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By Beth S.Buxbaum
In simpler times, centuries ago, many homesteads began as a basic log cabin. As the family expanded, so did the homestead, building on and up to accommodate this growth. This is the story of Elaine and Dave Hughes’ old stone farmhouse, which sits on 19 acres of pristine land in Haycock Township.
This homestead started with a one-room log cabin that is believed to have been built in the mid to late 1700s. Dave and Elaine found records indicating that the first addition was in the 1840s adding a second first floor room to the original log cabin. For more than a century this modest log house remained a two-room structure. The second story was created in the 1940s adding bedrooms. In the 1950s an addition was constructed to add a dining room and another bedroom upstairs. A kitchen and family room were added in the early 1960s. Lastly, in the 1990s the owners added a new master bedroom suite. According to Elaine, these owners lived there since the 1960s and were the owners when they purchased the property.
Several factors exist that tell the story of what this homestead used to be. “We do believe that sometime in the 1840s this property used to be a saw mill,” Elaine adds. Dave points out that there is a manmade canal visible through the woods, that empties into a creek. The homestead sits just off of Saw Mill Road. There is a pond that is original to the property surmised to be a mill pond. An original 1800s bank barn, with four horse stalls, also sits on the property. In the barn there is a sign that reads Koder’s Saw Mill, but they are not sure of its significance to this property. Stone fencing is visible back in the woods that would indicate there was animal pasturing. The original springhouse is also still standing, as well as a guest house they believe was there for the mill workers. Dave and Elaine can only surmise from these details about this homestead’s history.
It is that history that was one factor that drew them to this property. “We are old house people,” says Elaine, “we love the character of old stone houses, particularly the old stonework and the history.” Dave explains that they don’t like cookie-cutter houses. “You can’t find character in any other kind of house,” he adds. Up until 2006 they were living in a charming old farmhouse in Birdsboro, Berks County. Dave and Elaine had just completed a major renovation on this property. “We worked with a contractor who specialized in renovating old stone houses,” she explains. Everything changed in 2006 when Elaine, who is in pharmaceuticals with Johnson & Johnson, found out that she had to relocate. With that news they started looking for their next home in Bucks and Montgomery Counties, both areas were good locations for her relocation. Aside from the old house requirement, they also wanted privacy, acreage and, if possible, a pond. “We must have looked at 65 houses,” says Dave, who owns Aaxis Wildlife and is in wildlife management. Nothing seemed to fit their requirements.
After an exhaustive and unsuccessful search, they were wondering if they would find the kind of house they wanted. “When our realtor told us about this house, he said we can’t see it because it was over our price range and he knew I would love it,” Elaine adds. They went during an open house, but it was cancelled because of rain. “We came back immediately and were just so excited about the house. The property had been empty and on the market for over a year, so the price had dropped and they were able to afford the homestead. “It was an enormous, beautiful property backing up against 2000 acres of woodland,” Elaine continues, “and I couldn’t hide my excitement.” It was a total package, an old farmhouse with privacy and a pond.
The prior owners had not done much since the 1990 master suite addition. “The house needed work,” says Elaine, “a lot of the rooms were dated, especially the 80s kitchen and bathrooms.” First they repainted the interior.
Aside from room renovations, there was one element in the entranceway that needed to be changed. Elaine describes that the prior owners installed a five-foot stone Koi pond surrounded by a brick floor in the entrance foyer.
“To remove the pond we poured twenty tons of concrete to fill in that space,” she adds. Once the pond was removed they upgraded the entranceway with a wood floor. Slowly Dave and Elaine began their upgrades and renovations to the bathrooms and the kitchen. They worked with Jeff Whitted of Aslan Interiors in Sellersville. A primary focus, when renovating an old home, is to design to fit the original structure and to try to incorporate the old features into the new design. One extra-added intrigue in working on centuries-old homes, is that you never know what you are going to find once you start tearing out and scraping.
This was the case in the Hughes’ kitchen, part of the 1960s addition. Renovating the kitchen space was a mix of reconfiguring the space and repurposing cabinets to fit into the new footprint. Originally an L-shape, this kitchen area had a lot of unused, wasted space. “We removed everything in the space, even the floors,” Jeff adds, “but were able to re-use sixty percent of the materials that were in this room.” The floors were replaced with a hand-scraped oak. Jeff explains how they tore out the L-shape and replaced that with a center island, in cherry, with a sink and counter seating. On the wall that houses the oven, Jeff began to chip away at the plaster walls. What he exposed was one wall of the original log cabin. Elaine was so excited, she wanted to leave it exposed and incorporate the log cabin wall into the renovation design.
Exposing the log cabin wall required Jeff to rearrange the design plan. “We re-chinked and refinished the logs to restore the exposed wall,” Jeff continues. A commercial stove was the focal point on that exposed log cabin wall, surrounded by a counter in soapstone and an arrangement of painted cabinets. Jeff added a custom Moravian tile design as a backsplash to the wall above the stone, with tones complementing the color of the cabinetry. Ceiling beams were added from an old house in Harleysville that was being torn down. “We salvaged the beams, took them to the mill and had them cut in half and installed them in the ceiling,” Jeff adds. A finishing touch was the addition of a fireplace flanked by custom built-ins for storage and display.
The fireplace was also designed with a custom Moravian tile surround. Ultimately the goal was to upgrade and make better use of the space, which was accomplished.
Upgrading and enhancing the space was also the challenge in the guest and master baths. Part of the expansive master suite, added in 1990, was a massive walk-in closet. In order to renovate the master bath, Jeff had to take some space from that closet, because the bathroom space was limiting for what Elaine wanted in the renovation. Even with that, Jeff explains that he was still working with a very tight space to add a glass enclosed shower, soaking tub and double vanities. “We gutted this space and redesigned it and worked to make everything fit,” he continues. With the hall or guest bathroom, they also gutted the space. Leaving the exposed original stone wall as an accent, Jeff and his crew repainted the cabinets white and added black hardware and hammered copper sinks. Jeff designed a counter top from oak flooring from a building in New York City. To the left of the double sinks is a privacy wall enclosing the toilet, that Jeff designed with slate. A Japanese soaking tub and shower are the main attraction in this space. A small pebble floor in earth tones accents the floor and complimentary earth-toned stone walls completed this space. One other space Jeff upgraded in 2014 was the screened-in porch that extended from the back deck out into the woods. Elaine explains that this extension had a canvas roof and open sides. Jeff refurbished this extended deck area, adding a roof and upgrading the side walls.
With all the major renovations completed Elaine and Dave had now upgraded and updated the areas in the living space. But there was one more project that Dave wanted to do. Dave had visions of a man cave in the basement, and not just any man cave, but a Yankees man cave. At the end of 2017, they commissioned Matt White a contractor and friend of theirs, to create this space. With vision and craftsmanship, he built a beautiful bar with seating for four. Next, a theater seating area was added with comfy recliners, to watch all the sports anyone could desire on the sixty-inch projection screen. Surrounding the screen is a replication of Yankee stadium. Here is where the true artistry comes in to play. Matt’s handiwork designed the walls of the stadium with wood cutouts. Accenting this space is a collection of Yankees memorabilia Dave has collected over the years.
Elaine is also a collector. Her expansive collection of tea pots, some of which she received from her grandmother, are on display atop a ceiling shelf in the dining room. Her grandmother also gave her a collection of cups and saucers to enhance her already growing collection. Enhancing many walls is her collection of amateur art, many of which are landscapes that she has found out and about in antique stores and flea markets in the area. Their home is also filled with an array of family heirlooms. “This house is twice as large as our last home,” Elaine explains. They were able to fill their living space with additional pieces from their grandmothers and great grandmothers. To fill in where needed, Elaine likes buying antiques, one of her favorite past times. Not only do they enjoy old houses, but they have a respect for things from the past, something indicative of the repurposing and reusing of materials, and even exposing original elements, during their renovations.
Appreciating the past by how you live in the present is a value Elaine and Dave share. Living in historic homes, surrounding themselves with the history of this homestead and their families’ past is what they enjoy. Now that the winter thaw is upon us, they are enjoying their centuries old home inside and out. As they sit on the enclosed porch, high atop the landscape, they look out over the wide expanse of nature and know that hundreds of years ago this was someone else’s pasture or saw mill. Now it is their home to enjoy.
Beth S. Buxbaum is a freelance writer from the Philadelphia area.