ROCKINGHAM, Vt. – The Rockingham Historic Preservation Commission will host a reception for the town’s 2022 Old House Award winners on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022, at 10 a.m. at the Rockingham Meeting House, 11 Meeting House Rd., Rockingham Village. The public is invited to congratulate the winners and celebrate historic preservation efforts underway throughout the town.
“Restored between 1906 and 1907, the meeting house is the birthplace of historic preservation in Rockingham, setting the pace for our region,” said John Leppman, Commission Chair. “It is big and bright, and a great place for the community to applaud historic preservation.”
Awards are made annually by the Commission to recognize property owners in the town of Rockingham who maintain and restore their historic homes and commercial and industrial buildings. Eligible properties are older homes and businesses that have received exterior restoration and conservation by their owners, typically in the past five years. Brass plaques are awarded the winners, who are encouraged to proudly post them on their entrances to call out their efforts to keep Rockingham historic. This year’s winners are:
Jeff Dunbar, owner of 8 Birch Street in Bellows Falls, which has gone through extensive renovation while keeping the historic design consistent, with extensive landscape restoration to appropriately frame a four-square Craftsman style house built circa 1900.
Janelle Beard, current owner of the Edward and Alice Walker House at 39 Atkinson Street in Bellows Falls, a two-and-a-half-story wood frame asymmetrical Queen Anne house built in 1898.
Lucia and Matt Zachowski, current owners of the Weeden Farm at 220 Parker Hill Road in Rockingham Town, once one of the major farms along this byway, a vernacular two-story farmhouse and barn originally built in 1850 and enlarged in 1880.
Vyacheslav Borshchukov, current owner of the Haseltine-Carey Farm at 410 Lower Parker Hill Road in Rockingham Town, one of the most substantial nineteenth-century agricultural enterprises on Parker Hill, built in the Federal Style in 1810.
Thomas and Kirsten M. Koehne, current owners of the Elias Olcott House at 34 Upper Meadow Road in Rockingham Town, built along the colonial Connecticut Turnpike and the best example of the Georgian building style in the area, surviving in comparatively unaltered condition. Built in 1763 in the area that was once referred to as City Dale, it is the oldest standing structure in Rockingham.
Felicite Boisvert, owner of The Stone House at 116 Lower Bartonsville Road in Bartonsville Hamlet, a one-and-a-half-story, gable-front, stone building, designed in the Federal style, built circa 1850.
Bridgman-Fairbanks House and Bellows Falls Hospital located at 50 Pine Street in Bellows Falls, a two-and-a-half-story wood frame vernacular Italianate building with a colonial revival porch originally built between 1881 and 1883 as a single family dwelling, it was repurposed as Bellows Falls Hospital. Current adaptation is a five-unit multi-family condominium.
Andrew Kottke, owner of 240 Rockingham Street. Built circa 1960 at the outset of Vermont’s Interstate Era, it served many years as the Hetty Green Motel and is now extensively refurbished as a multi-family apartment complex preserving the architectural formulation of mid-century modern hostelry design.
Edward Gray, current owner of the Elijah and Mercy Knight House, 9 Meeting House Road in Old Rockingham Village, a two-and-a-half-story wood frame Federal-style house located at the bottom of the hill below the Meeting House. Built in 1806, the house is beautifully framed by a late eighteenth-century garden.
The Old House Award program is made possible in part through the generosity of the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation and the National Park Service. For more information about the event or the Old House Awards, contact clg@rockbf.org.