It has taken a number of years and considerable time to get this old house, with wrought iron latches in lieu of door knobs, back to the original appearance. Everything was handmade in the 1830s, so a window casing might have 4 pieces of different woods, not discovered until one removed the paint and hardened putty. The elaborate carved porch - which appears to be made of "cast iron" - is entirely made of wood, requiring extensive restoration work. We selected Burgess & Burgess of Union ME to do the work and for many weeks they were working on the porch and various elements of this old residence.

    The picket fence was a particularly difficult task, as we wanted the hand turned finials to be used for a replacement one. This the Burgess' did with such precision that, once painted, it would be impossible to tell the 1837 wood from the 2012 parts of the construction. They built a new side gate, allowing access to the water faucet and other things next to the house; it looks original but is really circa 2012.

    The elaborate ramp was designed to give mobility to Lois Konvalinka, now 95 and co-founder of The Musical Wonder House with me (1963-1986), once an internationally acclaimed museum of mechanical musical instruments. I can get her out of the building and into a car in less than a minute, using our travel chair. The ramp has a loading platform at the top, with swing out gates, plus a bench and another gate at the half way point, where a second platform allow lunches in the open, weather permitting.

    The ARTCRAFT Studio for arranging, perforating and publishing virtuoso music rolls is in the lower level of the structure. What had been a walk-in cooking area with a hearth fireplace is now an intimate room with 2 Steinway player grand pianos (7' and 6'6") plus 4 Leabarjan (tm) music roll perforators along with the necessary editing/processing equipment. ARTCRAFT Rolls, my third player roll enterprise since 1952 when I began in this 'niche' field, started at our museum in 1982 and the operation moved to this building in 1986 where it remains today.