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The Suffolk Resolves House, which today sits at 1370 Canton Ave., recently had a facelift, thanks to a $30,000 grant from the Copeland Family Foundation.
Over the past few months, the Milton Historical Society has overseen the restoration of the home’s interior. The funds allowed all the walls and ceilings to be scraped, patched, sanded and painted, and now the Suffolk Resolves House glows with historically accurate colors gleaming in every room.
“These colors are all [derived] from historic Williamsburg colors that they determined through paint analysis were in period houses,” explained Milton Historical Society President Linda Pirie, as she led an informal tour around the house. “In some of our rooms the painter actually would take a chip of the wood and look back and be able to tell us what color was underneath.”
By looking at the paint chips under a magnifying glass, painters from H M Nordstrom Co., of Newton, were able to closely match wall colors to reflect the colors that the original owner, Daniel Vose, had chosen to adorn the walls. The dining room’s new hue actually harkens back to the tastes of Dr. and Mrs. James Ayer, who were the ones that saved the house from demolition in 1950. They had the house moved to their Canton Avenue estate from its location on Adams Street, where the Citizens Bank now sits in Milton Village.
“The house has been moved twice, from another spot in the village,” said Pirie. “Daniel Vose moved it during his lifetime, in the 1700s. In the 1700s you didn’t have pipes and you didn’t have wires, so moving houses wasn’t that unusual. When we looked back historically we were amazed at the number of house movings, through the 1800s.”
In its more recent history, the interior of the house had been painted white on white. The ceilings had become cracked and stained over the years, and much of the woodwork and windowsills had begun to deteriorate. The Copeland grant has brought new life to each room, and the color schemes have warmed the house to bring back its original stately charm.
If you have visited the house in the past, the restoration calls for a return visit. And newcomers will be impressed with the fact that they are surrounded by a historically accurate ambiance. The house holds many important pieces that directly relate to the history of Milton and early America.
Another grant, from the Milton Garden Club, has allowed the society to tend to the gardens surrounding the house. A lovely perennial garden was planted and tended by Joe Cedrone, who lives in the house, along with historian Anthony Sammarco. According to Pirie, Cedrone spends between 40 and 60 hours a week tending to the gardening at the house. The fruits of his labors should be evident in the next few weeks, as spring weather allows flowering buds to peek out from winter hiding places.
To celebrate the restoration, and to coincide with Patriots Day, the Milton Historical Society will host an open house at the Suffolk Resolves House on Sunday, April 19, from 1 to 3 p.m. Among those on hand will be Gordon Campbell and living historians of the Ninth Massachusetts Regiment, a group of revolutionary war re-enactors, formed in 1975 in Braintree, who plan a musket drill for children in attendance. They will also share the life and activities of an 18th century military camp and its soldiers.
“Even though we are a historical society, we try to have something for everyone and not to be overly heavy in history,” Pirie stressed, mentioning that the society is open to anyone interested in the town.
She added, “We have things for the serious researcher and we have activities for people who just want to get together and have a lighter aspect and maybe a shorter look back at history. I mean, history is yesterday, so it really doesn’t matter. … We do like to incorporate things where people can just get together and share memories and bring up things that people have kind of forgotten about.”
For more information on the Suffolk Resolves House and the Milton Historical Society, visit www.miltonhistoricalsociety.org.