After falling for an 1820s home in the outskirts of Washington, D.C., a city dweller flies the coop for a simpler way of life in a close-knit village. (The house is on Second Street; there is no Third Street!)
When Sarah Holway toured an 1800s farmhouse in Waterford, Virginia, two years ago, it felt more like Truvy’s Place from Steel Magnolias than the elegant, Federal-style home that stands today. The previous owner had enclosed the side porch and turned it into a beauty parlor. Another owner dropped the ceilings and replaced the original windows with vinyl models. But Sarah, a former art teacher and an advocate for school gardens, was undeterred. “When I walked on the property and looked at the view, I felt such a strong reaction that I began to cry,” she says. At the time, Sarah lived in D.C. but regularly drove to the country on weekends to pick up produce at a farm run by friends. “I knew I didn’t want to live in a condo for the rest of my life,” she says. So she took the leap and, with the help of a contractor, spent nine months removing nails from damaged lathe walls, using a soft bristled brush to clean the antique brick, and demo-ing drywall before hauling buckets of it to a dumpster outside during blizzards. The process revealed the house’s 19th-century bones, and Sarah’s inner mettle. “I was ready on a deeper level for this kind of challenge,” she says. Now that she’s done, Sarah can enjoy the fruits of her labor, both figurative and literal thanks to the berries growing in the garden.
Kitchen
This story is from the March 2017 edition of Country Living.
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This story is from the March 2017 edition of Country Living.
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