Robbins Farm
 Almanac

Page 2                            Spring 2001 - Volume 1, Chapter 1

A Description of the Robbins Farmhouse

Part of the uniqueness of Robbins Farm is that it has a history. At the top of the hill by the front of the abandoned tennis courts one can see the foundations of the Robbins home that once stood at the crest of the hill. And here's what one may find with a little digging--as described by Stephen Styles, interviewed in a local history of Robbins Farm:

In the cellar there was some kind of a machine which had a counter weight on it filled with rocks and supported by cables which looked to me as though it was cranked up and then released, and gradually settle down and turn wheels, perhaps a generator…

From another interview:

The house was beautiful inside. It had a big dome ceiling, like a cathedral, and it was painted with stars and the sky! There was a beautiful rosewood piano in the living room. And they had a very unique bathroom. That was on the second floor overlooking the city. There was a copper bathtub in a wooden frame, and on the toilet there were two little bins--one for toilet paper and one had a ball that you pulled up to flush the toilet. Then there was a marble sink in the  corner.

Well, we won't recapture the beauty of the house. As another interviewee said, "Where was the Arlington Historical Society when the house and barn were torn down?"

But perhaps a photograph or two etched into the foundation stones, and a graphic drawing of the farm itself will recapture some of the past, done in such a way that it cannot be vandalized, unlike the sign depicting the farm as it looked in the 1930s which was stolen two weeks after installation in 1990. And it will be something if we can unearth this strange machine, and perhaps some other 1930s detritus left down in the basement.

Oakes' book, Robbins Farm, a History, is available at Robbins Library, the Historical Society, Jefferson Cutter House and the Town Barbershop or by email, robbins_farm@hotmail.com