The Stardust Lounge_ Stories From a Boy's Adolescence - Deborah Digges [61]
Stephen P. Digges
To: Amherst Building Inspector
Description of work done on conversion of two-car garage (length) into study (back) and summer porch /room (front) at 101 Blue Hills Road:
Back of garage was made into a study in 1992 by my former husband, Stanley Plumly, who took ownership of the house at that time.
He did much of the work himself and, from what I understand, did not know that he must have a permit to fix up the back portion of the garage. Over the course of several years, he insulated the room himself and hired someone to wire the room as well as install a wall heater.
E. T, a builder, helped with Sheetrocking the ceilings. Stanley Plumly also had indoor/outdoor carpeting put in.
I talked to him recently on the phone about it and he estimated that all the materials he bought or had in his possession cost around three thousand dollars. At the time of the back room's completion, the front of the garage remained unfinished.
Stanley Plumly has not resided at the above address since 1993. At our divorce, I was given the house.
I have not refinanced, because I would have had to do so at a much higher interest rate. I am forwarding to the Town of Amherst a copy of our divorce decree so that it can be shown that the house is legally mine.
Front of garage was converted in 1995. My own son and my foster son painted the walls and ceilings and I installed a ceiling fan. E. T. helped us with four skylights and put a wall with door and window up where we had taken out the garage door.
We also set up an old woodstove I had bought at a garage sale which now is used as a planter. E. T. put in the chimney but advised us not to use the stove since it would need afire-wall behind it. Stove has plants on and around it.
In the spring of 19961 had indoor/outdoor carpeting put in and tile installed under the stove that matched tile in the entryway. The cost of putting up the wall where the garage door had been, plus the cost of the skylights, carpeting, tile, etc., came to about three thousand dollars.
Thus, I am including eighty-five dollars to be sure to cover everything. If there are any additional adjustments, please contact me since I am willing to do whatever is necessary for this work to be sanctioned and permissible to the Amherst Building Inspector.
Sincerely…
LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION FOR STEPHEN P. DIGGES 10 JAN. 1996
I have known Stephen for the past four years, first through his interest in—and affection for—animals, and then more generally I came to know him and his family (his mother is a professor at Tufts University, where I was dean of veterinary medicine for nearly fourteen years before moving to Cornell last fall).
Steve is one of the most interesting and creative youngsters I have come to know. He is particularly interested in the cultural and emotional dimensions of factual material. Animals interested him initially because of their ability, in his eyes, to express ‘[feelings “ in particular situations. Later he came to become interested in their behavior and when his talent for photography emerged, he applied this to animals and other parts of the natural world.
He is what I would describe as a “non-linear” learner; he makes observations anecdotally, then merges them over time into a coherence that makes order out of the whole. Thus, he is a talented maker of music using synthesizers, photographs using multiple images (of en superimposed), and unusual vocabulary words.
Clearly I am not a professional in the area of the arts, but Stephen