House building journal - Part 1

The house we are about to build will be our third and most probably, our last. Shortly before our marriage in 1971 we purchased a 3 acre, brook-side property with a shell of an old tenement house in Morristown, for $5,000. The stories from that adventure are fading so with that in mind I shall document this process as we go along.

We are definitely older and, I hope, wiser but I expect that there will be plenty of stories to tell. That first house tested our endurance and physical strength to the limit, we thought at the time. The only running water was in the brook and there was a shed with a toilet connected to a pipe that ran to who-knows-where? For more than half a year we lived in a school bus parked on the lawn while we tore the house apart. It was cold for the first couple of months but as spring turned to summer, bathing in the brook became preferable to the bucket. Only when you are in your twenties and newly-wed was this considered an adventure by some. For us it was a necessity.

Now in our sixties, not as physically strong but with just as much endurance, it seems, we have chosen to repeat the experience and this time we do consider it to be an adventure. More about that later.

While our house languished on the market, we continued to make small improvements and to have it always 'showing ready'. We made frequent trips to the new property to stake out the house site and to select a place for the barn. As I mentioned earlier, the site is all ledge with dramatic peaks and deep gullies. The leach field had been installed early on and Frits had cleared many trees giving us firewood for years to come. Now a flat area had to be created for the house.

First we needed vast quantities of fill so that the gulley could be broached and the machinery brought in.

'Rockaway' arrived on scene with dynamite and huge rubber mats to blast the ledge away and within just a few hours we had a pile of rocks so big we could have created Stonehenge 2.

Some of the boulders were as large as Volkswagens while others were flat and could form a patio single-handedly. Some we were going to need but most would have to be trucked out. Deciding which should stay and which should go was more difficult than one might think.

Lily particularly liked this one.

Frits enjoys building walls especially when machinery is involved. He directed the careful placement of each stone to form a retaining wall for the parking area.

We loved being on the land but knew we must be patient. We could pick away slowly but had to stay within our means until the right buyer came along for our Stowe house. It was still going to be a while.