The new owners of a beautiful Chestnut Street townhouse, part of the street’s only triple house which also happens to be its tallest structure, very kindly allowed me to come in and take some pictures of their restoration process, which has begun in earnest. I’m so grateful, because this was the perfect time: the bones of the house were exposed in all of their beauty–and strength. Even with ceilings torn out and dust everywhere, the building still looked elegant–and solid–from top to bottom (well maybe the basement isn’t beautiful, but it sure is interesting, as you can see below). This is a very notable house not only because it is a “triplet”, but also because it was home to three Salem mayors, including the Reverend Charles Wentworth Upham, who was also President of the Massachusetts Senate, a U.S. representative, and author of Salem Witchcraft; with an account of Salem Village, a history of opinions on witchcraft and kindred subjects (1867). The entire house was commissioned by Salem shipowner Pickering Dodge, who lived next door, in 1828, ostensibly for several of his five daughters. A son-in-law, John Fiske Allen, oversaw the completion of the project after Dodge’s death in 1833 and his widow lived in the westernmost townhouse—our townhouse–until her death in 1851, followed by all those mayors in the nineteenth century and one of Salem’s most prominent preservationists in the twentieth. The restoration philosophy is conservative: reveal and burnish what is already there, and alter the systems and utilitarian rooms of the house (kitchen and bathrooms) so that they can “be useful to the daily lives of today” in the words of project architect Helen Sides: “Kitchens are no longer for servants and it’s nice not to share the bathroom if there are spaces to put new ones! It is the responsible thing to update these houses so that they can stand for another 200 years”.
Looking up Chestnut Street towards the triple house, 1916 (Frank Cousins) and 2016.
Entrance hall and front and back stairs. This house has a lovely scale and great light (even though it has a firewall on one side) because it is two rooms deep–so you have windows both in the front and the back. Because it also has both front and back stairs I imagine it has great flow too…and the basement is a virtual museum.
Original basement kitchen, coal bin, and pantry with “slatted cupboards”—I’m not sure that’s what they are called, but I have the EXACT same ones in my house, built roughly at the same time (on the left with reindeer, swan, and pinecones: this is my seasonal decoration room). Back upstairs…..
Bedrooms on the second, third, and fourth floors. The windows have their own dedicated restorer, Window Woman of New England, who have developed quite a reputation here in Salem. A very conspicuous aspect of this house is its built-in cupboards, cases, cabinets and closets–very evident in the second-floor study but also all throughout the house.
A collage of cupboards between the bookcases of the second floor study and the first floor butler’s pantry (?) cabinets, which are PERFECT. I always notice COLOR in older houses—tones you don’t normally see–but in this house (in this state) it was really more about the color of wood, briefly exposed before new ceilings are installed.
Love the red stairway (down to the basement) and green doors…various exposed ceilings…Tim of Peter Strout Construction building a new bathroom in this old house……out back: another house!
Set in the midst of the long garden out back is a carriage house (according to Bryant Tolles’ Architecture in Salem) which was converted to a residence c. 1912 utilizing materials from the demolished Chase house at 21 Federal Street. Obviously there was a deep appreciation for Salem craftsmanship then, which is very much in evidence here and now.
