Handing Down History
A New York–state antiques dealer rehabs the family farmhouse, paying painstaking respect to its Early American roots.
With both eyes on the past, a New York–state antiques dealer renovates the family farmhouse and opens up shop in a barn across the road.
Most of us have nostalgic notions about the homes we frequented as children, which are often consigned to memory. Timothy Northup, however, is making fresh memories in the 1830 Oneonta, New York, farmhouse where his grandparents lived for more than 60 years.
Timothy embarked on an extensive rehab in 2010, after his grandfather passed away at age 99. Converted into a duplex in the early 1900s, the home had been “modernized” in other ways over the years, most notably in the 1970s, when paneling, carpeting and dropped ceilings were added. “I’m an antiques dealer, and I knew the house had good bones,” Timothy says. “As we took the layers off, you could see what was there.”
Beams were exposed, wide-plank pine floors were revealed, a front porch was uncovered, and rooms were opened up. “We brought it back to its former glory,” Timothy says of the 11/2-year renovation.
For inspiration, he visited local museums and historic sites, including the Farmers’ Museum and Fenimore House in nearby Cooperstown. He also gathered ideas from his longtime girlfriend, Sallie Dunham-Davis, who had already restored her own early-1800s farmhouse. Among the ideas he borrowed from Sallie was a raised breakfast bar in the kitchen, which was put in after opening up the wall between the kitchen and breakfast area. Other alterations to the kitchen included relocating the sink from in front of the window to the counter facing the breakfast bar as well as installing new cabinetry, counters, and flooring distressed and colored to match the home’s original wood floors.
Owner of the Northup Gallery, which is located in a former dairy barn across the lane, Timothy got into the antiques business when he started working at a local auction house at the tender age of 15. “I have a photographic memory, so I was able to remember what things sold for; so, I started buying things and making a profit,” he explains. Timothy’s interest in antiques drives how he has decorated his own home, with a mix of authentic and reproduction pieces. He also designed many of the light fixtures throughout, from pendants in the kitchen to sconces on the exterior.
The great room showcases the best of Timothy’s folk-art and antiques collections, which include furniture, weather vanes, stoneware, paintings and more. It’s no surprise, then, that this room is his favorite. “It’s all warm and cozy and inviting,” he says. “It’s like a Norman Rockwell picture.”
Although some of the pieces that decorate the home are museum quality, the furnishings are not “roped off,” as one of Sallie’s nephews observed. “It was lived with for 200 years—why not continue living with it?” Timothy muses. “These pieces were built to last.”
Similarly, the farmhouse itself seems designed to endure. At one time, Timothy’s grandparents kept 48 dairy cows in the barn where he now operates his business. “I commute across the street like my grandparents, on the family farm repurposed to fit a modern lifestyle,” he says.
Timothy enjoys entertaining cousins and other family members at his home, which he says becomes as busy as a bedand-breakfast inn during the summer months. “It’s a great gathering spot for family members,” he notes. “We get to share all the memories we had here, and we are creating new ones.”