[MassHistPres] Timber frame building survives Danversport blast

[Alison Hardy, Window Woman]

    Thought you all might enjoy this story that was Published in the Salem News 11/23/2006
    Old house makes a statement
        By Alan Burke
Staff writer

        
DANVERS  - Just call it the little old house that could.In the wake of yesterday's devastating explosion, modern homes and buildings were leveled. But in a minor miracle, still standing near the epicenter of the blast was a house built in the mid-1700s and already believed too fragile to be moved.
Adding to the irony, just the night before, the Danvers Preservation Committee had met for an hour and a half to debate the status of the house on Water Street, coming to no conclusion about how it could be saved.
Watching television yesterday morning, Chairwoman Jean Marshall was astonished to spot the structure amid the smoking ruins of Danversport. 
"Oh, my God," she said. "That looks like the only thing left standing." 
In fact, she wondered if the house had made its own contribution to the debate. 
"It was certainly a statement. ... I can't imagine it went completely unscathed. But it looks that way."
New owner Arthur Siasios hopes to build a seafood restaurant on the site, and he toyed with the idea of somehow incorporating the old place. 
"He's been working with us," Marshall said. 
But a preservation expert had warned of rotting beams beneath the floor. The estimate for dismantling the house in order to move it and eventually preserve it is $30,000. Siasios is willing to give it away, Marshall said.

"It's the oldest house in Danversport," historian Dick Trask said. "I was thinking that it was obliterated. ... But there it stood. Right next to the bakery. I did notice extreme roof damage."
In retrospect, he isn't all that surprised. 
"Old homes are post-and-beam construction," Trask said. "That's why this one survived. Post and beam - even when it's rotting - is more secure than modern two-by-fours."


                                
 


Alison Hardy
Window Woman of New England
www.window-woman-ne.com
978-561-1062