Making New History
Builder C.H. Newton and architect Paul Weber collaborate on a historic home with a bright future.
By
In this 100-year-old home, a respect for the past is embraced throughout, including the wicker furniture in this room that dates back to the 1930s and the original owners.
Chris White | Photography by Michael J. Lee | Styling by Karin Lidbeck-Brent
Long before Woods Hole became a haven for oceanography, scientists, vacationers and tourists, it was a whaling and factory town. An active whaling hub in the 1800s, Woods Hole was home to nine working ships at its peak. When the era of whaling faded, the industry and the village pivoted. A group of ship-owners formed the Pacific Guano Factory and in 1863 they built a factory on the shores of Great Harbor, producing fertilizer from bird droppings. When the factory went bankrupt in 1889, a local developer, Horace Crowell of Newton Massachusetts, reimagined the area as a summer community. He bought the guano factory and the surrounding land, a narrow, mile long peninsula surrounded by a protected harbor on one side and open ocean on the other. According to the Woods Hole Museum, Crowell built a road down the middle of the peninsula and began selling large waterfront-front lots, eventually transforming the area into a neighborhood of beautiful estates with stunning gardens.
At the turn of the century, a large barn near the end of the road housed workers and artisans building a new estate. That barn, known as “The Lodge” was later dismantled and converted into three homes on nearby lots. In 1929, one of these sections become a singlefamily residence called “The Pond House,” named after the half-acre pond on the property. This home would miraculously weather all the major hurricanes of the 20th century, but it sat in a low valley between the ocean and the harbor, putting its future at risk.
The Pond House has been in the current owner’s family since 1983 when her parents purchased it from the first owners. The cast iron radiators had not worked for decades, the house still retained its original bathrooms with pull-chain toilets and clawfoot tubs, and the kitchen stove required matches to light. Solid wood beadboard lined the walls and ceilings downstairs, but the second-floor bedroom walls were covered in brown Homasote panels, a highly flammable wood and paper pulp product commonly used in the 1920s. A 1980s renovation updated the bathrooms, kitchen, and bedrooms, but the house remained an unheated summer house for decades. The family closed the house every fall, draining the water from the pipes and covering the furniture with sheets until the warm weather returned in spring.
The current owners wanted to update the house and raise the house above the flood plain, but they were intent on preserving it. David Newton of C.H. Newton Builders explains, “The intention of this project was to preserve the history of the house and enhance it.” Architect Paul Weber set to work on four major goals: to design around preserving the main structure of the house; to completely reimagine the entryway; to renovate and modernize the kitchen; and to recreate and improve the garage and sunroom on each end while maintaining the gambrel roofs and shingle style characteristics. Weber says, “The house proper stayed about the same, but we rebuilt the wings to accommodate the new garage on one side with the new kitchen above it and bedrooms above that; then on the other side we rebuilt the sunroom with the master bath above.”
The design process for renovating the Pond House began, David Newton says, because, “It had been boarded up so many times that the windows had started to fail, so it was time to modernize this house, rich with legacy and history. The owners interviewed multiple architects who wanted to tear it down and build new, but they had a treasure that no one else had, and they wanted to keep it that way. Decades of family events, summer memories, weddings, all embedded into the home that was worth saving.
David Newton introduced the owner to Paul Weber, who advocated for saving the original structure. Newton explains that one early hurdle was complying
with local building codes that restricted the height of homes; “They wanted to save the original structure but raising it nine feet to comply with FEMA flood regulations resulted in the roofline exceeding the town’s height limit by several feet.” Fortunately, the town also saw the value in the turn-of-the-century home, so a variance was ultimately granted.
This was not the first project C.H. Newton and Paul Weber had undertaken together, so they already had an affinity for collaborating. Weber says, “We worked very closely with the owners, and they were great. She gave us a lot of guidance regarding the kitchen and the upper spaces of the first-floor rooms—that were now at an elevation 14 feet above sea level—so we ended up with spectacular views of both sides of the road into the harbor and out to Buzzards Bay. The original kitchen was right at the street side of the house, and we took that all out when we made a new entryway. Then the new kitchen blossomed in a much larger capacity.” Newton reports that the owners shared this appreciation. “Paul was amazing,” says the owner. “We loved working with him—he has zero ego despite his incredible talent.” Newton adds, “The owner was very involved, and she knew how they lived in the house, what needed to be preserved, and what needed to change. Paul was collaborative, allowing her the freedom to work closely with one of his firms’ associates to design the kitchen’s details and layout. Originally tucked low, it is now one of the biggest rooms of the house and has double water views with sun pouring in.
The renovation of the Pond House was a successful collaboration among the owners, builders, architect, and other specialists. The homeowner shares, “I want to give a lot of credit to landscape designer Dan Solien and to Matt Inman, of Inman Tree & Landscape who placed every stone to make the five-foot retaining wall look as old and weathered as possible.” Lauren Leveque helped the owners design all the beds, plantings and flowers on the property, making her a great asset to the team as well.
In the rebuilding process, the Pond House moved fifteen feet closer to the road, and Newton explains, “The stone patio in the back is five feet high, and its edge was the location of the original foundation of the home. The rock walls supporting it and running the entire length of the house are over a foot thick—so it’s a breakwater. If waves rush in, they hit that stone wall.” This attention to detail and safety is not merely aesthetic or preventative, it’s also a response to historical events, as the home had flooded on at least two occasions.
Newton says, “When the infamous storm of 1938 hit the point, four feet of water flooded the house. At the that time, Cape artist Ralph Cahoon was a young man, and they hired him to paint a waterline of blue waves at the four-foot mark around the dining room.” Decades later, during the approach of Hurricane Bob, the family used Cahoon’s painting for practical purposes. They moved everything of value, and the owner recalls her mother shouting, “Move everything above the waterline!” Newton says, “This is still there and original. When they renovated, they restored the dining room to preserve this fantastic piece of history.”
Chris White is a freelance writer for Cape Cod Life Publications.
There’s a reason why TrimBoard pergolas can be found everywhere from New England to the Caribbean.
There’s a reason why TrimBoard pergolas can be found everywhere from Cape Cod to the Caribbean.
TrimBoard custom-manufactures traditional pergolas for all spaces and is a dealer for louvered roof smart pergolas, with operational louvers that adjust for wind, sun, and rain protection.
Whatever your needs, TrimBoard has you covered, rain or shine.
The home’s dining room still boasts the waterline Ralph Cahoon painted to recognize the 1938 hurricane.