Subject: Re: Suggestions
From: Klemens Meyer <[email-masked]>
To: Ernst Meyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2017 01:03:15 +0000

I have read the memorandum. I find it very upsetting, because I see the
situation entirely differently, because I do not think that the differences
in our views can be reconciled, and because I anticipate that this
incongruity will result in great suffering for both of us. Although we can
do carpentry (for example) together, I do not think that we can work
together in efforts that involve interaction with other people, because our
approaches are too disparate.

I expect that Mr Wheldon will eventually respond to me. I do not think that
a plumber who removed the existing plumbing and replaced it would take
financial risk or would endanger his license, because I believe that the
hostility of various members of the Nantucket town government is directed
personally at you, and I think that if someone is paid to do the plumbing,
those hostilities will be satisfied, Mr Rogeveen notwithstanding. I do not
think that there is a conspiracy to prevent completion of the house. I also
think that even at the rates charged by Nantucket plumbers, installation of
the plumbing would be a good investment, because of the value of the house,
if finished in the conventional fashion you disparage as "trophy." The
arrangements for use of the house that you anticipate would, by contrast,
be _entirely_ unsatisfactory to _me_, to Laura and to the children. I think
that dismissing the potential rental value of the property, if properly
outfitted in trophy style, is not responsible.

I anticipate that my choice will be either a) to complete the house by
making a contract or contracts that you consider both to be very unwise and
to constitute a personal affront to you; or b) to resign the trusteeship to
you, with the eventual consequence that you would either choose to or would
be forced to sell the property, because the Town would eventually condemn
the half-constructed house, and you would be unwilling to pay to have it
either completed or demolished; or c) to do nothing, remaining the trustee
myself, so that if or when the Town condemns the house, I could make the
decision about what to do. I anticipate that from a cold-blooded business
perspective, either hiring a plumber or a contractor then, or even paying
to have the house torn down, with a view to starting all over again, might
be the best course.

I am not interested in sale of the property to acquire a different property
on Nantucket: I do not think that we could get anything nearly as nice. I
not interested in buying land or a house in Maine or anywhere else for use
by myself or the family. If I were forced to sell the property, I would
choose the replacement property solely with an eye to its potential to
generate rental income. That might mean replacing the land and house at the
Head of the Plains with a property in Florida, or South Carolina, or with a
house in an expensive ski resort. It would be all business.

This is all very bitter for me. You built the addition to 174 School Street
when I gave up on designing an enlargement of 178 School Street under your
direction, and Laura and I were considering the possibility of moving
around the block. Laura wisely refused to move into 174 School Street when
the addition was complete, and it became clear that you still regarded it
as your house, which we would share, and which you would want to maintain.
When we consulted an architect and added the music room to our house, you
declared that you could not sit there and watch it happen, and began to
build the house on Nantucket. The conflict began with the disagreement with
the Historic District Commission over the width of the trim around the
windows, and over the style of the windows. I still remember how you came
home in a rage after that confrontation. I am sure that you do not remember
the affect, and that you will tell me that it has all been perfectly
rational. It hasn't.  Legal confrontation has been more important to you
than finishing the house, more important than making a place for the family
to spend time at the ocean. I knew this, and this was why I never asked you
to abandon the litigation. I thought that you would not be able to tolerate
giving it up, and that attempting to give up the litigation and finish the
house would be impossibly difficult. I didn't ask you to give up the
litigation, and now I fear that finishing the house will be impossibly
difficult, because of the constraints you impose, and that we will end up
losing both the property and the last shreds of our relationship to each
other.  But it could have been finished a decade ago, and Mommy could have
been comfortable visiting there in her last years, as she was in Konnarock.
I know that you will object that you had already tried to create a home for
the family on School Street, and had been rejected, and so why should you
compromise on the Nantucket project. I don't think I can explain it without
being even more hurtful.

Your Quixotic insistence on the importance of litigation rather than
building a house has been an important contributing factor in alienating
Rebekah, Benjamin and Leah.

The conflicts over the School Street and Nantucket building projects have
overshadowed the last 25 years of my life. I am no longer young, either, or
even middle aged. If my health is like Alex's and Peter's, in twenty years
I will have prostate cancer, or be Parkinsonian, or perhaps both. I expect
to work full time for at least the next ten years, to earn the tuition for
Benjamin and Leah's medical school. Perhaps my health will be better, and I
have another 25 years of relatively good function ahead of me.

I do not know what else to say. I am not angry, but very sad. I had planned
tonight to try to write the essay for the American Journal of Kidney
Diseases that I had promised for tomorrow. I doubt very much that I can do
that in the time remaining. My turmoil over these issues has been only one
of many delaying factors, but I really have to try to shut it out of my
mind, so that I do not jeapordize my position vis-a-vis the hospital and
DCI by failing to produce. I also have to write a memorandum about a new
requirement to obtain informed consent for dialysis treatment, to be sent
tonight. I do not know how soon I will be ready to discuss Nantucket, or
anything else of substance, with you. I may come next door tomorrow to
practice. I don't know.

On Sun, Apr 23, 2017 at 3:29 PM Ernst Meyer <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> I'm glad you're back.
> I have written a memorandum with my thoughts about Nantucket.
> I don't want to importune you with my thinking,
> but when you're in the mood, my suggestions are available  at
> http://home.earthlink.net/~ej4meyer/diary17/d170423.00Ack
>
-- 
Klemens Meyer
Mobile 617-549-5539