Antique Houses Sought for Subdivision
An 18th Century tavern with trees sprouting through the floorboards seemed destined to be razed in a firefighting drill until it was rescued by a couple of Connecticut developers who look to the past to find fancy homes for the future.
The restored tavern, with modern conveniences added, will become one of the dozen or so antique houses in an unusual 33-acre subdivision in this affluent town on the Connecticut River.
The developers, Harry P. Broom Jr. and William Oberg, are scouring the countryside for other vintage buildings to complete the subdivision they call Sterling Meadows. The restored and updated residences will be priced at $800,000 to $1.2 million each, although Broom and Oberg said they haven’t tried to sell one yet.
The former owner of the old tavern, they said, sold it to them rather than to the Salem fire department, which was going to burn it down for a training drill.
“The problem is most old houses are accidents of geography,” said Oberg, 32, of Essex, who left a career in finance more than two years ago.
Endangered Relics
“What used to be a convenient location on the main road is now a busy commercial district with a lot of traffic going by, and they end up being torn down for a new office building, a new apartment building or one thing or another.”
Oberg said the partnership has purchased five old buildings is still looking for others to fill the seven other lots. Four buildings are being reconstructed at the site. A concrete foundation is ready for a federal-style house from Massachusetts that was built around 1800.
They expect to complete the development in about three years.
The first step is saving the buildings, a painstaking task. The partnership has paid $5,000 to $20,000 for the relics and spends five to six weeks dismantling them.
With a crew of carpenters from Broom’s restoration company, H. B. Broom Housewright Inc., a nearly everything is saved, from frame and windows to mantlepieces and floorboards.
Broom and Oberg retain each building’s original design--which means, for example, rebuilding six fireplaces in the former Salem tavern--but each one is outfitted with modern conveniences such as security alarms and central air conditioning.
Plans for Modern Living
“When we rebuild these houses, we’re using all the original features and restoring the house as best we can, but we’re not building museums,” said Broom, 44, of Lyme, whose office is in a 1770 building that housed a general store supplying steamships on the Connecticut River and the ferry that still runs between Chester and Hadlyme.
“We’re building houses that are practical to live in.”
The interiors are slightly modified with ells to make room for modern kitchens and bathrooms. Otherwise, the houses are as they were, right down to the slightly off-center front doors on some.
“We’re trying to create the perfect New England environment,” Oberg said. “We try not to change the details at all and take small liberties with the ells.”
They plan to pave the winding road to the subdivison and line it with sugar maples, stone walls and picket fences. Antique lampposts will be modeled after those in Deerfield, Mass.
Oberg was quick to dispel any notion that they are trying to imitate Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts or Williamsburg, Va. Those communities, he said, confine their efforts to houses built between 1700 and 1815, and lean toward formal styles of architecture, such as federal or Georgian.
Other, Smaller Examples
Similar but smaller subdivisions of five relocated historic homes each are in rural Killingworth, Conn., and in Waitsfield, Vt.
Oberg criticized the so-called purist approach to restoration, which is light on modern conveniences and heavy on dark interiors.
“The result, when a so-called purist restores a house, is that the houses tend to be dark and use dark colors, and that is not quite what everybody would like,” he said.
Sterling Meadows has the approval of town officials, who are committed to 2-acre and 3-acre zoning to preserve the town’s atmosphere.
About 1,910 people live within Lyme’s 33 square miles. They include former New York Mayor John Lindsay and Brooklyn, N. Y., District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman.
“If you’re gonna have development of that nature, you could do no better than Skip Broom,” said Lyme First Selectman John F. Yeomans, referring to Broom by his nickname. “They’re as good as any and better than most.”
Oberg and Broom formed their partnership 2 1/2 years ago, after Oberg bought land next to a 12-acre parcel Broom already owned. Oberg said that he has had a lifelong interest in antique houses, and Broom quit Shell Oil Co. about 15 years ago to start his restoration business.
“I had a piece of land I bought as a investment and I always wanted to put antique houses on it,” said Broom, whose company has restored about 80 homes. “Oddly enough, he wanted to do the same thing.”
