Stacked Wood Construction
The breezeway was finished last week. During the process, the carpenters removed some clapboard on the original house, revealing the underlying stacked wood construction.
Stacked wood construction appears to take the principles of log cabin building and apply them to “modern” building materials. This is essentially piling up 2-by-4 pieces of wood (the narrow way) for as high as you need to go. A testament to the abundance of wood in Vermont when the house was built.
When we bought it, we were told the house was built in 1827. It is on the national register of historic places, but then so are most of the houses in the village. At the closing, our title lawyer produced an impressive document wrapped in red ribbon and gold seals. I’m not sure what its significance was, apart from clearing up some minor lien issue, and we have not seen it since that day.
Our neighbor, J.P. Soule down at the other end Main Street told us that he saw our house on a village map dated in the 1780s. Furthermore, he asserted that our house was the first house built in Quechee and the only remaining one built with stacked wood. I don’t know how true those things may be. It’s one of those things I should research.
Hi,
You’re not going to believe this… I also have a stacked wood house. I live in Worcester, MA and believe the house to be much older than the 1890’s the city says it is. I have never been able to find out any further information. Can you please tell me if you found out anything further?
Thanks!
Ben
hi Ben,
Thanks for writing — how interesting! I haven’t been able to learn anything more about stacked wood construction, but I have more information on my own house’s age and history.
I’ve seen a copy of the map referred to in my original post, but it wasn’t dated. It indicated that my house was a “company” house owned by the J.C. Parker company. They bought the mill across the street in 1857 and sold it in 1906 so the original date of 1880 we have for the house seems to fit neatly in that time frame.
However, I found a document online that was filed in support of the effort to put most of our street on the register of National Historic places. Apparently we live in the Jennings House, built in 1820. The description fits the house to a T (even though the actual street address has changed).