One more author’s house in need of some upkeep: The Lower Hudson Valley Journal News reports on a nascent effort to refurbish the home of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. (She also wrote short stories and essays as Nancy Boyd; the Poetry Foundation has a nice biography.) As Millay’s reputation has faded, so has Steepletop, her home in Austerlitz, N.Y.:
The grounds are open, as is a trail to the Millay family grave site, but the house won’t be ready for public tours until at least 2010, [Millay Society executive director Peter] Bergman says. He reckons it will take more than $3 million to repair the house and gardens. For now, he is raising money to pay for a garden historian to document how the garden was planted and used.
More on the project is at the society’s Web site. (All of this calls to mind D.C. indie publisher Vrzhu Press’ recent “Millay Project,” in which area writers mimicked Millay’s famous pose by a dogwood tree.)
markathitakis.com 
Steepletop will take a grass-roots effort of poetry lovers and Millay admirers to find fulfillment. All are invited to contribute as they can and the Millay Renascence donor program is ideal. It makes certain that all interested parties with $35 or more to contribute are helping in the effort and being kept abreast of all progress, all programs, every step of the way. Together we can all make it happen and Steepletop can become the center of poetry once again as it was in the 1930s and 40s.
For information contact the commentator at PBergman89@aol.com – the Executive Director of the Millay Society at Steepletop.
I dunno, after the latest Millay bio, I think of Steepletop as a rather dashing haunt with lots of juicy history! Perhaps it should be marketed as such.