Why Bryter Pond?
Every place has a story. This one begins with a name.
I’ve been asked where the name Bryter Pond came from.
Here’s the truth…I've always loved the idea of giving a home a name.
Maybe it's because I'm a hopeless Anglophile (it feels perfectly British), but for more than twenty years I lived in a suburban townhouse, which wasn't exactly the sort of place that invited a name, although don’t get me wrong, I certainly thought about it.
When I moved here, though, I knew from the beginning that this property deserved a name. An old house built in 1874, a pond, open fields, gigantic old trees...it felt like a place with its own personality. It was simply waiting for a name!
Right out of the gate I briefly named it Boxwood Hill. I was inspired by the mature boxwoods that surrounded the house as it sits above the field down below. It was a perfectly good name…lovely, in fact.
It just wasn't the name.
When I bought the property, the pond wasn't much to look at. Years of silt and neglect had left it shallow and overgrown, so I never considered making it the centerpiece.
But then the restoration began…for months, excavators worked to uncover what had always been there beneath the muck. As the pond slowly returned to life, it was clear to me that this wasn't simply another feature of the property.
Looking back, I think it had always been the heart of the property. I just couldn't see it yet.
The pond was the heart of it.
The name came one winter evening.
I was sitting at the dining room table working on a jigsaw puzzle (dorky? perhaps). I was missing Paul so I put on one of his favorite albums - Bryter Layter by Nick Drake —someone I probably never would have discovered if it hadn't been for Paul.
The song Bryter Layter, a beautiful instrumental piece, began to play.
I've always loved it because of how it makes me feel. It's gentle, light, and hopeful. I remember stopping my puzzle just to listen, then playing it again…and again.
That night I was curious about the album's title so I looked up what it meant.
What I learned is that Nick Drake meant for Bryter Layter to suggest the idea that, after darkness, things become brighter later. He loved the phrase "brighter later," but changed the spelling simply because he liked how Bryter Layter looked.
Maybe it was my mood that night, but reading that brought me to tears - after darkness, things can and do become brighter later.
That’s when I knew.
This place wasn't Boxwood Hill.
It was Bryter Pond.
Because, in so many ways, it’s become my brighter later.
Welcome to Bryter Pond.
The Notebook is a collection of stories about this place and the life unfolding here.
