The long light

People ask for the Widow’s Walk because of the bay, which is fair. The walk is the photograph. What they write to us about later, more often than not, is the East Room in October, which does not photograph nearly as well and is better for it.

The room sits on the garden corner. In summer the light is ordinary and generous, the way light is when the sun is high and the trees are full. In September the angle changes. It comes in under the maple, across the herb beds, and lands on the desk for most of the afternoon. You can read there without a lamp until the kitchen downstairs starts to smell like dinner.

We noticed it the first autumn after the restoration, when a guest asked if the room had always been that warm at four o’clock. It had not. The old curtains were heavy and usually drawn. We took them down, left the linen shades, and stopped apologizing for a room that faced the garden instead of the water.

There is a practical consequence. From the second week of September until the frost takes the last basil, the East Room books first. We do not raise the rate. The room is still the room: a queen bed, a desk, a tub, no television. The only difference is the hour between four and six, and the fact that you will not want to leave it.

If you come for that, ask when you write. Tell us you want the long light, not the view. We will know which key to take off the board.