The Jay Heritage Center
210 Boston Post Rd.Barbara Specht, Jay Heritage Center
Jay Heritage Center
(914)698-9275
Kevin Peraino at
peraino.jhc@gmail.com
The Jay Estate has been the home of sailing families since 1843 when John Clarkson Jay, a founder of NY Yacht Club inherited the waterfront property. In the 20th century, American Yacht Club members Zilph and Edgar Palmer, and their daughter Zilph and her husband Walter Devereux also took advantage of the landmark’s harbor frontage and there are sailing trophies that still bear their names!
On Friday, May 6, at 6 p.m., join New York Times best-selling author Nathaniel Philbrick and his daughter, Rye resident, lawyer, and former Harvard sailing captain Jennifer Philbrick McArdle, for a discussion of how the sport of sailing brought their family together.
Father and daughter will trade stories about how their experiences on the water have indelibly shaped their lives. Philbrick, the National Book Award-winning author of the best-sellers “In the Heart of the Sea,” “Mayflower,” and “Bunker Hill,” told some of these stories in his 1999 memoir, “Second Wind: A Sunfish Sailor, an Island, and the Voyage That Brought a Family Together,”which recounted how he overcame a midlife crisis through his love of the sport.
In his late thirties and living on Nantucket in the early 1990s, Nathaniel Philbrick was “feeling stranded and longing for that thrill of victory he once felt after winning a national sailing championship in his youth.” The journalist-turned-stay-at-home-dad decided to compete for a sailing championship once again–“with the bemused approval of his wife and children”–following his dream all the way to the championship.
====
The Jay Heritage Center (JHC) is an educational nonprofit and the steward of the Jay Estate in Rye, New York, a 23-acre National Historic Landmark site and public park. JHC hosts programs in American history, social justice, environmental stewardship, architecture, and preservation. Learn more at jayheritagecenter.org or email peraino.jhc@gmail.com for more information.