Photos by Steve Cartwright
As a summer kid in Tenants Harbor in the 1960s, I must have passed the vacant house on River Road countless times. Later in life, and now a year-rounder, I finally noticed the dilapidated gray cape, sitting forlorn on a discontinued piece of Route 131. The small windows and center chimney led me to think this could be one of the oldest homes in town.
I’ve always been a fan of old houses, especially needy ones. As a kid, I would draw fixer-upper houses in pencil, then fix them on paper. So maybe it isn’t strange that I finally stopped the car and walked around the old cape with its sinking foundation and peeling clapboards. “This could qualify as a taker-downer,” I thought.
I peered inside. Tidy, small rooms, painted-board floors, cut-stone fireplace. The stone chimney was collapsing, as was the hearth. An ell connected the 20-by-30-foot house to a rickety barn. I later reluctantly demolished all but the house.
This old house had not been lived in year-round since the 1930s, but three sisters owned it and occasionally stayed there in the summertime. It was badly neglected. Newspapers were stuffed in holes in the ominously leaning chimney. The roof leaked, the floors were tilted like a ship in a storm. Visiting the town office, I learned how to reach the sisters and asked if they wanted to sell.
They did. They quickly accepted my offer, essentially payment for the three acres of rocky land. I thought I had offered too much, so I made them a lower offer, and they accepted that one quickly, too.
Even in disrepair, the old house held charm, a plain and simple grace. Now came the challenges. Some years earlier I’d bought a narrow strip of waterfront land on Tenants Harbor, not really knowing what I’d do with it. But the price had been right, and since it was a buildable lot, I didn’t see how I could go wrong. Not only was it buildable, but it came with an artesian well and approved septic system. Why not move the newly acquired cape 3 miles down the road to this quiet spot with a view?
I contacted a family-owned jacking and moving company, Jewett Builders in Pittston. They told me I should’ve called them 25 years ago—but said they’d give it a try.
They asked me to remove a deck, and I also ripped off vinyl siding and knocked down plaster walls in the attic. The Jewett crew took apart the stone chimney and back-to-back stone fireplaces, and carefully removed the entire attic, rafters, purlins and rotted roof boards. As a one-story house—looking much like a modern double wide in house-wrap—it could fit under utility wires. Raising the wires would have cost more than resurrecting the attic.
In the fall of 2019, after many laborious days, the old house was stripped down to a shell, with chains holding the wide-board walls together and I-beams underneath. The house was gradually loaded onto a heavy-duty truck with separate wheels placed under the structure, and early on the morning of December 22, it moved down Route 131 at about 4 miles an hour, a wreath attached to the rear by a Jewett granddaughter.
Much later, a neighbor saw me in a store and said casually, “Saw your house go by.” Well, that doesn’t happen every day. Being in a small town, this was an event, and a small crowd watched the house cruise down Main Street, up Church Hill, past the ball field, and to its new home on Harts Neck, where a new concrete foundation awaited its arrival.
Restoring a house as more than a museum piece means compromising some of the early aspects and going modern in some ways, while keeping the overall antique character intact. The new roof has 6 inches of insulation where none existed before, and is covered with traditional cedar shingles from Longfellow’s Cedar Shingles & Shakes mill in Windsor. The original steep stairs to the attic had been turned into a closet, and modern stairs added nearby. I thought about it, then ripped out the modern flight and restored the awkward stairs, adding marine grab rails to avert disaster.
Fixing up the old house took time and energy. A lot of both. Where to put a tiled bathroom? How to fit a stone sink, electric stove, and fridge into a tight space? Fix old plaster ceilings or take them down and expose the hand-hewn beams?
I opted for the beams, with Sheetrock between them. I also used Sheetrock on the walls, over foam insulation, though I saved one original plaster wall just because—and a wooden wall with layers of hand-painted wallpaper. The worst job, which I took on myself because nobody else would want it, was shoveling out generations of rat poop from under the attic floorboards.
My reward: finding an 1814 U.S. penny and an 1812 penny from Halifax, when that Canadian city briefly had its own currency. The coins had slipped through the cracks in the floor. I also found small leather shoes, put there deliberately to ward off evil spirits.
I think it worked.
Evil spirits or not, I had my ups and downs with people I hired. Some just weren’t up to handling the major carpentry, plumbing, and electrical work required. Perhaps if I’d paid a reliable contractor to take care of the whole project, that would’ve been easier and faster. Except no one was available to do that. Major contractors were booked up for years. So I winged it and for the most part found honest, trustworthy people who listened to my plans, and sometimes improved on them. Mike Irons of Restoration Masons in Limerick let me help him lug stones for the fireplaces and chimney. A perfectionist, he said he didn’t let just anybody help. I even got to set a couple of stones in place.
As I write, it’s 2026, and the house is truly finished and inhabitable. Daughter Chelsea and her child have moved in, bringing song and laughter, tears, feasts, and fireside snuggles to a house that has more stories to tell. It’s a small house by today’s standards, but it is enough. Its vibe is past and present combined.
One of the three sisters has come to see it and was very impressed. Neighbors stop by to see the progress. Some bring jugs to fill with the sweet well water. The view from the back deck, or the attic balcony, is dreamy and pastoral. It varies in lovely ways with the seasons: snow, green grass, fall foliage, and always the blue harbor beyond.
One question I’m still working on is, how old is it? Everything I’ve researched points to around 1777. Keturah Hopkins and husband Joshua Smalley (originally Small, or Smalle) moved to what is now St. George from Truro, on Cape Cod. Keturah was a direct descendant of Stephen Hopkins, a passenger on the Mayflower. Joshua also had English roots. They operated a gristmill on what was then known as Mill Cove.
In 1798 Henry Knox, the revolutionary war general, came knocking, saying squatters had to pay him, since he had the “Waldo patent” to the land through his wife, Lucy. Knox was highly unpopular, but residents paid him for their land.
How old is this house? It may remain a mystery but I’m estimating the construction date thus: Keturah and Joshua’s son, who became a sea captain and town selectman, Thomas Hopkins Smalley, was born in Truro in 1776, while daughter Hannah was born in 1779 in St. George, then part of Cushing, in the Province of Massachusetts. So, it seems likely the Smalleys moved to Maine between the birth of these two children, two of 12 children in all. Keturah died at 48; Joshua died at 87. Both are buried in my town.
I could have saved myself a lot of work, stress, and money if I hadn’t taken on this project, but I’m glad I did. It took seven years. If I hadn’t saved the house, I’d still be seven years older and Chelsea and Sylvan wouldn’t have a house. It feels like a legacy.
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Steve Cartwright, a retired journalist, lives in St. George, where he is vice chair of the town’s select board. His Maine ancestry dates to the 1600s.
