Built in another day-and-age, home touches three centuries
In rugged little St. John’s it was a good time to build a house of one’s own. Freshwater Road was meandering west and offering new home sites just beyond “the higher levels.”
On one particular block of land on that road near the junction with Mayor Avenue all the essentials to build a modest family home in 1875 — mortar, rocks, wide planking and even a complete tree trunk were being pulled together. The hiproofed house that resulted is part of the neighbourhood to this day.
It has been home to many different owners for nearly a century-and-a-half.
Admittedly, No. 58 Freshwater Rd. has changed a lot in its146 years. But for the discerning eye the hip roof betrays the home’s antiquity. It’s a style of roof that reaches well back in time. Excellent for handling rain and snow, the design has been neatly described as “pyramid-shaped.”
The year in which this house was built must have been a year with a measure of optimism among the people of the old colony.
That summer, renowned engineer Sandford Fleming was here with a surveying team to map a trouble-free rail route cutting across the island to St. George’s Bay. Things were looking good.
Benefits were still being realized from the previous season’s greatest-ever fishery.
While its builder is unknown, No. 58 today is owned (and loved) by Sharilee Anderson, who bought the home a year ago.
Two things in particular endeared it to her: “the character of the house where not one floor, wall or ceiling is level — and I absolutely love the quaint courtyard-style back yard.”
Earlier this year as the new owner was having some modifications done inside, a portion of interior wall had to be removed. Under multiple layers of highly-coloured wallpaper there appeared (to the carpenter’s surprise) strips of newspaper glued to the walls. And the newspaper was German.
Questions, research and inquiries could not add measurably to what little is known of the house, but as there was considerable trade between Hamburg, Germany, and the port of St. John’s in the mid-19th century, that could suggest the source of the German papers.
From our port, for example, we regularly shipped tonnes of seal oil to Hamburg to be refined. It is quite possible that plenty of discarded German newspapers were at hand, likely at waterfront premises.
Close examination of the newspaper strips revealed the name Hamburg in several places.
While newsprint was frequently used on the outside walls of homes to bolster insulation, these strips of paper were on an interior wall. The guess: it was glued to rough wood surfaces to provide a smooth base for applying the finishing wallpaper.
No. 58 is a small house but varied renovations down through the years have assured that it accommodates changing requirements.
The home provides a pleasant “front room,” a separate dining room, kitchen and hallway. A back porch was added in 1906 and today there are even closets.
Sharilee says the ceiling in the master bedroom has been left to show the wide and original planking of the attic floor and the structural beams.
The hardwood on the floors of the main level is original too, in narrow, well-seasoned strips.
An unusual aspect of the house is the full tree trunk reaching from one wall to another in the basement.
It was the major support beam for the house. The tree still bears a few of its smaller branches. The trunk actually runs through the foundation, which is of stacked slate held by generous dollops of mortar.
Today, the trunk remains in place but its purpose of supporting the house has been retired by new structuring.
The foundation itself is deep enough (high enough) for a person to stand; it is a perfect square box and actually of smaller proportions than the house above.
It cannot be said that over the years successive owners have restored as opposed to renovated the house.
But today enough of its original styling and construction remain to provide an intriguing lesson in the building of a moderate home in Newfoundland of the late 19th century.
No. 58 is just west of the Freshwater-pennywell junction and immediately east of the Mayor Avenue junction.
The family who lived in the house in 1892 would have had frightening views east and south on the late afternoon, into the evening and through the night of July 8 that year. A fire of historic proportions, encouraged by a strong westerly wind started just down the road and gutted the tight-knit city.
Numerous commercial properties, wharves, schools and churches tumbled in an explosion of sparks, embers and smoke as much of St. John’s that night fell in ruin.
No. 58 was among the survivors.