A bespoke event center oriented toward the past with modern elements
Where history repeats itself in progressive ways

BOZ1

Beginnings

This property sits at a big bend in 6 Mile Creek – 7 miles upstream from Ithaca and 1 mile past the Brookton Market. From the 1820s to the Great Depression, a mill was operated here.

Juanita Breckenridge Bates and Frederick Bates lived here until 1899.

Juanita was the first pastor of Brookton and actually the first ordained female minister from any established demonination in the entire U.S. and later in her life she was very active in the suffragette movement. Richard found 2 beautiful cobalt blue perfume bottles with delicate rims intact under a tree during his excavations that almost certainly were buried there by Juanita. Her brother took over as Paster and her husband later became the Mayor of Ithaca – a true power couple of a nearly forgotten past. They sold the property in 1899 to the Annis family who operated a mill here until the Great Depression.

Ed & Dorothy Buechel lived here 69 years. He continued to make signs for his son’s business (Ithaca Plastics) and lovingly constructed the gazebi and other structures.

Richard Sheiman bought the property at auction during the Pandemic and has been reimagining it since.

Futures

BrooktonEddy is named after a massive eddy in the stream where it makes a big dogleg – forced by glacial esker ridges and the contour of the gorge. A concrete dam with a moveable silt plate was installed around 1820 by the Breckendridge / Bates clan and expanded by the Annis family. The dam creates additional eddies and there is evidence of neolithic people using these eddie holes for catching crayfish, fish and other foods.

Richard is re-imagining the mill in a way that does not violate DEC regulations, as 6 mile creek remains the primary source for drinking water in the teeming city of Ithaca – precisely 7 miles downstream.

It is permissible to generate hydro power from a resurrected sluice and run a grist mill off water power stored in a mill pond.

Brooktoneddy is also working on a performance space on the second floor of the barn and other improvements

  1. The true purpose of Brooktoneddy is a work in progress ↩︎