|
Services for Real Estate Pros |
RAINER 5,048 |
| Thomas Bartolomeo | ||
| location_on Slate Hill, NY | ||
| insert_link http://633ridgeburyroad.com | ||
| web Thomas Bartolomeo's (gotomb) Blog | ||
About 6 years ago I worked with Mr. Thomas Bartolomeo, a client who was looking for ideas on what to do with his historic home. His plan was to continue the restoration process and eventually sell the property.
Located in Ridgebury, one of eight hamlets (including Slate Hill) in the town of Wawayanda, the home was originally purchased in 1981 and was in a sad state. Bartolomeo recounts this fact in a personal letter he set aside for the next home owner. "When the real estate agent drove me to the house I was at first dismayed. There was so much wild growth on the front lawn I could hardly see the house."
You would never know it, looking at it today, thanks in a large part to Craig Morrison, the architect whom Bartolomeo hired to carry out the restoration. Over time, through gradual restoration, this neglected house became a warm and comfortable living space while its rich historic heritage was preserved. Bartolomeo writes, "it proved to be the most important decision I made in restoring the house--marking the time my personal education in Colonial American history began, and I have been learning ever since."
Originally a typical one room settler's home c.1709 house over many generations was enlarged into 12 rooms preserving various architectural elements: Colonial, Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival and Italianate styles of the time. Today it is a fully restored durable 300 year old house built on ax-hewn oak posts, beams and hand sawed wide-plank oak & pine floor boards. The house sits on a hilly knoll, boasts a backyard apple orchard in full view of a nearby pond and distant mountain range. A pioneer settlement originally deeded to Palatine immigrants by Queen Ann of England the house includes a keeping/dining room with hearth & fireplace, modern kitchen, breakfast nook and new Jenn-Aire appliances, 22 foot long granite kitchen counter-top, federal & Victorian parlors, large Greek Revival center hall, office, large Victorian master bed & bathroom, three other Victorian bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 4 large walk-in closets, laundry room, second floor hallway and other valuables including two claw foot bathtubs, chandeliers, wall sconces and many other special features too numerous to list here. All only a 70 mile drive or metro train ride into Manhattan. Local stores and services are only minutes away in nearby Middletown, NY.
A Register of Historic Places, described by a knowledgeable architect "comparable to what one sees in the great mansions of 18th-century Virginia . . . a piece of theater . . . a story teller".