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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2eHIl0d:
unicornduke
replied to your photo
“Redoing the decoration, from summer (L) to winter ®. (at Laughing…”
that’s such a cool house omg
I’ve probably posted about it on here a bunch but I’m going to again anyway, because it’s so cool.
When I was a little kid, Mom would load us all up into the car and drive us to the beach, which was a state park maybe half an hour, 45 minutes from our house. On the way there, we’d go past a lot of cool scenery. And right by the highway was this ancient, crumbling farmhouse, and every time we went past it she’d click her tongue and shake her head and say, “what a beautiful old house, it’s a crime to let it fall down.” My mother was a historian, with a master’s degree in museum curation; just from a glance at that house, which was really right by the highway, she’d say “I bet that house is at least from 1830, maybe earlier. look at the fake columns at the corners, it’s classic Greek Revival style– all those beautiful Palladian details on it. What a shame, what a shame, I hope it doesn’t fall down.”
And she’d say this every time we drove past, because we’re creatures of habit, in this family.
When we were still kids, someone did buy it; because it still had its original slate roof, it had fallen to ruin but had not collapsed, and most of the floors were intact and much of the interior structure. The people who bought it did so as kind of an ambitious retirement project; concurrently, they started a farm, with cows and a little farm stand.
Twenty years later, my brother in law got a job managing that farm, just as they were looking for someone to sell the place to. It was the first job he found after my sister finally persuaded him that their future was in New York, not his native Illinois, where they’d been farming for three years in a market that didn’t understand the concept of organic.
There was a bunch else that happened, but eventually, my sister and brother-in-law bought that farm. And that house, that beautiful old ruin of a house, still hasn’t had a coat of paint applied to it since about 1935, before the original founding family that built it in, Mom was right, 1825, sold out to some farmers who just wanted the land and didn’t want to live in it.
Dad’s been scraping and restoring the woodwork, starting with the front door and its surrounding details, and we’d hoped to paint it this summer, but now it’s looking like next summer. In the meantime, it’s beautifully restored inside, with a ton of the original details remaining– including that whoever installed the original thumb-latches (which survive on about 70% of the doors) did so at an angle instead of the usual straight across, because he or she must have liked them better that way. There’s also a crazy little twisty back staircase that comes down next to the rear wall where the original hearth would have been (which was removed sometime before the 1930s).
You can’t see it in that view, but there’s a weird little side-wing of the house, and Mom’s research uncovered that it was built in 1789 and moved about 100 yards after the old man who built it died, so that his widow could be properly looked after by their son, who had built the big house for himself.
It’s just super cool all around.
unicornduke
replied to your photo
“Redoing the decoration, from summer (L) to winter ®. (at Laughing…”
that’s such a cool house omg
I’ve probably posted about it on here a bunch but I’m going to again anyway, because it’s so cool.
When I was a little kid, Mom would load us all up into the car and drive us to the beach, which was a state park maybe half an hour, 45 minutes from our house. On the way there, we’d go past a lot of cool scenery. And right by the highway was this ancient, crumbling farmhouse, and every time we went past it she’d click her tongue and shake her head and say, “what a beautiful old house, it’s a crime to let it fall down.” My mother was a historian, with a master’s degree in museum curation; just from a glance at that house, which was really right by the highway, she’d say “I bet that house is at least from 1830, maybe earlier. look at the fake columns at the corners, it’s classic Greek Revival style– all those beautiful Palladian details on it. What a shame, what a shame, I hope it doesn’t fall down.”
And she’d say this every time we drove past, because we’re creatures of habit, in this family.
When we were still kids, someone did buy it; because it still had its original slate roof, it had fallen to ruin but had not collapsed, and most of the floors were intact and much of the interior structure. The people who bought it did so as kind of an ambitious retirement project; concurrently, they started a farm, with cows and a little farm stand.
Twenty years later, my brother in law got a job managing that farm, just as they were looking for someone to sell the place to. It was the first job he found after my sister finally persuaded him that their future was in New York, not his native Illinois, where they’d been farming for three years in a market that didn’t understand the concept of organic.
There was a bunch else that happened, but eventually, my sister and brother-in-law bought that farm. And that house, that beautiful old ruin of a house, still hasn’t had a coat of paint applied to it since about 1935, before the original founding family that built it in, Mom was right, 1825, sold out to some farmers who just wanted the land and didn’t want to live in it.
Dad’s been scraping and restoring the woodwork, starting with the front door and its surrounding details, and we’d hoped to paint it this summer, but now it’s looking like next summer. In the meantime, it’s beautifully restored inside, with a ton of the original details remaining– including that whoever installed the original thumb-latches (which survive on about 70% of the doors) did so at an angle instead of the usual straight across, because he or she must have liked them better that way. There’s also a crazy little twisty back staircase that comes down next to the rear wall where the original hearth would have been (which was removed sometime before the 1930s).
You can’t see it in that view, but there’s a weird little side-wing of the house, and Mom’s research uncovered that it was built in 1789 and moved about 100 yards after the old man who built it died, so that his widow could be properly looked after by their son, who had built the big house for himself.
It’s just super cool all around.
