2004-04-19
historic preservation | My friend Ralph Parady was able to dis-assemble the Joseph Goodspeed house in the Tylerville section of Haddam, just across the river from us |
Ralph's an independednt house contractor, gets hired for specialty jobs | At the moment he has a spate of restorations, new additions to historic homes and, taking down old houses | But he's done modern stuff as well | Two projects ago, he built a four story oval shaped "trilobite house" on the side of a steep hill, overlooking Moodus Reservoir |
But saving a structure is another art form all its own | slowly removing each piece so that it can be used again, either for reconstructing the building all over, or for adaptive reuse elsewhere | Is it worth the effort? | Well, the boards that clad the house that this picture is from were solid chestnut. Over an inch thick each of them | Nowadays, chestnut goes for over $17 /per linear foot, and that's not for boards as wide as those taken down |
The Goodspeed house was framed out in the early 1800's | It was the family home of two families of importance as far as locak history goes | And although the porch was falling down before it got taken down, the structure was quite sturdy | Not a single nail in the posts and beams | ¶ 22:52
