Writing was just one of Elizabeth Perkins’ talents. The old cookstove will be returned to its rightful place, Lefever said, and the copper cooking pots and pans will be strung up on hooks like they used to be.Ī small porch now covered with latticework and used to store outdoor equipment will be returned to its former glory as Elizabeth Perkins' writing porch. A nearby bathroom wall was open to the outdoors, so many squirrels and chipmunks had made their home inside, too.įortunately, much of the original furnishings there have been preserved. The day the York Weekly visited that room had an earthen floor because there was no foundation underneath it. The floor was rotted in several places and had to be removed. The kitchen posed significant challenges. All of the rooms on the second floor have been brought down to studs and many of the studs are being replaced. The second-floor quarters were “fortunately” about the size of modern offices. “That’s the kind of thing we were facing,” he said.īut most of the work is confined to the servants' wing. The entire building including the main house is being rewired, to include bypassing actual glass fuses used to provide electricity to part of the building. “It was clear to us that little fixes weren’t going to do it.” “There’s never been a complete redo,” said Lefever. But the lion’s share of the funds are being used to bring the Perkins House up to 21st century snuff. The first floor of that building will house the OYHS library and archives, now currently in the York Village building. OYHS is spending $600,000 to renovate the Perkins house and retrofit a part of the organization’s curatorial center on Shapleigh Road in Kittery. Under terms of the sale, the staff is allowed to remain in the building until next May, to provide time for the renovations. Renovations are a long time coming for a great old house, Lefever said, made possible by the sale last summer of the current OYHS office building in downtown York Village for $675,000. Those who want a sneak peak at the servants’ wing, where the offices will be located, are invited to attend an open house this Sunday, Nov. Public tours of the iconic Colonial home were suspended.īut the house is getting a complete facelift, with the goal of moving the OYHS staff there in the spring and reopening the house next summer, said Lefever. In 2014, when it was discovered the electrical system was dangerously corroded, the power had to be shut off. In recent years, the house that served as a cornerstone to Mary and Elizabeth Perkins’ lives in the first half of the 20th century has been shuttered. In the summer of 1905, when the Treaty of Portsmouth was being negotiated ending the Russo-Japanese War, they held a Japanese garden party for the delegations, in what was described at the time as the “crowning event of the memorable season of 1905.” Many women were in costume and Elizabeth wore “a white gown of Mexican drawn work.” In the attic of the servants' wing a trunk full of costumes Elizabeth often made herself from scraps of old dresses and other clothing was found, said Joel Lefever, director of the Old York Historical Society. YORK - Elizabeth Perkins and her mother Mary loved to entertain in their summer home on the banks of the York River, which they bought in 1898.
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