Under The Eaves
English-style lean-to is carefully restored over past decade
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
Elizabeth Hillger takes her role as owner of a 17th century Nantucket home very seriously. In fact, rather than consider herself as simply a homeowner, Hillger views herself as a steward whose duty is to preserve and protect the architectural and historical integrity of 139 Main St. to the best of her ability.

"I have always had a sense of continuity about the house - that it once belonged to someone else and one day will belong to another - and that the house has its own story and I am just a part of that story," said Hillger, who inherited the home through her family. "I feel a strong sense of stewardship and the value of historic preservation. This isn't simply a piece of per- sonal property for me where as an owner I have a right to do what I want to the property. If you really believe in stewardship and that you've been given something and you pass it on, then you don't treat it as personal property."

Though there is some discrepancy in the house's documentation as to whether Richard Gardner I or Richard Gardner II was the home's original owner, it is believed the structure was built in 1690. The confusion arises from incomplete old records and the 1747 will of Joseph Gardner, son of Richard II, which read that he left his clock and the house at Wesco, formerly his father's dwelling, to his son Bethuel. Since Joseph had received land in the town's Wesco area, known as the "crooked record" in 1690, the wording of his will implies that it was Joseph's father who built the house, though the land itself first belonged to Richard I as of approximately 1667.

The Richard Gardner House at 139 Main St. ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent

The English-style lean-to now at 139 Main St. was first located behind George Gardner's house at 141 Main St. in an area presently called Lowell Place and was used as a carriage house when Gladys Wood, Hillger's great-aunt, bought it in 1927. At that time the original diamond-paned leaded windows had been replaced by six-over-six windows, but Miss Wood discovered many of the early windows stored in the structure and reinstalled them with reproductions she had made to substitute for the missing windows. Miss Wood paid $1,500 for the house subject to its being moved. She also bought the Lowell House at 137 Main St. which had enough property to accommodate the Gardner House.

According to the Historic American Buildings Survey done on 139 Main St., the chain of its ownership went from Richard Gardner II to his son Joseph and then in 1747 to Joseph's son Bethuel. When he died in 1787, the house was passed to his brother Caleb Gardner and it remained in the Gardner family for greater than a century. In 1840, Asa Coffin, whose wife was a Gardner descendant, sold the house to George C. Gardner who had a sizable farm and used the building as his carriage house. When George died he bequeathed the house to his son, John C. Gardner, and when he died it went to Harrison Gardner, John's son. In 1926 Harrison sold the dwelling to Herbert G. Worth and Arthur W. Jones who the next year sold it to Gladys Wood.

Once the house was moved, Miss Wood engaged Alfred Shurrocks, an architect with the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, to assist in its restoration. An addition was built on the east side and a nine-foot wide central chimney was created based on the design of the original chimney which had been removed from the eastern end. She also installed a small basement that began caving in during the late 1980s and had to be rebuilt. By the summer of 1929, both the Gardner and Lowell houses were part of a house tour to benefit Nantucket Cottage Hospital. Later, Miss Wood moved the Lowell house a few hundred feet to Quarter Mile Hill to provide a larger yard for 139 Main St.

Miss Wood, who with islander

Margaret Prentice rescued the dilapadated schooner Allen B. Gurney in 1921 and turned it into The Skipper restaurant, died in 1971. Following her death her sister Dorothy Kaulbach, Hillger's grandmother, moved in and subsequently died in the house in 1974. The house next passed to Hillger's mother Virginia Kaulbach Hillger, but she had a home in Quaise where she spent half the year and lived the other part of the year in Winchester, Mass. Since she had no need to live at 139 Main St. she began renting it and did so until in 1997 she gifted the house to her daughter Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth Hillger inherited the handsome and historic home she also inherited its powder post beetles, damp plaster due to leaks, windows needing releading and reglazing and floors that required shoring up. For the last 10 years she has been working with a preservation architect with the National Park Service who helped her prioritize work to be done, such as the importance of a drainage system to keep water away from the structure. Hillger is also working with island restorationist Sanford Kendall.

"I've always loved this house," said Hillger, who visited it since she was a young girl. "I felt it was my home and I wanted to make it as I remembered it as a child, so there were a lot of sentimental and emotional feelings. I want to save as much of the preexisting material as possible."

Hillger said Miss Wood did modernize the kitchen somewhat in the 1950s, but she has made no other alterations to it other than to put in a new oven and refrigerator and to hire a specialist to do rewiring without removing any plastered walls or wooden raised wall paneling.

"Nothing was harmed in the process," she said.

Hillger obviously carries a deep love and appreciation for this home where as of this year she is living year-round with one of her sons. Right down to the furnishings, wall fixtures and rugs, she has maintained the first floor sitting and dining rooms with their massive brick fireplaces and beamed ceilings and the second story bedrooms almost exactly as they were when her great-aunt had the house.

"Everything changes and so it's important to define the importance of history," said Hillger. "We have to be able to articulate why it should be saved."