Even after two centuries, life goes on in Westhampton home
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Standing silently for more than 200 years, a house in Westhampton has been witness to the joys and tragedies of many families. It has heard the laughter of children, the music of pump organ and guitar, and the voices of adults raised in anger and in jubilation.
Farmer Timothy Phelps built his Colonial-style house in 1796.
"It's a generous house," said current owner Rachel Jenkins who has lived there since 1981. "There's a graciousness about the property that invites life. ... It's a house for raising very young kids and a house for entertaining," she said. "At Thanksgiving we had 30 people here, at Christmas there were 20." For many years Jenkins was hostess for a huge Fourth-of-July party on the terrace and last summer her daughter got married in the meadow under an arbor crafted for the ceremony.
The original house was a single room, but grew by 1801 with a second story for bedrooms over the initial keeping room - a large multi-purpose space that was common in Colonial homes - with its huge hearth, and downstairs a parlor, dining room, buttery and kitchen.
"It was post-and-beam construction, careful work and quality," Jenkins said. She added that she appreciates having a detailed history of the house researched by an Ada Comstock Fellow at Smith College several years ago.
Included in that report is an inventory of the estate of original owner Phelps. The most valuable belongings were livestock: two cows were $42, while 31 sheep were valued at $62. An ox wagon was worth $28 while two dung forks were a mere $1. Bushels of corn, potatoes and wood were also in the inventory.
After the death of the patriarch, his widow and two sons divided the property into three parts. Listed in the agreement is "privilege of the well." One son kept Pew Number 63 at the meeting house. By 1849, son Jonathan was sole owner.
Keeping room and hearth
The keeping room is still the heart of the house. It is paneled in wide pine boards, known as "king's board" because they were "cut for the king and supposed to go to the king," explained Jenkins. But by 1796 there was no king in America to claim the boards, so they were used in houses. Most of the king's boards measure at least 18 inches in width and some are 23½ inches wide.
Until fairly recently the paneling was very dark, exposed wood, Jenkins said. When she was considering selling the house a few years ago, real estate agent Dennis Delap noted that Colonial paneling was usually painted. Ed Hirsch, who has shared the house with Jenkins since 2002, suggested painting the paneling pale yellow.
"Ed had a great idea," Jenkins said, adding that the light color "made a world of difference." The warm glow of the painted paneling makes the room very inviting.
The huge hearth boasts a beehive oven with a wooden cover. Jenkins commissioned a long cherry table and benches where easily a dozen people can enjoy a festive meal in front of the fire.
Runaways
Jenkins and her former husband bought the house in 1981. "My ex and I moved from California. He wanted to live in the country and liked Middlefield, but I'm a city girl. We had seen this house but it seemed like too much house, too grown up for us." Then on Christmas Day, 1980 they realized it really was the right house for them and made an offer.
They bought the house from the estate of Emma Stuart whose husband, Frank, a prominent architect associated with Smith College, purchased it in 1932. She said they also purchased much of the house furniture, including sleigh beds, painted bedroom suites, "an organ you play with your legs," bureaus, a spindle and yarn winder, and flow blue china as well as ironstone.
The last Phelps owners were an elderly sister and brother. Reportedly when someone said "Good Day" to Strong Phelps, the brother, he replied, "Every Lord's day is a good day." Since he and his sister Flora were unmarried, they left the house to the Prohibition Trust in 1926. When Stuart purchased the house from the trust, there was no indoor plumbing and the house was in disrepair.
The Stuarts made changes in the old house. Installing a second floor bathroom necessitated moving the staircase, a simple set of steep steps with no grand newel post or fancy banister. Frank Stuart created an open chamber in the center of the house upstairs by knocking down plaster and exposing beams.
It was in the open chamber that the Jenkins children discovered what they believe might have been a hiding place for a runaway slave on the Underground Railroad.
"One day the kids started pounding on the wall and a door opened up," Jenkins recalled. "It didn't have a handle or hinges," she said. The door revealed a cavity that encircles the chimney behind the walls. There is no documentation that proves the Phelps house was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Still, it is a romantic idea.
Jenkins has made changes in the house, too. The kitchen remains basically farmhouse style but there is a six-burner, restaurant-style gas stove. She explained that her former husband was a wonderful gourmet cook. She removed the cabinet doors to create open shelving and knocked out a wall to a small bedroom to provide space for an eating area.
"It really opened up this room," Hirsch said. "It's wonderful." He said there are floodlights installed in the meadow. "One of the great things is to sit here in the window eating a wonderful dinner and looking out on the snow."
Jenkins raised her two daughters here and Hirsch's three children also appreciate the house. Each child, now grown, has his or her own bedroom, a place to come home to. For Hirsch, who grew up in the city sharing a bedroom with his sister until he was a teenager, the idea of each child having a separate room is astonishing, he said. Jenkins and Hirsch remodeled the garret into a marvelous pad for his then-teenage son, Dan. The walls are bold orange and bright yellow with red trim.
There are six bedrooms in the house but only one is in regular use now. "There is an immoral aspect to it - all this space for two people," Hirsch said.
They tore down the old woodshed to create a master suite for themselves on the first floor. Considering the ambiance of the old house, they carefully matched the six-over-six windows that overlook the meadow and reused old beams in the ceiling from the shed.
History vs. efficiency
Respecting the history and the charm of the old house has always been important to Jenkins. Yes, the old place is drafty and hardly modern. They turned down the heat on the upper floors and hung a heavy curtain at the bottom of the open stairs to prevent heat from rising.
But taking some energy efficiency measures "would almost be an insult to the house," she explained. She knows of one wonderful old home where the owner has installed radiant heating and air conditioning. She said she can't bring herself to do that to the old Phelps Homestead.
Still, maintaining a house built in 1796 can be daunting. "There are endless repairs, nothing huge, just constant," Hirsch said. He has painted the exterior Colonial Red in the past few years. They have replaced some of the old wooden gutters with more modern ones.
A house tour begins in the keeping room where the wall to a small bedroom was removed to create an alcove that is a music room complete with grand piano and an impressive collection of CDs and LPs. Jenkins said music has always been important in her life and they installed a big sound system that pipes music to all the rooms and even outside where the speakers are hidden in rocks.
Also downstairs is the former dining room, now a cozy living room, and the front parlor where Jenkins displays several handmade antique planes they found in the shed. On the fireplace wall is a large array of family photos.
"We call this the Room of the Ancestors," Jenkins explained. There are photos of their parents and their grandparents, many of them immigrants from Germany and Russia.
Upstairs are four bedrooms and the bath the Stuarts installed. One front bedroom has a nursery alcove or dressing room over the front door. When Jenkins moved in there was no heat in that room, which she quickly remedied.
Another bedroom is furnished with some of the estate furniture including a lovely hand-painted bedstead and bureau. The final bedroom on the second floor was occupied by Stanley Bartlett, who became the house caretaker for Emma Stuart after her husband died. Bartlett took care of town grounds, the church and the cemetery and the blacksmith's shop, Jenkins said.
His bedroom has sprig wallpaper and more of the Victorian estate furniture Jenkins and her husband bought. Just as she knocked out a wall in the kitchen, so she did in this upstairs room, making a very large bedroom with nooks and crannies.
Throughout the house the Colonial atmosphere is enlivened with modern art. There are interesting paintings and posters on the walls and a collection of "Show Us Your Bra" sculptures is displayed. In the keeping room is "Constrainers," by Kathleen Casey, made of kitchen strainers. Upstairs are "The Empress's New Bra" by Heide Striddle, Alexandra Kelly's "If You only had a heart #" and Cyril Tessier's "Don't Touch," which looks like a porcupine.
The late-18th-century house is an architectural gem that is lovingly tended by a couple with eclectic interests and a deep regard for the history of the place and the people who once inhabited it.
Cheryl B. Wilson can be reached at valleygardenscomcast.net.
