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Elisha Waterman House and Replica Addition, Brieswood Farm Riding Ring

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1757. 1970s, addition, Larry Thibideau. Riding ring, c. 1983. 100 Abbott Run Valley (Lanesville) Rd. (pole 79)

The original one-and-one-half-story house with central chimney has been restored. Sliding behind it and connected to it is a 1970s replica addition: a more commanding version of the original, twice as long and twice as large, with a much grander, sculptured chimney and, at close view, making a virtuoso display of nailheads and wood craftsmanship. The sequel at once gives obeisance to the original and means to surpass it in meticulous “reproduction.” Its designer apprenticed with Armand La Montagne, the North Scituate craftsman-architect who is famous for his replication of seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century wooden houses (see SC6). The nineteenth-century barn complex, with its mix of clapboard and shingle, is typical. Not so the riding ring behind it. Its column-free interior (visible only to riders and their invited audiences) is spanned by triangulated trussing interconnected with a semi–space frame of light boards and timbers. Like a number of farms in an evolving suburban situation, this one shares in the suburbanization. Dairying and meat production are out; horseback riding is in—even as subdivisions eliminate the riders' trails.

Writing Credits

Author: 
William H. Jordy et al.

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