Antiques dealer has Beecher House on eBay

Disassembled dwelling available for $400K

The birthplace of Harriet Beecher Stowe, purchased to honor the Beecher family, is for sale on eBay.

LITCHFIELD » The birthplace of Harriet Beecher Stowe, which was purchased in the late 1990s by a preservationist who hoped to restore it in Litchfield and turn it into a center devoted to the Beecher family, is for sale on eBay.

The Hartford Courant reported earlier this week that antique dealer Art Pappas in Woodbury has listed the house on eBay for $400,000.

Pappas would not reveal who he obtained the structure from.

“It’s something I don’t really want to talk about,” he said Friday. “But at this point, we’ve listed the house on and off for about 6 months on eBay.”

In a description on his eBay ad, Pappas writes: “This is the most important Dismantled American House that is available for re construction. You can be part of history for saving this National treasure. Originally built by The famous Revolutionary War Captain Elijah Wadsworth in 1774 and sold to Reverend Lyman Beecher in 1810 (t)here on North Street in Litchfield CT(,) located just 7 miles from John Brown’s Home. Lyman Beecher’s entire family lived there in the early nineteenth century. Harriet Beecher Stowe described the home she and her sibling’s were born in and grew up in the 1878 book [Poganuc] People ... tThis house is a Original Rare type center hall hip roof timber frame House 32’x30’. A 18’x30’ addition was added by Lyman Beecher in 1814. The roof was changed to a full gable type around 1870. Every single thing has been saved including the original plaster walls ... They are crated in plywood and have been removed whole. The dirt and fragments between the walls have even been saved for possible forensic analysis. The building is stored in Two semi trailers and two containers.

Pappas can be reached at 203-233-1736. The deconstructed house is stored in Great Barrington, Mass.

Pappas said that if and when he sells the Beecher House, it must go to someone who will treat it properly.

“We’ve had interest in the house, but I want to find someone who will do a good job with it, not just stand it up in their back yard,” he said. Whoever does it needs to have the financial means to do it. I’m not going to let just anybody take it.”

The Beecher Society, which Saint founded when he began his quest to have the house turned into a museum, is defunct as well.

According to a story published in The Litchfield County Times on Feb. 2, 2009, the Beecher house was sold to Chandler Saint and Stephen Solley in 1998 for $1. By this time, it was on the campus of the Forman School in North Street, where it was part of a dormitory. Saint, Solley and their supporters took the building apart and placed it inside two trailers. It was eventually moved to Solley’s home in Washington, and Saint pursued his plans to rebuild it behind his then-home on North Street, the Benjamin Tallmadge House. That property abuts a corner of land next to the Litchfield Town Hall. The house was to be called the Beecher House Center for the Study of Equal Rights.

Saint deeded two acres behind his North Street home to the state in 2000, specifically for the center’s use. State officials including now-Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who was then the state’s attorney general, backed the project. At that time, Blumenthal said the project could possibly be done outside of local zoning regulations.

But when Litchfield’s Planning and Zoning commission sued Saint, the state withdrew its support.

Pappas has not spoken to Saint for three years.

“I don’t have any contact with him,” he said.

While he was trying to get the house project accepted on the local level, Saint was facing foreclosure on his own home. He was sued by a realty company for failure to pay his mortgage on the 47 North St. property, and owed back property taxes to the town of Litchfield. He also wrangled with residents and officials in Litchfield, sued the town himself, and locked horns with members of the historic district over what he deemed “race issues.”

In 2002, Litchfield residents voted on a proposal to sell property behind town hall to Saint to rebuild the house, and turned it down.

Saint eventually turned his attention to rebuilding the Beecher house in Torrington, home of abolitionist John Brown. In 2004, he signed a $1.99 a year lease with then-mayor Owen Quinn for 90 acres on University Drive near the nowclosed UConn campus. The city stipulated that its Planning and Zoning Commission had to approve plans within the year and the museum had to be completed within 10 years.

That project, and the relationship between Saint’s supporters and Torrington, dissolved after he requested a six-month extension from the City Council and failed to provide what members considered proper plans for the building. He then investigated using another piece of UConn property, but that plan never materialized.

In 2009, Wesleyan University Press published “Making Freedom: The Extraordinary Life of Venture Smith,” which Saint co-authored with journalist George Krimsky, detailing the story of one of Connecticut’s most noteworthy historical figures. He has continued his work on the history of Venture Smith, organizing events in East Haddam, where Smith settled as a farmer after obtaining his freedom.

Pappas said he would like to see the house reconstructed in its hometown.

“It’s part of Litchfield,” he said. “But I think with everything that’s gone on, nobody wants to have anything to do with it anymore. It’s an extremely important piece of American history and I want it to be preserved one way or another, and Litchfield is where it should be.”