Hester Bradford's House

I continued to collect antique dollhouse furniture all of my working life.  I traveled a lot driving Geo Metro's, saving the travel and gas per diem for spending at antique stores.  I started to buy on ebay, and discovered that the person I bought from the most lived one town over from me-Ann Meehan.  Man, that got expensive!  But we pal'd around some, and she got to know what I liked, and I got to know lots of dealers.  

Sometime later Ann and Sue Singer split a house worth of furniture and asked if I wanted the house.  By then I had about 10 old houses, and had just gotten a Hacker.  This new house was going to be big and I wasn't sure.  My husband, bless his heart said 'We can always find room for another house'... so off I went to see the large glass fronted house.  Imagine my surprise when Sue handed me a little pile of papers and a letter:




The Bradford House!!!


Ok, so, meant to be!  My first thought was 'I can have a Bradford house of my own!  Yes, yes, yes!!!' Of course, I would need to strip it down and decide what rooms I would recreate.  The attic and first floor would be pretty easy to decide, but not so the second floor.

There were also photos with the house, showing how it looked in 1905 when it was new.  The more I poured over those photos, the sadder I felt.  Indeed, one photo was of a late middle aged woman with a note that said, 'So Sarah will know what I looked like when she gets the house.'   Okay.... since the photos showed the inside in 1905, it was relatively easy to fill it back up with what it had in the beginning.





The house in 1977

Where it sits now makes it hard to photograph, here's a shot of the Parlor, as close to the photograph as I could get.  




I can't afford ormolu chandeliers, so the house got antique beaded ones instead.

So I came away with a Bradford house, just not The Bradford House- but the seed was planted..


ETA:  Here is a photo of my daughter and grandson at the Bradford house today, taking photos and videos for me-  Is it huge or what?



Comments

  1. Great photo and a great project!

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  2. Oh my gosh, envy is not an emotion I feel often, if ever, but to have an antique house with pix of how it originally looked, with a story by the original owner was beyond anything I could EVER hope to find (or afford if I did find it!). That is incredible! Thanks so much for sharing!!!!

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Thanks for taking the time to tell me what you are thinking about The House- I read all the posts, and need lots of helpful encouragement from all!

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