Street Lights Make Us Happy?

October 26, 2007
Home, Sweet ... Yikes!
By DAN LEVIN

WHEN Evan Gotlib and his fiancée, Lindsey Pollack, bought a three-bedroom cottage surrounded by pine trees in rural Sharon, Conn., they couldn’t wait to flee their cramped Manhattan studio on weekends to spend their days dozing in a hammock and barbecuing on their brand new 42,000 B.T.U., 60-burger-capacity Weber grill.

But being city people, they did what anyone looking to “get away from it all” would do first, before they even spent the night: they paid $3,000 for a home-security system complete with motion detectors, a one-touch intercom that connects to fire and police dispatchers and an emergency hand-held remote-control device they could leave on the bedside table at night. “I know it sounds ridiculous now that I talk about it, but I just feel safer sleeping with the remote control,” Mr. Gotlib, a 32-year-old corporate sales director for Time Inc. Media Group, confessed, “because those deer are aggressive.”

For many urban sophisticates who trade the big city’s drunken crowds, blaring sirens and claustrophobic living spaces for bucolic second homes on weekends, the very solitude of mountains and forests that drew them in the first place can turn into a nerve-jangling — and sometimes costly — source of anxiety. As much as they adore their country houses, these harried homebodies quail at the thought of stepping out into the pitch-black night or meeting some wild animal or armed local in the woods.

Often their attempts at assuaging those fears are met with disbelief and ridicule from their more well-adjusted family members and friends.

“New York thinking applied to nature equals paranoia,” said Augusten Burroughs, the author of the memoir “Running with Scissors,” from his country house on the outskirts of Amherst, Mass., which he and his partner, Dennis Pilsits, built three years ago. Since then, Mr. Burroughs, 42, has poured several book advances into what he calls his “prison in the trees” in an effort to defend his rustic outpost “from nature in all its malicious glory.” This includes installing an $8,000 lightning protection system and spending $2,000 on various military-grade “tactical illumination devices” — flashlights — and even a pair of night-vision goggles, thanks to some terrifying encounters with nocturnal neighbors.

Late one recent night, Mr. Burroughs had gone out to check the mailbox when he saw two green, glittering eyes, triangular ears “and the general impression of height” in the shadows. When the creature began to walk toward him, Mr. Burroughs ran into the garage, fearing for his life. “Our skinny, gym-polished urban bodies are no match for anything that scratches its back on a tree,” he said. “Whatever it was, it was both curious and unafraid — two traits one does not admire in wildlife when one is alone in the dark.”

And it’s not just what lurks outside that sends imaginations running wild. Even the houses themselves can send chills up one’s spine. “You climb into bed, and suddenly you hear groans, creaks and low, deep thumping sounds, as though there are rabbits trapped inside the walls, or fingers gently teasing the exterior window frames,” Mr. Burroughs said. “Not a night goes by that I am not absolutely convinced somebody has entered the house and they do not have a conscience.”

Mr. Burroughs might take comfort that there is a name for his neurosis: nyctohylophobia, or the fear of dark, wooded areas. He wouldn’t be the only one. “When it’s bedtime, I’m terrified,” said Mary McCann, an actress from New York City, who owns a house on 11 acres in Napanoch, in Ulster County, N.Y., with her husband, Neil Pepe. When he can’t join her and their daughter, Lena, 6, there on weekends, Ms. McCann has been known to bed down with a knife by her side. “I’ve definitely had some sleepless nights listening to the sound of coyotes killing something, and I’m thinking ‘what a stupid system, I don’t know how to defend myself with a knife,’” she said. “My husband thinks I’m crazy.”

Eric Weingartner, a computer consultant from Manhattan, has also endured the raised eyebrows of relatives at his country home. In 2003, Mr. Weingartner, 43, spent a frigid weekend at his isolated cabin deep in the woods of Accord, also in Ulster County, alone but for his pet pug, Wilber. With temperatures near freezing, the loose boards in his deck started heaving noisily. An escaped convict from a nearby prison was on the loose, and the closest neighbors were out of town. “So there I lay in bed, trying to fall asleep with my 22-pound dog beside me,” he said, “and my only weapon was the oar I retrieved from downstairs. Of course, the oar remained there until my mom visited and came out of the bedroom the next morning asking if I’d bought a boat.”

But Mr. Weingartner has so far resisted turning his cabin into a fortress. “In the city I feel so safe and secure because there are people around and I have three locks on my door,” he said. “But I like to get away from them; I like the beauty and isolation out here.”

Indeed, perhaps it’s better not to bump into other people in the country, especially during hunting season. Charon Marden and her husband, Roy, often like to go for walks in the state wildlife area behind their property in Otis, Mass., but last November they were strolling through the trees when a man in a mask and full camouflage rose out of the bushes five feet away from them, wielding a crossbow. “I almost had a heart attack,” said Ms. Marden, an art director for Dow Jones & Company. “I’ve definitely seen too many Lifetime movies, because after that I had visions of commandos in the woods wanting to break into our house.”

The Mardens thought about getting a shotgun, but decided to rely on their neighbors’ dogs, who also guard their property and bark at anything that approaches. Still, Ms. Marden admits that she runs from the car to the house if they arrive after nightfall and makes her husband lock all the doors at night. “I’m the one saying, ‘Did you hear that? Wake up,’” she said, “and he rolls his eyes a lot.”

That hyper-vigilance is a normal reaction to the fear induced by the darkness and silence of the country, said Dr. Julie Holland, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine, who owns a weekend home in Pawling, N.Y. “In the city, the street lights are on at 3 in the morning, and you have this sense that if you call the police or the front desk of your luxury high-rise someone will help you,” she said. “There is something inherently unnatural and vulnerable about humans being in social isolation, because out there no one can hear you scream.”

It took Dr. Holland and her husband, Jeremy Wolff, a photographer, a while to get over that anxiety. Even so, encounters with armed hunters are always unsettling, even for a seasoned second-home owner. After disturbing a camouflaged fellow in a tree during a family hike last autumn, Mr. Wolf wrote a letter to the hunting club that leases the land beside his, asking members to “please make sure your bullets don’t cross my property lines.”

And then there was the time he came across a shooting range on his neighbor’s land. So does Mr. Wolff, 48, think there is a difference between himself and the people who live in the country full time?

“I feel I’m more of an intellectual artist and they’re kind of machine people,” he said. “Everyone has their own backhoe up there, and their kids have A.T.V.’s and motorboats. And they all have guns, which scares me.”

Ultimately, even when these weekenders vanquish their own fears, both real and imagined, they can always look forward to their citified guests having panic attacks after sunset or screaming in terror at the sight of a moose while jogging.

Howard Gold, a doctor from Miami who owns a mountain home near Aspen, Colo., built a guest room on the ground floor with large French windows opening onto the spruce-dotted slopes, thinking his friends would love waking up to the view. “Everyone absolutely refuses to sleep there because they think a person or a bear will come through those doors, so it just sits empty,” he said.

Four hours east, in Estes Park, Natalie Galyon, a photographer who lives in Dallas, was recently host of a friend’s bachelorette party at her cabin overlooking the Big Thompson River. “When a herd of elk jammed the road, we got out of the car to take photos, but one of the girls stood by the car guarding everyone’s purses, when we were the only people in sight,” said Ms. Galyon, 32, “and each night they would shut all the blinds, even though we were on a cliff in the middle of nowhere.”

But even if these second-home owners get comfortable playing the role of country squire, by Sunday night they have usually returned to their condos and co-ops, reveling in the ease of city life. “I thought I loved nature,” said Mr. Burroughs, back in his Manhattan apartment. “I was wrong. I love escalators.”



Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company