atHome with History
The Marsh House
The Marsh House in
an undated photo.
(aka the ‘Dollar House’) Chesterfield, New Hampshire By Nancy McGartland Photos by Kelly Fletcher
C
entered on a hilltop rise of Route 63, surrounded by the warm caramel stone of Chesterfield’s town buildings, the 172-year-old Marsh House flashes oversized multi-pane windows, reflecting the setting sun going down behind the Green Mountains. Quiet and cold now, this 1850s Carpenter Gothic house is soon to be a lively gathering place as it transforms into a cafe, community center and bed and breakfast under the experienced hands of New England Heritage, LLC. Just a few years ago, this abandoned architectural gem was on the verge of being demolished. How did Chesterfield move away from devoting $30,000 for tear down to selling it for metamorphosis into a new community asset? As is often the case in New Hampshire, volunteers banded together and, with persuasion, gained the town government’s cooperation. Together they changed the Marsh House’s trajectory into the 21st century. The Marsh House history The house could be mistaken for a model lifted from the pages of a 19th-century architect’s pattern book: Deep roof eaves, bargeboard, wrap-around porch, all topped by a show-stopping polychromatic floral-patterned slate roof. And like old houses, mysteries remain: On the rafters above the old carriage house, scratches counting … what? There’s even a “secret” 12x12 bedroom with a hobbit-sized door. Cornelia “Neil” Jenness, former head of the Chesterfield Historical Society, says the house was probably built by F.P. Wetherell, who occupied it for many years, according to an 1858 town map. In 1892, H.C. Marsh bought the house, where he practiced medicine, Jenness suspects, because the house’s second floor has “interesting” refurbishments like a bumped-out window “porch” to accommodate his practice. Around that time, Jenness surmises, the house was “spruced up” with popular Victorian Gothic touches: its elaborate yet delicate gingerbread, shapely roof finials, and distinctive floral-inspired slate roof. As noted by Kris McKeon, another town volunteer, in her blog, such touches were too expensive for most New Hampshire homeowners who stuck to plainer Greek Revival styles. However, the Marsh family had the money to invest in such detail. They were the “modern-minded people” sought by architects like A.J. Dowling in his 1850 pattern book. In it, you can see an almost mirror-image of the Carpenter Gothic cottage. At that time, across the street from the house, H.C.’s brother Charles Marsh had a dry goods store. Soon he and another brother, Benjamin, would become partners with Eben Jordan in the legendary, enormously successful Boston department store, Jordan-Marsh. Volunteer Kris McKeon notes, “These men, Benjamin and later his younger brother Charles Marsh and Eben Jordan started Jordan Marsh before their 30th birthdays.” After the Marsh family, other families lived in the Marsh House; it even held a dental practice. Eventually, in the
14 Home at
www.athomenewengland.com
The Marsh House in 2017
being sold for $1
1970s, it was occupied by the police department and, until 2007, other town offices. Then it was abandoned as the town built new town offices. From 2007 to 2017, the house decayed as the town lost interest in maintaining it. The ‘Dollar House’ At the 2017 Summer Town Meeting (held to accommodate Chesterfield’s large summer population), Jeff Scott, a longtime resident and preservation enthusiast who helped restore the Chesterfield Gorge, asked permission to clean out the house and offer it for sale for $1. The open house attracted 60+ attendees. Unfortunately, the only offer for the house fell apart. In 2018 when an article for a $30,000 demo fund was added to the Town Warrant, the volunteers made up two very large picture posters, showing clearly the “before and after” views of the Marsh House site if the house were to be demolished. That convincing visual showing what the loss would look like, paired with the fact that most townspeople didn’t want to spend more tax dollars on the house, turned popular sentiment towards preservation. In 2019, the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance added the Marsh House to its famous “Seven to Save” annual list after a presentation by Chesterfield’s determined volunteers. In 2020 the pandemic stopped all open houses. In 2021, Kris McKeon posted the house on the wildly popular site CheapOldHouses.com. She wrote an accessible and extensive blog with many detailed pictures. In response, the group got about 100 inquiries and five serious proposals that
