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Randl Bye
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Randl Bye
by Beth S. Buxbaum
Annette Kelley grew up in Bucks County. And she says, “I always thought that someday I would return.” She moved away from the county in 1993 to work with a specialty chemical company. Her career took her to Manhattan, and there she met Vince Roux. A Buffalo native, Vince also worked in Manhattan as the global head of corporate development for Broadridge Financial Solutions, a financial technology company based in New York. They started dating and on their first date in 2002, Annette talked about Bucks County. Vince sensed then that Annette planned to return to her childhood home.
In 2003 they were married in Bucks County, surrounded by friends and family. They built their lives together in Westfield, NJ where they had twin boys. In Westfield they bought a turn-of-the-century Victorian. “We were both drawn to older homes,” Annette adds. Since they both loved Bucks County, they would take weekend getaways to their favorite Bucks County spots. Twelve years passed and Annette’s yearning for Bucks county did not subside. On one weekend getaway they looked at a few old stone farmhouses. Annette says, “I knew we were not going to buy anything anytime soon but hoped that someday we could buy and refurbish an historic home.”
During a getaway over St. Patrick’s weekend in 2018, Annette suggested that they take a look at some more properties. That started a series of searches during the course of a few weeks in 2018. “We looked at 5 farmhouses and this 300-year-old homestead was the fifth one,” she continues. “It was a huge property, with several outbuildings including a pool house and barn. “It was a little overwhelming,” Annette explains, “We couldn’t even process it.” They went to lunch and came back for a second look. On the second viewing they were considering the possibilities, as well as the drawbacks. The property was vacant for over a year, but there was someone tending to the homestead. “It needed a lot of work, mostly updating,” Annette adds. They put in an offer and negotiations followed.
Settlement was June 1, 2018 and they moved in Christmas of 2019. For Annette this was actually a dream come true. “I love the history of historic homes and grew up driving around looking at these old homes,” she reminisces. Now she and Vince own a parcel of Bucks County history. The tract of land they purchased was a total of 11 acres. Soon after they took possession of the property they bought another 58 acres from an adjoining property and placed it under a
conservation easement. There is a tenant farmer who grows corn on some of the land. Aside from that crop farming the land is just rolling hills and tall trees, providing unobstructed bucolic views. Certainly the landscape was one of the deciding factors in their decision to purchase the property.
As overwhelming as the property was in expanse with all of its outbuildings, they were relieved that the structural assets were sound, with the main house basically needing some updating. “We hired Chris Corey, of Corey-Built in Doylestown, to manage the restoration. During the winter of 2018-19 Chris worked with local architect, Brett Hand, to renovate and restore the property. “I work well with Brett Hand and knew that historic architecture is his forte,” Chris adds, “so Brett would have valuable input for the flow and blending.” One of the earliest projects was to restore the two apartments in the original 1728 structure, believed to have been created in the 1980s. Chris worked on that apartment to make it more livable. On Labor Day 2018, the family moved into the lower barn apartment. “Imagine a family of four and two dogs in a tiny one bedroom apartment with no oven for 15 months,” Annette says. But they were relieved that they had a place to stay during the renovation.
“The house, not lived in for almost two years, received a fitting renovation to all rooms, new windows and doors, period correct paint, millwork and hardware,” explains Chris. With an historic property, Chris describes the challenge is to stay with the original period of the architecture while modernizing. “In replacing all the windows we used the Marvin Windows Historical Series to stay authentic to the house’s earliest elements,” he describes. In repainting all the rooms, Chris and Annette selected the Benjamin Moore historical colors. For the structural renovations, Chris points out that they used materials salvaged from the property or recreated to perfectly match existing details. “We even searched for period-correct hardware and plumbing,” he adds. For Chris it is all about authenticity and staying with the period architecture of the original structure that is an important factor in a restoration. He says, “The challenge in any restoration is to bring the project to current standards while still fitting into the period of the space,” With his meticulous attention to maintaining the accuracy of the period, the house restoration was underway.
A renovation of the main bedroom and bath, part of the original 1731 structure, entailed a gutting and redesign. The bedroom was expanded from two separate rooms into one spacious room. Chris says, “We removed the plaster ceiling and exposed the original wood beams and ceiling joints and added a beaded tongue and groove ceiling,” He explains how this opened up the space and was now a period-correct room with the exposed beams. For the bathroom redesign, everything was replaced including new tile floors, a new vanity, shower and counter tops. Chris reconstructed the ceiling with a hemlock tongue and groove style that was stained and varnished. The walls were done in a nickel-gap style, similar to ship lap. All the baseboards and trim were painted an authentic color of the original period.
In 2019 an addition to add a new kitchen and sunroom focused again in blending and complimenting of old and new. With extended family living on the property and Annette’s love of cooking, they decided that a new kitchen was a necessity. “The kitchen was very under-designed to serve the size of the house,” adds Chris. Extending out the footprint from the 1990s addition, that was the original kitchen, Chris and Brett designed an 800-square-foot addition with an expansive kitchen, a three-season sunroom, French style casement windows, and wet-laid bluestone flooring. To redesign the space where the old kitchen resided, they added a wall of custom cabinetry with a fireplace. This space was transformed into a cozy seating area that flows seamlessly into the new kitchen.
“We needed to stay as accurate to the house’s original period as possible within the confines of modern living,” Chris explains. To accomplish this they constructed a high ceiling and a bank of windows, from the Marvin Windows historical series, accented the two exterior walls. A set of French doors to the sunroom also added light. “We worked with Village Handcrafters to build all the custom cabinetry and center island,” Chris continues. Customizing allowed them to have everything designed to fit into the space and the period. Along with the customizing was the opportunity to select paint colors for the cabinetry from the Benjamin Moore historical colors.
Unique accents included a brick tile backsplash and ceiling wood beams from an architectural salvage company. The center island was finished with a black walnut top, sitting atop a random with white oak floor. Adding to the detail and authenticity was a mill shop they set up on the property. “We were able to mill the lumber for the interior trim to match, as best as we could, to what was already in the home,” Chris explains, “and be as close to historically accurate as we could.” This approach continued with the completion of the addition with a three-season sunroom. This space was designed with a traditional masonry wood-burning fireplace, French windows without a crank to open, and a blue flagstone floor that was extended out to the new patio, to create a continuous flow. With the addition completed, the restored farmhouse was ready for its newest owners.
So, after one-and-a-half years of crews working on the house, on December 6th, 2019, Annette, Vince and the twins moved in to their restored, centuries-old farmhouse; and Vince’s dad moved into the lower barn apartment. Corey-Built won the 2021 Regional CotY Award (Contractor of the Year Award, presented by the National Association of the Remodeling Industry) for the restoration of this property and the addition. Chris remarks that ‘it was a stunning restoration of a prominent piece of American pre-revolutionary war history.” With just a few weeks to prepare for the holidays, they were excited to celebrate Christmas in their newly restored home with family and friends.
“This property has a really interesting history,” Vince notes, “and that is one of the things we love about it.” Discovering the history of their 300-year-old home has allowed them to truly appreciate it. Built in 1731, the property includes a stone house, stone bank barn, stone spring house, root cellar, as well as several other accessory buildings. Historic documents, prepared by Jeff Marshall of the Heritage Conservancy in 1996, state that the house is a multi-sectioned residence constructed in three major phases. Documentation notes that the first addition was constructed in the 1760s, adding a dining room and a staircase to the second floor.
Outbuildings were added over the years to satisfy the needs of the owners/residents. Several date stones include two on the barn, one of 1728 on the foundation and a date of 1810 in the gable. A separate stone structure sits to the left of the farmhouse. It is believed that this structure was a mill house in the early 19th century. Sometime during its history, the stone building was converted to a separate apartment. A spring house sits just beyond the main house dating back to the 1730s. All of these outbuildings still exist on the property today. With this glimpse into the make-up of the property, the historic accountings also present a history of ownership and residency. Throughout the years the homestead was occupied, the property had many uses, including a grist mill and raising silk worms and the production of silk, which introduced the addition of mulberry trees grown as food for the imported silkworms.
Accounts indicate that the homestead was known for years as the Edmund Kinsey House. The Kinseys were not the original purchasers of the land. The original purchase from William Penn was made in 1681 in England by George Jackman. Records state that Jackman bought the right to 500 acres to be laid out in Pennsylvania. In 1683 Jackman sold the “land” to James Streator. Streator gave some of the land to the Falls Friends Meeting in 1705 which consisted of ten acres. Except for that ten acres, the entire property was held by Streator until 1714 when it was deeded to Edmund Kinsey. Records note that “on the north elevation of the central section is a date stone that includes the initials E x K x SK 1731. These initials correspond with the owners of the property at this time, Edmund Kinsey and his wife, Sarah. A notable historic fact, gleaned from an article in the Bucks County Historical Society, is that Edmund Kinsey was of the knighted Kinsey family of England. Additionally, Kinsey was one of the founders of the Buckingham Friends Meeting in 1720, as well as a leader in the secular community.
Over the years, Kinsey sold off parcels of the land to his sons. Accounts show that he kept the parcel of land on which the house sits until his death in 1759. Several owners followed after the Kinsey family sold off all the land, beginning in 1787 when Ben Kinsey sold acreage to Benjamin Williams, who owned the homestead for 40 years. The property was sold to Robert Ash in 1855 and stayed in the Ash family until four tracts of 59 acres were sold to C. Howard Cope. In 1918, he sold the 59 acres to Ellen Rand who sold the entire property to her son, Henry Asbury Rand in 1932, who then sold the acreage back to his parents.
The Rand family, of Rand McNally Map, named the property Shadow Brook Farm. There is a date stone on an addition dating 1921, added by the Rand Family, which constructed a maid’s quarters, mud room and kitchen. Interesting to note was that Henry Rand was an impressionist painter and was involved in the New Hope Impressionists. Annette and Vince actually have an original Henry Rand dated 1927. David and Jo Ann Bescherer bought the homestead in 1993. They had an addition built adding a breakfast room, a library/office and a breezeway to connect the stone structure, the old mill house on the far right of the main house. They also did a complete renovation of the stone building that, at some point, was fashioned into two apartments. After three centuries filled with a long list of owners, residents and uses, this homestead is now in the hands of Annette and Vince.
For more information about Chris Corey and Corey-Built visit www.corey-built.com.
Beth S. Buxbaum is a freelance writer from the Philadelphia area.