[ESS] User-space installation of ESS 18.10.2 failing

[Steve Gutreuter]

I am trying to install ess-18.10.2 from the tarball into .emac.d on a 
compute server for which I am not root.  After extracting the tarball 
into ~/.emacs.d/ess-18.10.2, entering that directory and executing make 
(all per the instructions in the ESS manual), I am getting

$> make
cd lisp; make all
make[1]: Entering directory 
`/scicomp/home-pure/wqh4/.emacs.d/ess-18.10.2/lisp'
emacs -batch -no-site-file -no-init-file --directory . -f 
batch-byte-compile julia-mode.el
Opening directory: Permission denied, 
/apps/x86_64/emacs/27.1/share/emacs/site-lisp/ess
make[1]: *** [julia-mode.elc] Error 255
make[1]: Leaving directory 
`/scicomp/home-pure/wqh4/.emacs.d/ess-18.10.2/lisp'
make: *** [all] Error 2

There is no .configure file.  How doe one avoid the apparent need to 
write to /apps/x86_64/emacs/27.1/share/emacs/site-lisp/ess in order to 
install ess in .emacs.d?

Note: I tried installation from MELPA first, but the version of ess 
there insists on Emacs 25.1, and my available options are 26.1 or 27.1.

Thanks in advance for any tips.

-- 
Steve Gutreuter