CT conservationist uncovers the past in her antique home

On most summer mornings writer and conservationist Christine Adams starts her day sitting by the East Aspetuck River that runs along the side of her property in New Preston.

The wood-framed white Colonial cottage on the land, built around 1790, according to Adams, rests on the banks of the river which flows from its source at Lake Waramaug about a quarter of a mile north. The narrow waterway once powered as many as 21 mills during the Industrial age, Adams says, but these days it flows freely through several Litchfield County towns.

For Adams, the pastoral surroundings offer a contemplative retreat before each day begins in earnest. Usually accompanied by a book, she carves out time each morning drawing inspiration from the scenic views while reading novels, history or poetry with her morning coffee and her rescue dog by her side.

“Many who cared about me thought I was out of my stubborn mind to buy a 240-year-old mill house, alone, acting impulsively during a transitional time of life,” Adams says, recalling when she purchased the property in 2018. At the time, she was in the midst of a divorce from a 22-year marriage. Adams lived in New York, Paris and Montclair, New Jersey before returning home to Connecticut. The cottage “has been my safe house and a symbol of my total independence,” she says.

That independence has come in waves for Adams and produced challenges since moving back to her home state of Connecticut six years ago. The vagaries of tending to major renovations of her antique mill house have meant diving headlong into major refurbishments on her own, including adding a new septic system to replace an antiquated cesspool and replacing the old oil heating system with a propane boiler.

The refurbishments also included securing the failing foundation in some areas and shoring up rotting floor joists in others. Original hand-hewn chestnut posts and beams were restored and left exposed. Bathrooms were enlarged, including turning the closet in the primary bedroom into a large shower.

Adams removed interior walls on the ground level to create an open living space and allow the fireplace at the center of the room to become its focal point. A balustrade replaced the boxed staircase on the ground floor to make the space more roomy.

Builders moved the kitchen to the east side of the house and installed a wall of windows on the west side to allow for better river views. Unearthing the original wide board white oak flooring in the dining room allowed that space to return to its original form.

The home’s furnishing speaks to Adams’ life and travels. Two leather club chairs on the main floor were purchased in Paris while she lived there. A floor rug was procured on a trip to Marrakesh.

“It is a tricky business to take a historic home and make it usable for today’s living,” Adams says, referring to the challenge of adapting an antique home to fit with present day needs. 

That meant replacing the older windows with insulated ones to combat Connecticut winters while muffling the roar of the falls outside. Renovating cramped and compartmentalized areas of the home to more open living spaces. And converting some closets into bathrooms.

“Our dwelling places have to adapt to present day needs,” Adams says. “But I’d like to think I have done a decent job in unearthing original details of this cottage that have long been lost to 225 years worth of renovations.”

She’s also prioritized her professional goals since moving back to Connecticut. After years of working as a recruiting manager at a New York law firm, Adams followed her lifelong passion for conservation last year and joined the Steep Rock Association as a development coordinator. She’s now helping to lead preservation efforts at Steep Rock, a century-old formally incorporated land trust with holdings of over 5,700 acres in the state.

“When I look back over the past few years I’m proud of how I’ve been able to balance all of the different facets of my life here,” says Adams, who was born in New Britain and raised in Bristol. “Parenting and managing all that comes with the house and my conservation work has all been rewarding but it’s also been challenging and that, to me, is the essence of life.”

Some of those life lessons have been distilled into a new book of poetry Adams published in May. 

Setting the Table in the Age of Reason, published by Propertius Press, is a collection of literary work that celebrates the beauty of everyday life through common objects and our relationship to them, according to the publisher. Adams says the book highlights the connective beauty of nature and historic places, two of her passions.

“The poems explore the beauty in what most of us consider the mundane aspects of our lives,” she says. “Revealing the small intangible joys found in the simple things in life.”

The renovation of her 18th century cottage isn’t Adams’ first experience with antique dwellings. 

Her family’s roots in Connecticut date back more than 100 years on Lake Waramaug where her family still owns a cottage on the state’s second-largest natural lake. “It’s one of the last remaining original structures there,” says Adams, who serves on the board of directors at the Lake Waramaug Task Force, a non-profit dedicated to maintaining the ecology and water quality of the lake. “We’ve summered there for generations and nowhere has felt more like home to me,” she says.After purchasing the mill house in New Preston, Adams began researching the history of the home and the people who lived there. That investigation sparked the idea for her next book: a local history of New Preston told through the lives of the previous occupants of her home. The working title is Homespun: A Biography of a Connecticut Cottage. 

“I’ve been able to pull up deeds for the property dating back to 1812, but I’m stuck there,” says Adams, a trustee at the Kent Historical Society. She’s identified previous owners dating back more than 200 years and believes an earlier inhabitant, Ephraim Smith, may have built the home. She’s hoping to uncover more details about him.

“This is a passion project so my enthusiasm for learning more about my home and community is still pretty strong.”