Owning a Piece of History at Pepper Hill

An old country farmhouse at 500 Cutlers Farm Road has a saltbox addition among its distinctive architectural features, an extensive private garden and a bluestone pool area with a cabana and fire pit. It was built on 200-acres donated to the heirs of Captain Nathaniel Seeley for his service to the Crown in the Pequot War. Seeley was the only English soldier to lose his life in the Great Swamp Fight of 1637 — a battle waged in Southport.

The home was built by Abner Seeley circa 1760 and remained in the family for 174 years, until title was transferred to Stepney Methodist Church in 1934 and it became known as Pepper Hill, home to various tenants until 1966.

The house was used as a parsonage from 1967 until 1969, when it was sold to the Taggart family, then to New York architect Mary Grace in 1993. Mary Lalli and Bill Stankey, the current owners, acquired the house and its three-bay barn in 1998 ... and now it can be all yours. The home is currently on the market with an asking price of $549,000.

"It's a great house," said Stankey. "I'm going kicking and screaming. If Mary didn't want to go to Arizona, I would never leave."

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"It's rare that you get a piece of history like this in a town, which is totally restored," said Barbara Snyder, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker. "It has a double oven and radiant floors."

Showings for the home, which is now on three acres, are by appointment only. Snyder can be reached at (203) 482-5129. For more information on the house and to take a virtual tour, follow this link.

Unique Features

The country house at 500 Cutlers Farm Road is accessed by a front gate and a stone driveway leads to the house and a three-bay barn. French doors in the dining room open out to a stone patio designed by Mary Grace, who had brought in masons from Brazil to do the job.

Grace oversaw a 1993 restoration of the home to its original architectural grandeur, including the wainscoting, light fixtures and fireplace mantles.

Edna Prentice, the last tenant when the house took on renters as Pepper Hill, was an avid gardener filling the property with all kinds of annual and perennial plants. Stankey's wife, Mary Lalli, took over the landscaping.

She hired Tim Currier of Sticks & Stones Farm in Newtown to redo all of the stonewalls. Stankey said Currier found huge boulders on the property and moved them with a backhoe. The boulders now adorn the pool area.

Plantings in the yard are from Oliver's and Twombly nurseries.

The house itself had a saltbox addition circa 1830 and a workroom added in the 1940's is now the kitchen.

Touring the Inside

The 2,569 square-foot two-story colonial has up to five bedrooms and three full baths, all with a claw foot tub. The kitchen has been updated with stainless steel GE Profile appliances, granite counters and radiant heat floors that extend into the adjacent dining rooms.

"The thing about living in this house is it has so much character," said Stankey. "The house rambles a little bit, people sometimes get lost and turned around."

But that is because the colonial's layout is not typical, he added, saying it soon becomes easy to navigate.

The dining room, which used to be the kitchen, has a large wooden table from the period. The chairs around it are reproductions.

"It has all of the original flooring," Stankey said.

The house has four fireplaces — three that work. One is being used to ventilate the furnace, according to Stankey.

Before climbing the staircase, Stankey noted that all of its original railings remain intact.

The stairs lead to the main living room, which has fireplaces with beehive ovens at both ends. Stankey pointed to the small floor area around one of the fireplaces, "This is one solid stone, about 11 feet long," he said.

Of the wooden floorboards in the room, he said, "That's a 14-inch plank here. All chestnut. In very good shape."

The second-floor hallway has a meat smoker built into the wall. A back staircase off one of the bedrooms leads back down to the living room.

'Wonderful Memories'

"We lived in a house in Fairfield that was an old homestead on Old Sturges Road, a two-bedroom Cape built in the late '20s or '30s," Stankey said. "I've always loved history. If I didn't do what I did for a living, I would probably teach U.S. history."

Stankey works in the entertainment business as the manager for Joy Behar from "The View" and Ty Pennington from "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

Stankey and Lalli looked into the history of 500 Cutlers Farm when they first bought the property and Stankey said much of the information was provided by Mary Grace and Monroe Town Historian Edward Coffey.

Preserving the old house is important to the couple. "If someone came in who was a developer, I would have a difficult time making a deal," Stankey said of prospective buyers.

The colonial is a mile from Wolfe Park and even closer to the Housatonic Rail Trail, and Snyder said it is a 50-minute drive to New York City.

"What's here is just unbelievable for the price," said Snyder.

But Stankey looks beyond the usual selling points.

"There's an intrinsic value in this house," he said. "When I come here at night, you feel a sense of everyone who lived here in the past and everyone took really good care of this place."

Stankey learned how one of the Seeleys married P.T. Barnum's daughter.

"I don't know if they lived here or not," he said. "I met a woman who was a wet nurse for one of the previous owner's children here, who's now in her '80s."

There was also a Dr. Crampton of Virginia.

"He was just driving by the other day," Stankey recalled. "He stopped in and said, 'I grew up in this house. I have wonderful memories of this house. Can I come in and look around?' I said, 'Sure.' I can see myself coming back."