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Simply photos of this room from many angles, November 2023

Simply photos of this room from many angles, November 2023

Simply photos of this room from many angles, November 2023

(Taken from Early Photographs of RANDOLPH, VERMONT 1855-1948, by Wes Herwig, 1986 Greenhills Books, Randolph Center, Vermont) James Tarbox came to this homesite from Windsor (Vermont) in 1798, paying Dan Parker, the original grantee, "1600 Spanish-milled dollars." He prospered as a merchant, dealing heavily in grains. Three of his sons became local merchants too. Richard Damon and Sam Day were among later owners. Harry Cooley acquired the place in 1953. If this photo is in a book about early photographs from 1855-1948, what year do you think the photo is from?

Part of the cleaning up involves looking at other people's stuff and making decisions. Luckily in the past relatives have taken what they think are valuable items. And a tag sale was conducted by others. Now I need to make sure some items are shredded and some items are disposed of properly. For example, piles of tires...mosquito breeding zones and just in the way. Twenty, thirty tires @ few dollars a pop for disposal. Good to get them out from under foot. A tree growing out of the garage needs to be taken down.

Ideas that are important to me- the esthetics of a home, the memories in a home, the people & history of a house. Keeping it alive. Why do I want to tell this story? I want the reader to get to know this house. See it as it is now, imagine it as it was, watch as it is recreated becoming a new house but looking just like the old one. We spend our lives in a house. What makes some people choose one style over another? Why do I love old houses more than most new ones? Why are newer houses made with less care than many old ones seemed to be? An overall pleasing shape is important to start with. Why do some new houses look clunky or too big or boxy? Little details like the fascia board (where it meets the roof line from the siding) needs to be a certain size, angle, and leaving the right amount of overhang. A house with no overhang looks awkward, like someone didn’t know what they were doing. But then again, too many details make a house look too busy, too ornate. I like simple, with enough detail to add interest, draw the eye to a certain area on the house. Simple creates a serene place, a place you can relax in. Light is important and one thing that draws me to this house in Randolph Center is the light. How cool to already know where the afternoon golden light will fall across the floor. To already know the exact spot where you can get views of sunsets and mountains. Open space vs. cozy space... this is an interesting conundrum to me. I love open, I don’t want to feel squeezed into a room. But I also appreciate cozy…if a room is too open, with ceilings too high, with all whites, that can be an intimidating space. It can feel too modern, industrial, too imposing. I don’t want a house that shows off but a house that reveals itself as you use it, that makes you almost subconsciously sigh and think, “ahhh this is nice.” The nice thing about modeling a new house after an existing old house is people (at least in rural Vermont) hadn’t even thought of big imposing spaces. They wanted useful spaces. They wanted to see out without letting the cold in. So it’s kind of automatically cozy. This house was almost lost forever. It could have become an empty lot, it could have become a modern house, maybe a ranch house, maybe it could have been sold to someone from ‘down country’ who would build a huge vacation home there. I feel so privileged that we are the lucky family members who have ended up with this opportunity. I always wanted to do it. I talked to Charles (the last owner) about it. He wondered why we would want to leave a nice area of Massachusetts where our son and grandchildren are nearby. Here’s my idea- as the grandchildren get older and more involved in their own schedules, their own friends, etc., we invite my son's whole family up for a weekend. We get them ALL for a weekend, for a week! Meals! Activities! Go to Lake Champagne. Go for hikes in Vermont. Visit my horses in Charles’s barn. Instead of picking them up from school or an evening of babysitting so parents can go out to dinner, we get them all together as a family for a visit. Charles knew the house was in bad shape. He thought it would need a lot of work or to be torn down and started fresh. So I am not doing something he wouldn’t agree with, so that is comforting. I know many of my decisions will not be shared or appreciated by some. This house is very important to many. It's their last tie to their parents or grandparents or wonderful summers in Vermont. Or maybe they even lived there...I did not; why am I privileged enough to get to make decisions when they don't? Or maybe they just drive by every day for years. Or they are neighbors with a tie to the area. I want to share the importance of a house being a home. Family coming together there, creating new memories folded into the old memories of a house. Inviting extended family to come stay- with the upstairs being all ‘theirs’…two bedrooms and a bath up there. Saving something from the past rather than discarding it and starting completely ‘fresh.’

Taking current photos is fun. Explore the house if you dare...watch out for holes in the floors and walls that are leaning. I want to capture the house as it is right now. Many more photos to come.

Start with measuring the old house. Take as many photos as possible. Then play with the layout, but not too much...retain the old house but fix some things like- include that space that I call 'the room to nowhere.' Scale: 1"= 6' My rough sketch of the current house: VTC student Morlene Wong's downstairs floor plan (1978)

November 5, 2023, a date to remember. A contractor, Eric, is helping us with cleanup. He is starting with the outside...tires, an old tipped over shed that was pushed into the brush, cutting the tree that is growing out of the garage, adding gravel to the north side driveway for heavy equipment. Photos to come! It is exciting to really START. This is real. Next he will help with inside debris, but especially the old appliances, old upholstered furniture that was probably really nice when it was new; it has seated many a happy guest but is now musty and dusty, definitely not an antique, just old. I have to make a trip up there to label items..."to be shredded"..."junk"..."save"

First of all, let me make sure for the record to let you know that the room on the south side will be The PA Cooley Room. Others may use it but it is dedicated to him, my brother-in-law. He says when he dies he wants to be in an old Vermont house where he can look out a window with a beautiful view like his Dad did surrounded by family. He is not old now so hopefully he will use it many times for a nice visit with his husband before he reaches death's door. The upstairs will be simple. Two bedrooms and a bath. My husband says maybe we should have a little kitchen area up there...I don't want to separate folks up there too much, I'd rather they came down to use the family kitchen. We'll see. But for now here is my plan. The room to the south will be for my son and his wife when they visit. The room to the north will be for their two daughters. My very basic sketch of the upstairs: VTC student Morlene Wong's drawing of the current upstairs (1978)

When it's new, I'd like people who drive by to see it as the same house as the old one. I'd like people who visit to feel like they came into the same house they remember. Today in our writers group I learned that a house in Northfield Falls on Turkey Hill Road (which had been a writer's grandparents' house) was bought fairly recently by a younger couple. They loved the house so much that (even though they had to take it down) they built it back the way it had been (with new energy efficiencies). The grandson couldn't put his finger on what was different, but something...then he learned of the rebuilding process there. More open floor plan if possible. Use the wasted space in the room in the back to push the new kitchen back into to make room for more dining/living space. More windows to the south.

The VTC student, Morlene Wong, who created the architectural drawings of the Ridge Road house in 1978 stated on the plans (see image below) that "the original house was built around 1790. Later the gabel [gable or dormer] was built to accomodate [sic] an extra bedroom." I am guessing that Morlene was given this information by either Charles or Harry Cooley in 1978. But in a very early photo of the old house from Wes Herwig's book "Early Photograh's of Randolph, Vermont" the gable dormer can already be seen in the photo (scroll down). Does that mean that the 3rd bedroom was already there in that photo? Or possibly, the gable dormer was always there for the windows and light it provided and only later the 3rd bedroom was walled off from the stairwell? Here is a little study of how the two houses match up...the old photo vs a current one taken 1120/23.