Valley Homes: Starting over: 21st-century living in an 18th-century home

By Cheryl Wilson Bulletin Contributing Writer

Published on February 15, 2008

For 20 years Bill Pohl dreamed of owning a home in the Pioneer Valley. Finally, in 2000, Pohl and his wife, Marilyn Toth, found their dream house and bought the old Lyman Farm homestead on a hilltop in Belchertown. Less than a year later, on a cold March night, it went up in flames.

"This story is almost too painful for us to tell," Pohl said last week. "It's a tale of redemption."

Pohl fell in love with this area when he was a Bowdoin College student, traveling with his a cappella singing group to perform at local colleges in the early 1970s.

"I thought, 'Oh my goodness, this is gorgeous.'"

After working briefly as a reporter, he eventually lived in the New York City area where he was a strategist and public relations official for corporations like IBM. But he always wanted to return to the Pioneer Valley.

The couple wanted to farm, an interest Pohl acquired after meeting the late back-to-the-landers Scott and Helen Nearing nearly 30 years ago. Toth grew up in Connecticut, where her father grew tomatoes and other vegetables.

Pohl said he learned from the Nearings that farm life is "the good life." They also taught him to "pay as you go." To this day, he refuses to have credit cards, except for business, and the couple saved money to pay cash for their home.

In 2000, their real estate agent found a house for them, but she said it was bound to be snapped up immediately. "You better get up here," she told the couple, who were then living in Fairfield County, Ct.

"Our jaws just dropped when we saw the view," Pohl remembered. "On a clear day we can see all the way to Mount Greylock and beyond Hartford. The sunsets are incredible." He added that they now sit on their deck and watch whole weather systems over the mountains with fog so thick in the valleys that it is like living in San Francisco.

The four-acre farm seemed ideal for them. "We could see visions of heirloom tomatoes," Pohl said. "It was like karma."

The farm's origins also intrigued them. The farmhouse was built in 1764, according to the Belchertown Historical Society. "I loved the history of it," Pohl said. "It was built in the midst of the Indian wars. This was like the frontier. It was built 20 years before Shays' Rebellion started in Pelham."

Previous owners had added to the Cape-style house over the years, including some pretty tacky renovations in the 1950s. The sloppy attention to state codes may have caused the devastating fire in March 2001.

Waking to flames

"At 3 a.m., all of a sudden I woke up, for no reason and I'm a sound sleeper," Pohl said. "I could see this flashing yellow light and wondered what a utility truck was doing out there at this hour."

When he got up to investigate he discovered that the flashing yellow light was the reflection of 100-foot flames devouring his garage and breezeway. He got his wife and Siberian husky puppy, Yvette, outside quickly and dialed 911.

"We were in our bathrobes," he said. "Our coats were in the breezeway that was already on fire."

He turned off the furnace and dashed around closing doors and tossing photographs and tax forms as well as clothing out the upstairs window. Later the fire chief told them if they had slept for another 10 or 15 minutes, they would have died.

"We were basically terrified, in shock," Pohl said.

"I've never experienced a fire before," Toth added. "To actually go through it is a very scary experience."

They lost almost everything: computers, clothing, cameras, Toth's artwork and her photographs.

The couple said they learned two valuable lessons from the fire. "We discovered what insurance is for," Pohl said. Their insurance company paid for demolition as well as reconstruction, and provided a trailer for them until the house was rebuilt.

Also they realized, "All we had was our neighbors," Toth said. Peter Brown came immediately to offer them a home. Another neighbor lent them a car since theirs were "molten lead" in the garage. One person brought boots and socks. Another supplied dog food. A neighbor gave them a check for $100, which they returned since insurance paid for their losses.

Shock to fresh start

After the initial shock, the couple realized it was a chance to start over. "You have this freedom," said Toth "It's a cleansing experience, to start new again."

Despite the devastation, they were able to salvage some of the elements that made the original house distinctive. Wide plank chestnut floors in much of the house could be restored. The three fireplaces around the central chimney were rebuilt so they actually worked. A company called Action Fire Restoration in Chicopee arrived at the fire scene and secured the house with tarps. They placed furniture in an ozone chamber, which actually takes the smell of smoke away, Pohl said.

Fire officials never pinpointed the exact cause of the fire but they suspected that faulty, outdated wiring or poorly done renovations over the years contributed to the blaze.

The fire chief asked to keep one item from the fire. "He took Marilyn's wooden recipe box," said Pohl. "My wire rim glasses had melted onto the box. He wanted to share it with Belchertown kids to show you can't believe the power of a fire."

Rebuilding became an art project for Toth, Pohl said. She was involved in the redesign, especially the new staircase. Pohl compared the project to a phoenix rising from the ashes.

The couple hired Integrity Development and Construction of Amherst to rebuild their dream house. "Peter Jessop (the owner) had experience in removing soot and Don Putnam (project manager) lives in a 1700 house," Pohl said. They kept much of the original layout, especially the downstairs parlor and dining room, and made a sitting room of the original kitchen with its big fireplace and beehive oven. The earliest part was post-and-beam construction with mortise and tenon joints, no nails. They designed a new kitchen with a big table looking out over the fields and mountains.

Reconstruction took about nine months. "We were back in the house for Christmas, 2001," Pohl said. That was despite the fact that the construction crew took off for deer hunting in October and even Osama bin Laden delayed the finishing date. The green kitchen counter tiles came from Provence in France and were quarantined in their containers after 9/11, delaying kitchen completion for weeks.

The house is decorated with souvenirs of the couple's travels. They both are fascinated by China, which Toth visited a few years ago as a representative of the Connecticut school where she teaches art.

One of their favorite pieces is a red lacquer Chinese cabinet. Above is a blow gun from Borneo, which came with darts used for hunting. Once, Pohl tried to demonstrate it to some children, never thinking it might really work. A dart ended up embedded in the kitchen wall. Pohl immediately destroyed all the darts.

Another treasure is a long, ornate Tibetan prayer horn, for which Pohl traded an L.L. Bean jacket in Nepal. Outside, a new red Torii gate frames the mountains from the Goshen stone terrace. Pohl said it reminds him of a gate he saw in Japan at the foot of Mount Fujiyama.

On one side of the house are enormous vegetable gardens where the couple grows 30 varieties of heirloom tomatoes for sale to local markets and restaurants. "We really did what we said we would do, farming," Pohl said.

"We are enjoying 21st century living in an 18th century house," he said. The phoenix has risen.