Watsons Barn Renovation, cicrca 1840

BARN; HOTEL & BARN

 

Here is the house with all the trim finally painted red. Looks great. The exposed wood on the front will be treated with boiled linseed oil, which will darken it nicely. The landscaping, hopefully, will begin in the Fall. No interior glamour shots yet - there are still packing boxes everywhere, and I have not begun painting all of the interior trim. Waiting for cooler weather: today's Feel-Like temperature at noon: 101 degrees.











EARLY MUD Season in March 2006

My house is the little red barn. All the clapboards are up on these two sides (other end not done yet), and the new roof is on. What a huge improvement. It doesn't even look like the same house. Interior not ready for photos yet -- still in demolition downstairs. Upstairs almost done, we're starting to paint next week.




This is the view of the house from the center of town at the intersection of Main Street and Route 100. The tiny town common is where the flagpole is. Main Street and the Wardboro Country Store are off to the left. This is a busy corner during the day, but quiet at night. The white barn with the red trim belongs to the fire station. Past the last house below is the bridge over Wardsboro Brook. The mountain in the distance is East Hil

  

BEFORE [July 2005] and AFTER [February 2006] Of Note: Zoning violation notice received for work completed as seen in the photos !!! We are all hoping to amicably resolve the zoning matter regarding the awning or as I call it, the "covered walkway." Check back to see if the new roof will be torn down.

Right of Way - law dictionary
" A privilege to pass over the land of another, whereby the holder of the right of way acquires only a reasonable and usual enjoyment of the property, and the owner of the land retains the benefits and privileges of ownership consistent with the easement. (The term Right of Way is also used to describe that strip of land upon which, for example, railroad companies construct their roadbed; in this context, the term refers to the land itself, not the right of passage over it.)"

"Driveway easements are also known as easement of access. Some lots do not border a road, so a right of way through another lot must be provided for access. "

"Sometimes adjacent lots have 'mutual' driveways that both lot owners share to access buildings such as barns or garages in the backyard. The houses are so close together that there can only be a single way to both backyards. Even when the way is wide enough, rights of way may exist to allow for access to the roof and other parts of the house that are close to a lot boundary. Such rights of way should be recorded in each property deed."

 

THEN and now

Some exterior closeups. The yellow pine door on the side will be stained dark like the main door in front. The new hardware on the doors will eventually be switched out for antique hardware as I come across it.

This is the latest view from the first week of February. The white trim will all get painted out in the barn red, also. Notice the little smokestack through the roof now and the nice extra piece of barn sash (small window) on the side. Next comes the new porch roof. We can't wait until the turquoise roofing is gone and replaced with silver tin.

WORK in progress - Winter 2005-6

















The two sets of French doors made the biggest difference in the light coming into the ground floor. All the windows were replaced. Kitchen is gone, bathroom in the remake. Not much to do in the 3 bedrooms on 2nd. floor except paint and redo the trims and moldings.

It's the new year, and still no siding. The townfolk are getting used to the tarpaper though. The stamped concrete "apron" around the two sides of the house made a big change - no more water running towards and under the house. It came out great. The pour was continued to the inside into the back ell and has radiant floor heat. The rest of the first floor will have planed pine boards for flooring and radiant floor heat.The 2nd floor will have hot water baseboard for heat.

The last big projects are putting in a master bath on the 2nd floor where one had been torn out, and starting all over on the kitchen.

Inside, the boys heated things up with a 55-gallon drum woodstove - they say it's like Florida in there. There's a shiny tin stove pipe coming out of the roof now -put in right after this photo was taken.




Mostly still tearing things out on the ground floor, figuring out what to put back. Going furnace shopping soon. Still designing the overhanging roof that will go over the front French doors and the main door. After that, the new silver-color roofing, a new stone or brick chimney and the barn-red clapboarding will go on and that will really make a huge difference in the look of the house.The BEFORE photos






















POSTCARD FROM THE PAST

This was good eats when Mr & Mrs Underwood kept it for several years. What a good time we had and such eats.

THE WARDSBORO HOUSE HOTEL AND THE CARRIAGE BARN

Asahel WATSON was born in 1816, and came to Wardsboro, from Jamaica in 1840. He owned and operated for several years the saw-mill now owned by E. R. HOWE.
On May 22, 1840, he married Adelphia JACKSON, by whom he had eleven children, who were born between the years 1841 and 1860, all of whom lived except the youngest, who died in infancy. He died in January. 1881, aged sixty-four. During the last twenty years of his life he owned and kept the Wardsboro House.
His daughter, Ella A. WATSON married Fred UNDERWOOD, of Jamaica, in 1883, and with him keeps the hotel formerly owned by her father, in Wardsboro village.

Gazetteer and Business Directory of
Windham County, Vt., 1724-1884.
Compiled and Published By Hamilton Child,
Printed At The Journal Office, Syracuse, N. Y., July, 1884. 
 A Renovation Project
Purchased in July 2005

Contractor

Urbinati Constuction
Franklin, Connecticut
Whites Hill Excavation and Construction
Wardsboro, Vermont

The "BEFORE" photo

The property starts at the telephone pole to the left, but does not include the building on the right. That is a barn that was the old fire station. There are two more classic barns behind the house that belong to the neighbors. There is no land behind the house or to the right -- just to the left and in front. The facade faces south.

The plan is to give this house a barn-look also. It will have barn-red clapboard siding, like some of the other barns in the center of the village. The site has only 1/10th of an acre of land, and sits next to a tiny town common. The deed to the property came with a deed to a spring.

The barn may have been built before 1865, since the hotel appears on maps of that date. It once stood closer to the road, and was moved back. We are still researching that part of its history. At first there was an apartment on the second story only, and later the ground floor was finished out also.

HISTORIC PHOTO

Wardsboro House Hotel - a guest house with carriage barn


The hotel -- the house at the left -- operated until the late 1930s and was then torn down. It was run as a typical "mountain retreat" guest house. Some of the houses still standing in the village center are quite similar to this one.

The carriage barn, the building that I call Watson's Barn, is to the right. The other buildings visible behind the house and barn were torn down also.

Today, the site where the hotel stood is a small town common at the intersection of Main Street and Route 100. On some old postcards, Route 100 is called River Road. The road leads down to the Wardsboro Brook to the east, just a short distance past the barn.