Trustworth Studios’ Sconehenge

By David Berman

This lovely and remarkable house was not my first love. I had spent 12 years leasing and restoring Trustworth, the late Victorian-era home of educator Henry Turner Bailey. I had a gentlewoman’s agreement with the gracious lady who owned it: the right to purchase at an agreed price in exchange for my years of unpaid labor. In 1994, her children informed me that the house would go to market and I would be allowed to purchase it for $1 more than the highest bid. In effect, after restoring the property at my own cost I would pay for its restoration again by paying the improved price. It was a betrayal of trust, no pun intended, and Trustworth was lost to me. I was given 90 days to vacate.

A house that has come to be known as Sconehenge (my ginger scones are famous) was found, purchased, and made temporarily functional in that 90-day window. If you have ever seen the documentary “Grey Gardens,” you can imagine the state of things. Wildlife shared the house. Bats flew from the third floor to the second by the back stairs. I faced roof leaks, a flooded cellar, collapsing piazzas, and non-operable windows missing glass but covered with rotting plastic. A parting gift from someone as the house changed hands, raw meat was left in the cold pantry for a few weeks in the July heat. After determining that there was no corpse, I employed a shovel to remove the gift.

After ten very industrious months, the house was stabilized, re-roofed, and shingled. The windows were re-glazed and painted, new plumbing and electrical systems installed, and a first stage in its decoration completed. Hasty but fiscally responsible furnishings and fittings have been re-interpreted, over 30 years, as my budget has allowed.

I have always been very keen toward period technologies; electrical supplies had been my family’s business since the turn of the 20th century. Pre-code electronics are often beautiful aesthetically and fascinating conceptually—much more interesting, in fact, than the interpretations of the recent SteamPunk fad. The true high point of indoor plumbing is defined by offerings of the J.L. Mott Plumbing Co. and its contemporary competitors. 

Polished-nickel fittings with substantial china vessels and honed marbles make for bathrooms more suited to warmth and hygiene than the modern-day cold, clinical laboratory look. Where possible, Sconehenge has been furnished again with such material in a realistic, historical manner. Lighting fixtures from the firms of Sigmund Bergmann and W.A.S. Benson add illumination, beauty, and interest to the main rooms.

My personal journey with historic preservation opened my eyes to a generally more gracious lifestyle we’ve lost. To be sure, I am appreciative of much that is modern: lifesaving advances in healthcare, the computer technology without which I could not run my design and digital printing business.

I do own a television—a 40" flat screen that is semi-intelligent and has the good sense to be all but invisible in a dark bookshelf in the library. 

I enjoy music that comes from the radio and from a cylinder phonograph and paper music rolls for a player piano and the pipe organ recently installed. But these are supplemental to the technologies in the house, not superseding them.

Historic preservation is not adaptive reuse. I consider “renovation” to be the illegitimate work of architects, builders, and (give me strength) developers. To quote John Mead Howells in his landmark book "Lost Examples of Colonial Architecture," ignoring preservation produces “buildings that have disappeared or been so altered as to be denatured.”

A full experience with historic preservation can bring a decided grace to our lives, owing to our slowing down and engaging the five senses. We are granted sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste yet we rarely take full advantage of them. In an old house, we see and recognize things that predate our own lived experience. We may listen to historic music or recorded sound, away from modern noise. We smell history if we choose beeswax and natural soaps over something from a spray can. We touch or walk upon a mellowed surface and sense the passage of time. We can choose to keep and maintain things that were well made and thoughtfully crafted, many of which cannot come again. 

We may taste the past by trying historic cookery from recipes still to be found; we can eat natural (organic, in today’s parlance) foodstuffs. These choices, often suggested by an old house, engage us and enrich our lives, fostering an appreciation of where we have been and where we are going. We are reminded of what we will lose if we choose not to preserve.

My goal in conserving and restoring Sconehenge was to capture the romantic and magical atmosphere that was the very fabric of Trustworth. Even on a first visit, it was impossible not to notice that Trustworth had a distinct and engaging spirit, a genius loci. Trustworth was designed and decorated by the art educator and artist Henry Turner Bailey in 1889, with the studio wing added in 1894. 

A businessman built Sconehenge in 1910. The two houses have very different design concepts. The older house was built with a romantic vision that evidenced a sense of humor: a round window placed to suggest rolling down the handrail. This house was built as a solid, straightforward homage to the Colonial past and to house a family.

After the basic work of making Sconehenge habitable, I had to decide what to add to the blank slate. The excellent layout of the house remained unchanged. Thus it was a matter of furnishing in period style but with the humor and romance inherent at Trustworth.

The easiest way to do that was with evocative wallpaper. All the walls at Sconehenge were originally papered. The English Arts & Crafts theme (featuring the work of C.F.A. Voysey) began with a gift from the late John Burrows: He produced Voysey’s ‘The Stag’ pattern wallpaper for the entry hall and main staircase. I used other papers in the remaining chambers. Beginning in 2003, I began replacing chamber papers with Voysey designs from my own production, to refine and differentiate moods for dining room, living room, library, and bedrooms. The old nursery has more childlike Voysey papers. The second floor’s north-facing office has the luminous ‘Isis’ fill and frieze to lighten New England’s dark winter days. The kitchen has a faux tile paper with faux tile mouldings. I’ve been able to evoke my memory of Trustworth and create a quite comfortable, early-20th-century interior, one that appeals to all the senses and includes romance, humor, and magic.