Whitten House

12/25/2023

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! ~ from our house to yours.

10/02/2021

This month's free online puzzle for the Transferware Collectors Club features Whitten House china! Have fun :)

Puzzle of the Month: Transferware patterns owned by the 19th century Whitten family in Topsham, Maine and collected by the current owner of the Whitten House. Here is the link to the TCC Website Puzzle Page:

https://www.transferwarecollectorsclub.org/news-information/puzzle-of-the-month

The patterns at Whitten House include dinnerware in the “English Cities” pattern by Enoch Wood & Sons (active 1818-1846) and teawares in the “Milkmaid” pattern by Thomas Rathbone & Co. (active 1810-1845). The maker of the child’s teaware set is unidentified. Such a set is listed in a Whitten family member’s estate inventory, as is the gold band ironstone tea set and the soft paste deer ornament. The Wood and Rathbone patterns were identified from shards buried on the property. The pieces are displayed in a stepback cupboard in the house’s restored 1827 kitchen.

07/24/2021

One of Whitten House's special features, the spiral front stair with hand-block printed French wallpaper hung in 1852.

Impossible to reproduce under current codes.

This is the front stair in Whitten House, added when the 1827 Cape had a second story and finished attic added around 1850. The large center chimney left little room for a staircase, but the builder managed to create this amazing swirl of a spiral stair in the available space. The hand block-printed Gothic Revival wallpaper, made in France, was installed in 1852.

While perfectly functional (it's been in use for 169 years), this stair doesn't come close to meeting current code requirements and could not be built today.

Chapter 5 of Restoring Your Historic House, The Comprehensive Guide for Homeowners is titled "Bureaucrats You'll Meet." Building Permits, Historic Preservation Certificates, utility company requirements, etc. are explored and explained. Half the battle is knowing what to expect and being well prepared.

A tip from the book... avoid tearing out anything that can't be rebuilt under current code. Find a way to repair it, not replace it, and it is unlikely you will have to bring it up to code for residential use.

Want more tips? "Restoring Your Historic House, The Comprehensive Guide for Homeowners" is filled with tips to make restoring houses easier.

The 720-page award-winning hardcover book now available in bookstores and from online retailers.

Signed and personalized copies are available directly from the author at YourHistoricHouse.com or in the shop on this page.

Please share this post and follow Restoring Your Historic House for old house images, information, and inspiration!

03/02/2021

This week's free online puzzle from Restoring Your Historic House is the Whitten House chimney cupboard!

This Week's Historic House Puzzle!

Click here to go to the free online puzzle:
https://yourhistorichouse.com/historic-house-puzzles.../

Whitten House chimney cupboard.

Recreating missing historic features is often part of restoring a house. This chimney cupboard (and the fireplace, brick oven, mantel, and much of the associated trim) had been removed decades before Whitten House was restored. Careful investigation indicated that there was sufficient physical and documentary information available to accurately reconstruct the missing elements.

Taking it to another level, the Podmore-Walker & Co. "Venus" Staffordshire transferware pattern, green and blue edged wares, and Reed and Barton pewter teapot all match items documented to have been in the house in the 19th century.

The restoration of this room is described and shown in detail as an example project in "Restoring Your Historic House, The Comprehensive Guide for Homeowners." The identification of historic china patterns used in Whitten House is described in my book, "Cleaning Historic Staffordshire Transferware." Signed and personalized copies of both books are available directly from me at YourHistoricHouse.com and in the shop on this page.

"Restoring Your Historic House" is available in bookstores nationwide and from online retailers.

Bookstores can order it from W.W. Norton.

01/29/2021

Whitten House made the New York Times today in an article by Christina Poletto! It is in 8 of the 24 photos in the slideshow(photos by Stacey Cramp) . The article also includes a nice mention of my book and the book appears on the coffee table in photo 12 of the slideshow, which is in a house in CT.

Instagram and fans of painstaking renovations have given new life to homes with some history, especially if they’re affordable.

12/26/2020

18 years ago today...

Whitten House, December 26, 2002.

Eighteen years ago today I saw Whitten House for the first time, and knew within minutes it was the house I'd dreamed of owning and restoring since I was a little kid.

After two generations as the Whitten family home, it became the local public library in 1941. The library remained in the house for 60 years, moving 20,000 books to a new facility in 2001.

Inside, the rooms were still lined with bookcases, right over the windows; the floors were covered in gray commercial carpet; and fluorescent lights throughout and 1960s wallpaper in a few rooms gave parts of the house an incongruous Mod-ish vibe. There was no kitchen and only a half-bath tucked into the former location of the brick oven.

What I mostly saw were intact Federal and Greek Revival trim details with maybe two coats of paint in 180 years - their profiles as crisp and clean as when new; intact Gothic Revival wallpaper from the 1850s in the spiral stair hall; and an intact historic neighborhood. I had to have it.

Buying Whitten House was an important step toward eventually writing "Restoring Your Historic House, The Comprehensive Guide for Homeowners."

The 720 page award-winning and best-selling hardcover book is available in bookstores and from online retailers.

Signed and personalized copies are available directly from the author at YourHistoricHouse.com or in the shop on this page.

Your local bookstore can order copies from W.W. Norton.

Feel free to share this post and follow Restoring Your Historic House for more old house images, information, and inspiration!

12/25/2020

Wishing you all a day of peace and joy ~ from our historic house to yours.