BUILDINGS AT TOPSMEAD – PART THREE - FRIENDS OF TOPSMEAD STATE FOREST

BUILDINGS AT TOPSMEAD – PART THREE

12/13/2023

EAST LITCHFIELD ROAD BUILDINGS

In July of 1936, Miss Edith bought approximately 47 acres from the Beirne family. This property was mostly wooded and was on the north side of East Litchfield Road. It contained a house and several barns. All buildings except for one barn and the house were demolished. The house underwent extensive modernization including electricity, plumbing, and heating. The remaining barn was used for storage and a garage. This became the home of the gardener Alec Derouin and his wife Eva. They lived there until Alec’s death in 1966. There was a short walk from this home to the garden at Underhill.
The second Topsmead State Forest manager, Mort Gunderson, lived there during his stay. The house is currently unoccupied.

In July of 1937, Miss Edith bought about 3 acres from Jacob Hausmann, this property was adjacent to the Beirne family land and contained the house where Mr. Hausmann lived. This property was directly across from the entrance to Underhill. I remember sitting on Mr. Hausmann’s knee when I was a child. In 1943 this house was sold for $300.00 to a Mr. Anderson and moved from the property. The well remained.

In 1948 the guest house was moved across the street from Underhill to this location, a two-car garage added, and provided a home for one of Miss Mary’s and Miss Lucy’s nephews until 1957 when it was returned to Miss Edith. It was then rented out for several years. In 1966 it became the home of Walter Lignor and family, a new Topsmead employee until 1972. We will discuss what happened to this house in a special commentary.

In March of 1966, Miss Edith purchased about 3 acres from Albert Hausmann. This was further east on the North side of East Litchfield Road. This property contained Mr. Hausmann,s home. This became the home of Kenneth Moore and family, a Topsmead employee until 1972. This was the last building added to Topsmead, and we will discuss what happened to this house in a special commentary.

SPECIAL COMMENTARY
All the buildings discussed in this presentation with the exception of the barns at Terryplace, which were burned to the ground by thieves covering up their crime of stealing state equipment in the later 1970’s and three houses remain at Topsmead to this date.

The three houses which are no longer there were auctioned off, by the State of Connecticut, I believe in 1974, as they did not feel that they could be maintained by the state.

The first of these was what I call the Buell Cottage, later referred to as the maid’s house located directly across the road from the farm manager’s house at the farm proper. It was auctioned for $5,500.00 and moved to its present location at 71 Buell Road.

The second house was the guesthouse, originally located at Underhill, the moved across East Litchfield Road in 1948. This was auctioned for $2,200.00 and was moved to 120 Marsh Road.

The third house was the Albert Hausmann house which was auctioned for $1,400.00 and moved to another location, I don’t know where.

1 Comment

Eileen Porter-Schmidt

2/13/2024 06:16:20 pm

August 25, 1974. Hartford Courant
Going, Going, Gone to the Highest Bidder. By Elaine Hooker
A small crowd of locals dressed in jeans and farmers’ overalls leaned against the back of a pickup truck and sized up the people who pulled into the dirt parking lot in their late-model American cars. Were they buyers? The suspense would be over in less than an hour. One by one, houses owned by the state acquired new owners, under an experimental policy of auctioning off houses various department no longer need. The first auctions were in Litchfield, August 17 at the summer estate of Edith Chase of Waterbury, who died in June 1972 left her 511-acre Topsmead Farm to the state Department of Environmental Protection. Three sturdy looking, six-room houses once occupied by hired hands went on the block. The state’s take for the morning wad $9,100, minus advertising costs and the auctioneer’s fee of $120. Since this is about four times what the state might have gotten through a sealed bid sale — which tends to discourage all but professional house buyers — the state will probably be doing a lot more house auctioning, according to Paul M. Sullivan, director of purchases. At 11 on the dot, William C. “Bill” Shine of Berlin, auctioneer, stepped onto the porch of the wood frame house used as the maid’s cottage and announced the terms of the sale: the highest bidder leaves a certified check for $250, pays the balance in seven days and removes the house within 90 days. “Do I hear a thousand? Eight hundred? Where would you like to start? Five Hundred? I hear five hundred,” and Shine was off, lickety-split, on a sale that would be consummated about 60 seconds later when he said “Sold for $5,500.” We hadn’t dared blink for the slightest nod of the head from one of two bidders jumped at price as much as $50 at a crack. Dr. Ward Heinrich, a radiologist who practices in Torrington and Great Barrington, Mass., plans to move the maid’s house to property he owns just across Buell Road. He claims it’s “a colonial gem” that dates to the 1700s. He wants to restore it and use it as a guest house for his children. The bidder who drove up the price on the maid’s cottage, Ralph Bailey of Litchfield bought the third house, a stucco cottage for $2,200. Bailey, a painter, wouldn’t say how he planned to use the house but said he’ll move it to his property on Marsh Road. The biggest stir among the locals came when the second house, a solid two-story wood frame, went for $1,400. “That was the best-made one. It’s a real good house,” according to Urgel A. Denis, an ironworker from Litchfield. Denis quit the fray at $1,300 only because he was bidding for a neighbor who’d gone out of town. The $1,30 was the neighbor’s limit. The successful bidder on that house was Patricia Johnson, who bought it for the Realtech Corp of Litchfield. The firm will move it to land it owns on Naser Road, Litchfield and will sell it, probably with five acres, Mrs. Johnson said. “Aah, that house’ll bring $70,000 with five acres over there,” Denis spat. The man who was all smiles was Harold C. Letsky of Morris House Movers, Inc. Letsky couldn’t lose, because it seems as though every person who went to the auction with a $250 certified check had already talked to him. Letsky will move all three, for “ballpark” estimate of $4,000 to $5,000 each.

ASK BOB: Remembering Topsmead