Please visit Photography In Place Print Gallery website to purchase a print of "Wash House"
This house is something of a landmark around here. It is located halfway up the mountain on Route 33, which runs east and west and connects the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge with the Shenandoah Valley, crossing the Skyline Drive at Swift Run Gap.
I call this house the "wash house" because there is almost always laundry hanging on the porch and it has become such a familiar sight to travelers on Route 33 that most everyone knows the place. The house has been the subject of paintings and I am sure it has been photographed innumerable times.
Last week on a cold and overcast morning, I drove up the mountain to photograph the wash house. There was no wash out that day, and the only sign of life about the place was smoke coming out of the chimney. Maybe it was too cold to hang wash out. I remember helping my mother bring in the clothes from the line when they were frozen stiff. The pants would stand up on their own.
Maybe the inhabitants of the wash house have a clothes dryer now. I hope they do, but the place doesn't seem quite the same without the hanging clothes to brighten up the porch.
(For a more recent view, with wash out, click here)
Somewhere is the story of this house. I can't recall where I saw the newspaper article hanging...it was a sad story about this lady and her abusive husband. I always wonder if she's OK and still alive. When I drive up the mountain I'm happy to see smoke there or wash out because they probably are.
ReplyDeleteI have always wondered about the story behind that house as well. We passed by there a few days ago (April 3) and there was smoke coming out of the chimney and forsythia blooming around the porch.
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ReplyDeleteSomeone said the color of the laundry was the flavor of moonshine.
ReplyDeletewhat is the address to this house?
ReplyDeleteSorry, I don't know the street address. The house is located on VA Rt. 33 a little less than 2 miles east of the entrance to Shenandoah National Park.
DeleteI can vouch for the story. I remember going by this house many times from the 1980's until early/mid 2000's. My dad said, "Every day, there's clothes on the (porch) lines for 'some reason or another'." Sure enough, there WAS. If there wasn't any when we drove by in the morning, there'd certainly be some that afternoon. I've hypothesized a million times why, but nothin' added up in a way that made any sense.
ReplyDeleteNow, it's been about 30 years since my dad and I drove by that house together. Since then he's passed on and seeing this photo reminds me of dad and makes me realize that I am now about the same age he was all those years ago. I try to capture what my dad may have experienced back then as I look at the home just as he did, albeit through a digital screen, and imagine he's here with me, too, in some way ... and we both wonder.