Demolition & Building

Upon seeing the East Wing of the White House get demolished, I understood how family members felt who had a hard time seeing Grampa Cooley’s house go up in flames and dissolve before their eyes.

White House East Wing Demolition

One family member told me how angry he was, others couldn’t watch or be there on the day of the controlled burn, others were there and sad.  I understood. 

Ridge Road House Demolition

It’s actually not fun to have that much power. The memories, the old beams, even the old flaking wallpaper which had seen better days… it is sad.  It is a loss.  I’m sorry. 

It was an important family site, just as the White House East Wing was an important site for the American people. 

But I’m also proud of myself, my research, my stick-to-itiveness.  This has been a long, involved project yet I have been happy to do it. 

The reality is, if I hadn’t made the decision to do something, it would have continued to deteriorate until there was nothing left anyway.  I sped up the process.  I made it a reality.  I didn’t consult family every step of the way.  I didn’t save absolutely every piece of the house worth saving.  I did as much as I could with my abilities.

But unlike Trump, I wrote to family members to let them know ahead of time.  Unlike Trump, I contacted the proper State and town authorities, went by the rules, filled out permits, and researched the safest way to demolish the house, offering it to the local fire department for training. 

I invited family members in to salvage what they wanted.  I am thankful to those who did.  Many old windows were saved.  All of the pine siding in the upstairs hallway was carefully pulled out, loaded onto the roof of a Jeep and carried away.  These materials may live again in another house. 

Myself, I saved four doors from the upstairs that will go back in the new house, along with some windows that I want to use as transom windows over interior doors to let light through from above.  I lugged them down the stairs and hoisted them into the truck, drove them home and unloaded them where they sat in our garage for over a year.  Loaded them back into the truck recently to bring back to the house site.  I am 71 so I pride myself for doing all this by myself, alone in the house for hours. Driving to Vermont once a week for months.   

Downstairs the hollow-core doors that were admired as modern and installed by Harry Cooley in the 50s or 60s were deemed (by me) as not worth saving.  It is interesting how the value of an object can change over time.  What happened to those old doors from the downstairs when the new hollow core doors were installed?  Did Harry ask if anyone wanted them?

I also saved a few odd items:

Part of the stair railing (that looked hand-carved), added on for Anna Cooley (Harry’s mother) when she stayed with him. 

An acorn-shaped bubble glass fixture that was at the bottom of the stairs in the front hallway. 

An old cast iron handle that was added to the pine siding in the upstairs hallway to make it look like a door. 

An oil lantern.

Many books.

A handwritten love letter written by Harry to his recently deceased wife Bernice (that as far as I know, no one else has ever read, it was not meant to be shared).  It was stuffed and wrinkled, sticking out of the back crack in a filing cabinet.

An enlarged photo of Charles’s barn with his beloved Suzy and her foal Haley in front of it. 

Harry Cooley’s artifacts from his stint as Vermont Secretary of State. 

There were other things I wanted to save:

I saw a hand-hewn beam up in the eaves of the Saltbox house.  There was evidence of huge upright beams in the corners of the living room. 

A cool old door to a small alcove closet.  I tried hard on that one…bringing tools, old screws and nails that wouldn’t budge, resorting to trying to pry off the whole framing, alas to no avail. 

Unfortunately, unless I found someone with the expertise, time, tools, and strength to help me take the house apart, patiently, piece by piece, saving old beams wasn’t going to happen.

This was my project, I am the person with the expertise that will get utilized for this project (and that expertise is very limited).   

And now the new house, reminiscent of the old one, is rising.  The builder finished the plywood on the roof, along with the felting.  The new standing-seam gray metal roof will go on December 1^st.  He is taking a much-deserved break to go hunting, something he hasn’t done in 20 years.  He’s a Vermonter, after all.