Every new owner of an old house asks the question “I wonder if we will find some sort of treasure hidden in the walls?” We were no different. We found all sorts of loose floor boards, always cut in sets of three, with seemingly random numbers painted on them. I found the first set after pulling up the flooring in one of the bedrooms above the kitchen, up the back staircase. I called Randy to open it with me, thinking if we found a bag of money, we could celebrate together. Ha! Wishful thinking. Alas, what we found were simply cut boards to provide room for the electrical wires for ceiling lights below. Sorry to disappoint.
So with our demolition over (or so we thought), the cleanup began. With excitement we arrived each day, with good intentions, and stayed on task, for the most part. We started washing walls, windows and floors, and began the arduous task of removing wallpaper in the few places it remained. We had been avoiding one room upstairs for a number of reasons, one of which included the fact that it had multiple layers of wallpaper that had been well glued beneath the top layer of wallpaper we had already removed. Randy perfected the art of wallpaper removal using spray bottles filled with a store bought remover, one in each hand. He imagined himself a double fisted gunfighter in a shootout in the wild west to entertain himself during what seemed to be an endless and monotonous task. He wet down the walls and then S-C-R-A-P-E-D the paper away. Happily he showed me how to, and so it went for days, as our wrists and hands ached so badly, we would have to stop. For anyone who has done the same, you have my sympathy. One weekday, when he was at the house alone, he began on an interior wall in the same room. As he scraped, he hit a section of the wall about two feet from the corner, that felt a bit soft. He wondered why, and before he could finish the thought… “What will Lori think if I tear this open?”, he was carefully prying open a spot in the wall to see what was beneath. What he found was a vertical line of sheet rock at the end of the wood lathe and plaster and two original vertical hemlock beams side by side. “A DOORWAY!” It was sheet rock that had been soft beneath the scraper, and as he followed the line upward, what he found was not just a doorway, but an arch. A beautiful archway, between two rooms that had once been a bedroom suite, complete with one of the home’s fireplaces.
We had wanted the larger of the two to be our master bedroom, as it had a beautiful archway over the windows that mirrored the arch we uncovered beneath the drop ceiling in the dining room. So, there it was, a hidden archway, and two bedrooms instantly became one beautiful suite. It did not take him long to break down the wall, deconstruct the framing that filled the space and release the house from what had closed it off for so many years. As he stood in the newly revealed archway, a gust of wind came rushing through the windows from below the original arch, swirled around him and then raced out the front window and was gone. It was a powerful moment, a clearing of sorts, and the house was free again.
As if that was not enough… downstairs, just off the entryway, was another room with a fireplace. This room had been renovated by prior owners at some point, and it was our intention to tear down the chair rail and paneling below. The walls were flimsy and we knew we would eventually need to gut this room, along with the bathroom next door. Randy began tearing out the paneling, starting at the door and worked his way around the room. Once again, part way across the interior wall, he came to a point where the wood lathe ended, and again found the bones of a framed up opening. With the knowledge of what might lie beneath, he tore at it with the enthusiasm of the Karate Kid. This doorway was wider than the one upstairs, and after all was said and done, what he uncovered was the frame of an old pocket doorway. The room now opened up into the old bathroom/laundry/pantry room.
I like to imagine the house when it was built, before indoor plumbing, and wonder about these rooms. This first floor suite, off the front foyer, may have served J. Howard in his business dealings and entertaining. I imagine it was his office suite, with the pocket doors opening to an inner sanctum of sorts, complete with a sprawling and stately desk. There he would work and hold all sorts of business meetings by day. At night, the doors might be shut, creating an outer room housing the home’s library, with books lining the walls, coal burning in the fireplace to warm the room, and comfortable chairs waiting for guests after dinner. The rear door which enters off the kitchen would have probably been used by the servants to enter and exit inconspicuously.
When we were cleaning the woodwork and specifically the many beautiful old wooden doors, we noticed numbers mounted to many of them. When we bought the house, there were six bedrooms. Eight rooms in all had numbers, including the two downstairs rooms just mentioned. It is our understanding that at some point in the home’s history, one of the owners used it as a boarding house. This explains why someone would have done these renovations, in order to maximize use of the space, making four rooms out of two. Although we also hope to welcome guests, we want to return the home to its original grandeur (minus the wallpaper). So, it was not bags of gold coin, or stacks of money hidden in the walls, but we found our own kind of treasure. J. Howard Beach, we like your style!
J. Howard Beach House 