The Little Red Cape that Could

Danville Vil­lage House to Open Its Doors on May 2

“It’s been a labor of love, but I’m not a patient woman,” said Mary Pri­or, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society.

She’s had to learn to be patient, though, as the charm­ing cape, now known as the Danville Vil­lage House, has slow­ly reap­peared in its orig­i­nal form beside the stat­uesque Danville Con­gre­ga­tion­al church on Hill Street. 

The project began in 2006 with a let­ter sent to var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions in Danville. In it was a stun­ning offer from a lawyer, announc­ing that an anony­mous donor wished to gift sub­stan­tial mon­ey to a group who had a good idea about how to use it. 

Impa­tient Mary, nev­er lack­ing for an idea, jumped at the thought of estab­lish­ing a restored build­ing ded­i­cat­ed to the col­lec­tion and shar­ing of his­to­ry in the cen­ter of Danville Vil­lage. Mar­garet Springer, who had worked for 30-plus years as pres­i­dent and archivist of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety, was ecsta­t­ic about the idea, and the thought began to gath­er momentum.

Time was of the essence, and Mary imme­di­ate­ly con­tact­ed Paul Chouinard. “He is an archi­tec­tur­al per­fec­tion­ist by avo­ca­tion,” said Mary. He’s a real estate agent to boot, and they set out to find a house that would fit the bill. By luck or grace, the lit­tle cape by the Con­gre­ga­tion­al church became available. 

“I like where it sits,” said Paul. “It is near the cen­ter of the vil­lage, and it has his­tor­i­cal integri­ty.” Paul describes it as, “a pro­to­typ­i­cal Cape Cod style home mir­ror­ing the aus­tere sim­plic­i­ty of ear­ly nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, rur­al Ver­mont homes.” 

Odd­ly enough, Mary found that the lin­eage of the peo­ple con­nect­ed with the house were among the long-stand­ing fam­i­lies of Danville: Sias, Choate (the builder, a cab­i­net-mak­er), Cur­ri­er, Cahoon, Peck and Gadapee. It was a per­fect match. “All the work the his­tor­i­cal soci­ety had done under Margaret’s direc­tion and tire­less efforts made it pos­si­ble for me to research this house,” said Mary. 

With Paul’s knowl­edge of ear­ly con­struc­tion and Mary’s deed research, a detailed his­to­ry of the house, pro­posed bud­get and pro­ject­ed use of the build­ing was sent to the lawyer of the donor. Imag­ine the excite­ment when Mary received a let­ter that relat­ed the donor would pay the pur­chase price of $198,000 and anoth­er $200,000 for restora­tion. “The donor had some good sug­ges­tions as well,” said Mary. “For exam­ple: Weren’t the pro­posed cedar shakes a fire haz­ard? The donor was also adamant that the house would have a meet­ing room and park­ing lot.”

Togeth­er, Mary and Paul, con­fer­enc­ing with the His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety, worked out the ren­o­va­tion plans. Paul, a real stick­ler for detail, was cho­sen as clerk of works. They vis­it­ed Stur­bridge Vil­lage. “The build­ings there were built in the same time peri­od as the house,” explained Paul. “It helped to visu­al­ize what the house looked like back in 1838 when it was built.” In their plan­ning, they designed for his­tor­i­cal cor­rect­ness as well as com­pli­ance to the Amer­i­cans with Dis­abil­i­ties Act.. 

In keep­ing with the desire to use as many local arti­sans and builders as pos­si­ble, Paul began the painstak­ing job of putting togeth­er con­tracts. The list of cho­sen con­trac­tors includ­ed: Harold Lun­nie, foun­da­tion; Gar­ren Calkins, dri­ve­way exca­va­tion, park­ing area, and seed­ing; Michael Walsh, garage restora­tion, sin­gle sto­ry addi­tion, clap­board sid­ing, floor­ing, and shed stor­age room; Joel Cur­ri­er, wood for floor­ing and wain­scot; Paul Dus­sault, heat­ing; Hol­lis Pri­or, land­scap­ing; Luke Col­by, wiring; Sal­ly A. Fish­burn, replace­ment doors and win­dows; Phil Beat­tie, stonework; Lucian Avery, black­smith; Steven Towsley, chim­ney; and Frank Sieben­brun­ner, fin­ish­ing details. (This list doesn’t include the red-hued Mary and her hus­band, Hol­lis, who could be watched for weeks as they vol­un­tar­i­ly paint­ed the whole building.) 

Mean­while, Mary con­tin­ued her his­tor­i­cal research, this time in a more com­mu­nal way. Her Gram­mie Ten­nie was a social his­to­ri­an. In writ­ings for Ver­mont Life and the Burling­ton Free Press, she pub­lished sto­ries told by those still liv­ing about peo­ple and events of the past. “I spent a great deal of time dri­ving her to remote loca­tions through­out Cale­do­nia and Essex Coun­ties,” Mary remem­bers. “I’d wait, some­times for hours, while she inter­viewed some­one for an arti­cle she was writing.”

In Gram­mie Tenney’s tra­di­tion, Mary searched and wrote some social his­to­ry of Annie and Sam Cur­ri­er, who were own­ers of the house from 1933 to 1960. Sam died in 1943, so for most of that time, it was known as Annie’s house. The inter­views include some won­der­ful sto­ries, two of which follow. 

Janette Lang­maid Morse, Mary’s sec­ond cousin: 

“Annie Cur­ri­er looked like she wouldn’t like chil­dren, but that was not the case. She had a sort of scowl for an expres­sion, but she was the nicest woman. My moth­er and father lived next door. My son Alan used to go vis­it her often. She would have a nice, sweet pud­ding for him. One day, she offered him his pud­ding; he didn’t like it very well, because it wasn’t sweet. 

‘Why doesn’t the pud­ding taste like usu­al?’ he asked.

‘It’s Indi­an pud­ding,” Annie replied.

‘Where did you get the dead Indi­ans to put in the pudding?’”

Winona Gadapee, for­mer own­er of the house:

“I loved that house. I would still live there if I could, but my breath­ing required a brand new house. While we lived there, the key to the Con­gre­ga­tion­al church hung by the kitchen door inside the sun porch. It was avail­able to any­one who need­ed it. When we sold the house to the Grayecks, the key still hung there for use by all. Once, Mr. Grayek, who was Jew­ish, laughed in telling me that the key to the church hung right beside the door­post that they would touch on their way in as a Jew­ish blessing. 

‘Only in Danville,’ he would say.”

In a way, the tra­di­tion of the key still exists. But this time, the house itself has become a key. All those who paid with mon­ey and time offer the res­i­dents of Danville a lov­ing­ly restored place to meet, research, chat, and remem­ber their dear ones and the com­mu­ni­ty in which they lived. 

Besides the May 2 Grand Open­ing, pro­gram­ming ideas are start­ing to stir. Mary plans for the build­ing to be open from 1:00–8:00 on Tues­days and Thurs­days and Sat­ur­day morn­ings. “We need to spread the work into the com­mu­ni­ty, so Danville Vil­lage House becomes alive and vibrant,” she said.

To see the pic­ture album relat­ed to this arti­cle click here    

To enjoy a video walk-through of the Danville Vil­lage House, host­ed by Paul Chouinard, click here

This sto­ry was first pub­lished in April, 2009 issue of The North Star Monthly