Le Nid

In 1964, Reed Gwillim Law took a new job at C. W. Post College of Long Island University. He moved his family, then consisting of Bobbie Winifred Law, Zachary Law, and Zebulon Law, from Eugene, OR to be nearer his job. They found their new home at 9 Bevin Road West, Eaton's Neck, NY. It was a large Victorian house with character. Reed and Bobbie liked to entertain, and it had a good ambiance for entertaining.

The location was picturesque. Eaton's Neck is a kind of peninsula off the north shore of Long Island, enclosing a body of water that forms a harbor for the town of Northport. There is a long sand spit connecting the land mass of the neck to the bulk of Long Island. A two-lane concrete road, Asharoken Ave., often sandswept, ran down the middle of this spit. From Asharoken Ave., Bevin Rd. branched off to the left and then forked. Bevin Rd. was a gravelled dirt road, which periodically formed a washboard surface and had to be regraded. As a small drawback, the remoteness of the location entailed extra driving time for most errands.

They put up a sign in the driveway saying "Le Nid," a play on Bobbie's maiden name, Hawkins. They thought of it as a hawk's nest (nid in French).

The house was reputed to have been the summer retreat of William Howard Taft. The lot was amply-sized and fronted directly on the water. There was a built-up tiled terrace near the shore. The central feature of the house itself was a grand staircase that wrapped around a kind of atrium, which served as a living room. From the foot of the stairway facing the shore, there were pocket doors leading to a parlor on the right, and a smaller room behind the parlor, sometimes called "Le Petit Hawk's Nest." Just to the left of the stairway was a large round hot air grate doing its best to heat the house from a basement unit. Still farther over to the left were two rooms, one like another parlor, and behind that one was the dining room. Behind the stairs was a kitchen. Finally, apparently a later addition, there was an enclosed porch pointing back away from the kitchen. There was an open porch around three sides of the downstairs. Driving in the driveway, passing the house on the left, one immediately came under a porte-cochère. The porch roof ran around the front of the house, sheltering the part that faced the shore, which had a semi-circular protrusion and a few steps down. One could step out of a second-floor bedroom window onto this part of the roof.

There were two upper floors with bedrooms, four bedrooms each if I recall correctly. The house had apparently had a room on the third floor removed. A sealed-off door there bore a plaque: "June Bremer Memorial Room." They liked to say that the ghost of June Bremer still haunted the place.

Near Le Petit Hawk's Nest there was an elevator running from the first to the second floor, with a mechanism on the third floor. To ascend, you would step on the elevator and start pulling on a loop of rope which turned a flywheel and used mechanical advantage to make the lifting easy.

One of Zeb's first memories is swimming and "clamming", which involved walking around in the mud in the local tidal flats, and feeling for clams with your feet. The clams were really tasty fresh! Their house was on a dirt road (which was about a mile long), and Zeb recalls literally walking in the snow to catch the school bus in the winter.

This was of course the house to which Bronwyn Merhige was brought home when she was born.

Le Nid was "liberty hall," in that family and close friends were always welcomed when they cared to visit, and room could always be made for the night. Reed Gwillim Law Jr. and Steven Inglis Law drove in from Connecticut many times, especially during summer vacation or long weekends. After 1969, Gwil's visits were often from New Hampshire. Grammy might come along for single-day visits. Jasper Newton Hawkins, Flora Cornett Hawkins, Ronnie Hawkins and some of his band visited at least briefly. Once or twice, Janice Black Law was an overnight guest.

Expenses resulting from Reed Gwillim Law's death from cancer (1975) made it necessary to sell the house. Bobbie, Zach, Zeb, and Bronwyn moved to 212 Highland Ave. in Northport.