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A few weeks back we wrote about this beautiful colonial American barn home that was
about to be destroyed.
Now, just two months later, I am pleased to share the great news that we have found a new owner for the Hod Hepburn house.
It’s hard to describe how grateful I am – how thrilling it is to know that there are others out there who share my passion for history and who are willing to invest in saving these beautiful pieces of America’s past.
If it wasn’t for the power of modern technology, and the wide reach of this very blog, I am certain that this house, built originally in 1780, would now be nothing more than rubble.
The house was built originally in Tinmouth VT but will be reassembled and restored in New York.
Despite the cold weather and many feet of snow, we are already moving forward on dismantling the frame. The first step is to clean out the centuries of dirt, dust and artifacts from the large barn home. Here’s a glimpse of what the interior looked like before we got started:
We’ve spent the last week cleaning up the house and opening up the plastered walls. This before and after shot will give you a good sense of what I mean:
Below you can see the rear view, before and after. Try to ignore the tar paper and note the post medieval roof system!
Once “muck-out” is complete, we will move on to labeling all of the timbers and carefully removing them. We will restore each of the hand hewn beams at our local workshop. From there, we will ship the frame off to New York where we will reassemble the restored frame.
Below are some videos of the inside of the house. In this first one, we take a walk through the rooms of the home and see all of the treasures left behind from decades ago. There’s also an unusual, small stairway:
In this video, you can see the second floor, post-dismantling:
Check out the clip below to see how the attic looked before dismantling began.
And here’s the spectacular view from the roof, sans roof boards.
Thank you again for helping us save this post and beam house!
Know of another barn in need of saving? Looking for your own historic barn to call home? Contact us! We’d love to help.
A Blog about Old Barns ~ from Green Mountain Timber Frames 
Congrats, Dan, on saving the craftsmanship and materials that are embodied in this old ‘medieval’ frame. Too bad it’s leaving VT, but fortunately not going too far!
This makes me SO HAPPY! Will we get to see it’s reconstruction in NYS ?
Have you guys ever contacted HOUZZ.COM to show your stuff?
Jancie, Yes, we’ll make sure to show this lovely frame once re erected hopefully by September. Lots of building permits to be had…………
We have a page on Houzz. Contacts from Houzz seem to like our finished floors on various projects.
Thanks for commenting. Dan
The Hepburn family is so glad that one of our family homes was saved, thanks to Dan. Circumstances did not allow us to keep this old family friend. Had we any idea that it’s future in Tinmouth was in peril, we would have tried to save it ourselves. I will miss it’s presence on The Hill on 25 Pucker Street in Tinmouth but glad that will be resurected somewhere. It’s builder, Captain Miles, had a room named after him by my uncle Frederick Hepburn. I helped him furnish that room. I will have my memories of the grand old house but haven’t been able to visit it’s original sight yet now that’s gone. I have photos of every room to remember it by as well as distant ancestors there. Thank you Dan.
Kathy,
Thank you for commenting. I didn’t want to see it turn into a parts and pieces sold structure. It took nearly a year to find someone who values this historic gem. I’ll let you know when it gets re erected. We are hoping this fall it will stand and last for another 235 years. Sincerely, Dan