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Flint House (Photograph by Curtis B. Johnson, C. B. Johnson Photography)
In the first decade of the twentieth century, as wages rose and the cost of building materials dropped, home ownership became a possibility for many working individuals. In 1910 John W. Flint, employed as a clerk with the National Life Insurance Company, purchased a hillside lot, found a published house design he liked, and hired carpenters to construct this one-and-a-half-story, wood-shingled bungalow. His “Beautiful Home,” design No. 895, a copy of which remains with the house (although its source is not identified), features a recessed porch wrapping a two-story corner tower with a broad conical roof. It could be considered a transitional Queen Anne bungalow, given its date of 1910, which puts it among the earliest bungalows built in the state. By then Flint's round corner tower may have seemed old-fashioned to his Montpelier neighbors, many of whom had adopted Colonial Revival for their houses. Local carpenter Bert G. Miles completed at least some of the finish work for Flint's house, signing the back of a kitchen cabinet, “B. G. Miles, 1910.”