MONTAGUE — Carla and Ward Heaton, owners of the historic Dowling House in Montague, hosted last Thursday's White Lake Area Historical Society meeting in the house's front yard to share their story of restoring and refreshing the home.
The Heatons purchased the home from Carla's parents, Ted and Elaine Stembol, in 1999; Carla grew up in the home with her five brothers and sisters after her parents bought it from prior owners Murray and Eloise Burch. The Burches took ownership of the home after the Buttleman family owned it and used it as a boarding house in the 1930s. Prior to that, Annie Dowling lived in the home after the death of her husband George, and her nephew Charles Row inherited the home from her. Dowling built the home in 1875, and it has been continuously occupied ever since.
While the house, located on Sheridan Street, is among many others now, Carla said when her family first moved in in the 1960s, most of the houses on their block had not yet been built.
After buying the home, the Heatons set about restoring it, a process that took more work than they realized they were getting into at the time. Only two years after buying the home, they had to replace the roof because they found icicles in the eaves. Shortly after that, when they did some molding work on the interior of the house, the company they contracted with had to order special knives to complete the task. When the Heatons hired an electrician to perform electrical work, he reported that he'd never in his career seen a fuse box like the one they have.
Everywhere the Heatons looked, they found a time-consuming project. One summer they repainted the exterior of the house, a process Ward described as "trial and error." It ended up taking them months to complete; he said the process began May 19, they finally got the exterior primed around July 4, and then the parties took a break before finishing the work later in the summer.
There are 13 total rooms in the house, including five upstairs bedrooms, the Heatons said. There's one bathroom upstairs and one downstairs, as well as one additional bedroom downstairs. The bathrooms are both located in the back of the house, with one atop the other for ease of plumbing. There are also 41 windows and four storm windows, most of which the Heatons say are original to the home. The trim is also original.
Like any older house, there are quirks that give away its age. Carla said she was flummoxed when she first discovered a small square hole in the dining room floor - until she found an article online about an on-floor button some older homes included that enabled their owners to summon the in-home servants. The small hole was where that button used to be. Another quirk is the steam heat; the pipes that deliver the heat, Carla said, travel through pipes that come in contact with wood, which results in the occasional clunk or noise.
"If you didn't know better, you'd think it was a ghost," Carla said.
Another quirk: Carla discovered one year while laying insulation in the attic that the home had gas lighting fixtures in the ceilings. The spots where they once were enabled the Heatons to seamlessly install ceiling fans in the house.
Carla also shared a story about oil-cloth wallpaper being in the basement. While the basement is not technically considered living space in the home, the Heatons believe the wallpaper may mean that when the Buttlemans owned it and used it as a boarding house, they rented out the basement.
While the exterior work is now largely done, the Heatons said they are continuing to restore parts of the inside of the home, including the first-floor bathroom and hallway and the living room parlor, which Carla said has never been painted going back to when her parents bought the house.
All this work might seem excessive to some, given the cost and effort necessary to do it. However, the Heatons both say they feel a responsibility to maintain the house given its history.
"We see ourselves as being in a long line of caretakers" of the house, Carla said.
That said, the Heatons, who are of retirement age and are empty-nesters now, do plan to leave the home someday. In fact, Carla joked that they are on year seven of a five-year plan to ready and sell the home. However, it's clear they love the place, and due to its size, Carla said, it hosts the Heaton family Christmas gathering each year. While the idea of selling outside of the family isn't necessarily the most exciting given how long it's been in Carla's family, she conceded that the Heatons don't want to "burden" family with the work necessary to keep the home in good condition unless the family really wants to do it.
