~ The Conklin House ~
by Bess Rattray
HOUSE TOUR - September 1st, 2006
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
FREE ADMISSION
(Donations to the East Hampton Historical Society encouraged)
The house at 57 Accabonac Road is called the "Conklin house," because it was apparently built by a member of the Conklin family sometime between 1720 and 1760 or so.
It's a traditional salt-box: one story at the back, two stories at the front, with five windows on top and four downstairs flanking the front entrance.
Long before I bought it, I'd always wondered about the house as I drove by, because it sits at a curious angle to the road.
Obviously, it was built before the road, kitty-corner to the sidewalk; it was intentionally faced
due south, like Home Sweet Home and the Mulford Farm, because the settlers back in the day knew that was the best way to cool in summer and stay sheletered from the northwest wind in winter.
The wind shoots up and over the ramp of the roof. And, in fact, the house is mysteriously cool in summer -- if not actually warm in winter. Like the Osborne-Jackson house where the Historical Society is headquartered, the Conklin house is insulated with seaweed picked up off the beach. (I've read old accounts, in which people a hundred years ago were already complaining about the curious disappearance of useful seaweed from local beaches -- but that's a whole other history-mystery.)
I bought the house in the spring of 2005, after a rather complex two-year process, during which the previous owner sold a "historic easement" on this property to the Town of East Hampton. To make a long story short, the house is now forever protected from being torn down or "updated" beyond repair: The easement means that the basic shape and structure of the house -- both outside and inside -- can never be altered.
I'm told there are very few houses remaining on the East End that still have such an intact colonial interior. That the Conklins were relatives of mine (of some sort; I still haven't quite figured out my exact relation to the builder) also added to the attractions of the house for me.
Among the charms of the interior are the four fireplaces around the old central chimney. (At nearly 300 years and counting, the chimney is now crumbling -- just one of the restoration projects that awaits me, hurrah!)
The fireplace at the back, in what was once the kitchen, was used for cooking. There is also a little oven built into the bricks of that kitchen fireplace. And there are little built-in cabinets next to two of the
fireplaces . . . where food could be kept warm, I presume.
The living room still has the amazing original wood panels, waist-high, painted a very vivid blue. Sometime after the 1920s, I believe, the previous owner stripped away newer paint to expose this bright blue, and I've noticed the blue all over the entire house, wherever paint has chipped away: inside closets, in the attic, in the bedrooms. Apparently blue was very chic in the mid-eighteenth century!
The big, rough hand-hewn beams in several of the rooms are also of interest. They, too, were exposed in the twentieth century, when folksy, colonial interiors became fashionable. Upstairs, a man standing two or three
inches above six feet will bump his head on these beams. The floorboards are really wide in most of the house -- and unbelievably wonky and slanted.
Doorjambs and windows, too, have sunk and gone a quite cock-eyed over the centuries. The house rests on a few old boulders (and, sadly, in a few patches it now rests on the bare earth, where the boulders have slipped:
That's another major renovation task in our future.)
The big joke my friends made when I first moved in was that I would have to start wearing a colonial get-up when I am at home -- a mob cap and apron and skirts, to complete the total-historical-emersion atmosphere. Perhaps I will submit to wearing a colonial costume on DATETK, when I open the house to the public for tour (with donations going to the Historical Society).
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Dining Room |
Living Room |
Dining To Living |
Rose Bedroom |
Rose Bed |
NB: Bess Rattray is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the East Hampton Historical Society.
|
)
)
)
)
)
