A brand-new house from ‘This Old House’

From the Boston Globe

Off a rural Essex road, nestled into a glade, the farmhouse and attached barn look perfectly at home here on the historic North Shore. Federal pilasters flank the door, a side ell with front porch houses the kitchen, and the barn attached to the house’s other side wears a handsome cupola. There is even that beautiful, convincing element of historical authenticity: a roof of red-cedar shingles.

The 3,000-square-foot Essex home is the most recent project of the venerable “This Old House” TV series; it will continue the show’s 36th season on Boston’s WGBH (Channel 2) beginning on Thursday, March 31. The traditional exterior gives the impression of age, but in this case, it’s an optical illusion.

This house is new.

“Usually, ‘This Old House’ does renovations,” said Richard Trethewey, the program’s plumbing and heating expert. “This is the show’s first brand-new historic reproduction.”

Here, the very program that has alerted Americans to the value of old houses and of traditional building methods and materials shows viewers that a newly built house born partly in a factory can look as though it has stood here for 200 years.

Read more in the Boston Globe