle Book (parts 1 and 2) and many of the "Just So" stories, which he read aloud to his little daughter on the very deck where we sipped an ice-cold lemonade.
This being a bad-golf blog, it would be remiss of me not to inform you, gentle reader, that there's a golf angle in my accounting of our visit to Naulakha. Yes, the great and wonderful Rudyard Kipling was a bad-golfer! One of us! He was introduced to the game by none other than his friend and fellow author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who visited Rudyard here in Brattleboro in 1894. (Kipling lived in the house from 1893 to 1896.) They had Thanksgiving dinner together, then (perhaps the next day, after a turkey sandwich) Doyle dragged Rudyard outside to play golf:
"I had brought up my golf-clubs and gave him lessons in a field," Conan Doyle wrote in his memoirs, "while the New England rustics [that's me!] watched us from afar, wondering what on earth we were at, for golf was unknown in America at that time."
It seemed the lessons took. Later, to amuse himself and us rustics who would hang out on the road next to his house hoping for a glimpse of the great and eccentric writer, he invented what is now a popular winter pastime, snow golf. According to Betty Goldthwait, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, "One day, with audience in position, the cottage door opened and Kipling appeared in red knee-high socks, his usual black rubber boots and a pair of green knickers. To top off his costume he wore a green and red plaid golf cap. Applause broke out. Kipling bowed, but not too low as he was carrying on his back a large golf bag filled with regular golf clubs.
"Lifting the golf bag off his shoulder, Kipling took out eight very red golf balls. Bending to the ground, he made little mounds of snow for tees and put each ball in place. Then he swung. With each stroke a ball made a red streak through the air and over or under the fence, coming to rest at the feet of the watching neighbors."
Brings a wee tear to the eye of this bad-golfer.
The third-floor attic was perhaps my favorite part of the house. After passing through the "servants' quarters" (and very nice quarters they were for Kipling's lucky house staff! The most incredible view imaginable,) you climb a back staircase and reach the attic, where Rudyard's clubs are displayed, as well as his writing desk and some other memorabilia.
There's also a big old pool table. And some board games, though I'm not sure how many evenings Rudyard spent over a challenging match of Trivial Pursuit.
From the attic you come down the grand main staircase and explore Kipling's bedroom and study, as well as his wife Connie's study. As explained in the informational handout they gave us, "Visitors wishing to see Rudyard had to pass through this room. Carrie Kipling diligently protected her husband's work time and solitude. The room became known as the "dragon's chamber" because Mrs. Kipling was so protective." In Carrie's absence we strolled right into Rudyard's study, admiring the Kashmiri decorative screen in the window, the beautiful fireplace and Indian-style artwork on the walls. You could almost hear the scratching of Rudyard's pen.
Continuing out of the house via the back porch where cool drinks were consumed (and spilt! Whoops!) you pass through a little sitting area with nice iron tables and chairs and then enter the astonishing rhododendron tunnel.
This photo only shows a small part of the vast rhododendron which was, indeed, a tunnel through which you could amble. It was only a little bit creepy in there, imagining some 19th-century ghosts or sabre-wielding Sepoys jumping out at you from amongst the flowers. From where we were standing in this photograph the view was unmatched. A seemingly endless vista of Vermont hills and trees, and some anxious clouds that threatened rain. You don't see any other houses or human features; the view must have been identical in Kipling's time. It's easy to imagine him standing on his porch behind the study, sipping perhaps on some Indian tea prepared by a servant, letting his imagination run free as he contemplated the tales of Harvey Cheyne and Disko Troop, solved such mysteries as how the camel got his hump, why whales can eat only very small things and how the leopard got his spots, and invented characters like Stickly-Prickly Hedgehog, Baviaan the Baboon, Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera and Shere Khan.
In short, it was a wonderful day, and driving back to Brattleboro (and imagining Rudyard and Connie heading to Hannaford's to pick up some groceries) we felt we'd traveled to a faraway place filled with magic and mystery and beauty.
To learn more about Naulakha, please visit Landmark Trust USA's website, where you can see some more pictures of the house (including one pic of the very first tennis court built in Vermont) and also book a little vacation in the house for yourself and your friends, for only $450 a night, which is actually pretty reasonable given that it sleeps eight, and it's Kipling's house, for gosh sakes. You can also rent the Carriage House, where Rudyard's trusty coachman, Matthew Howard, lived in considerable comfort.
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