November-December 2022 - 68

Above: The Keeping Room,
once the center of daily
living in Colonial times,
now serves as a relaxing
location for an informal
dinner, game of cards or
simply relaxing with the
dogs by the fire. The tiger
maple Queen Anne desk is
from the 18th century.
Top right: An antique shelf
of onion bottles and New
Hampshire flask bottles
is arranged above a 17thcentury
Pilgrim chest.
Bottom right: A covered
porch greets visitors
and leads them into
the comforts of the
Keeping Room.
Florence Andrus, a widow, had moved to an assisted
living facility, and her home was left uninhabited
for roughly a decade. Mother Nature began
exerting her inexorable influence. The vegetation
was overgrown, and local critters overstayed their
welcome, making the home and barn their own.
" Most passersby probably saw a teardown, a
home and barn abandoned, glory days long past, "
he says. " My heart started to pound and my mind
began to race. I easily saw through the tall scrub
brush, the home's warped clapboards, remnants
of paint, broken windows, unhinged door, sunken
granite stairs, cracking chimney and several
chipmunks peeking out of holes chewed through
the trim boards along the roofline. I marveled at
the gambrel form of the barn's roofline. How long
could that barn continue to stand?
" At the time, it didn't matter, " says Spychalski.
" Visions of what this farm could be were piling
up one on top of another, probably clouding
66 New Hampshire Home | November/December 2022
any sense of good judgment I had. "
The interior was filled with cobwebs, dust,
mildew and the remnants of the last occupants.
For Spychalski, the scene erased the decades,
bringing him back to his formative years.
" I grew up in the suburbs, but for some reason
I had a fascination with barns, tractors, silos and
wide-open fields, " he says. " And I thought that
perhaps someday I could find myself a few acres,
a barn and buy myself a tractor. "
Spychalski's vision, however, wasn't the same
as his husband's. Joe Chittkusol " spent his whole
life growing up in the city, " says Spychalski. It was
a scenario reminiscent of the 1960s sitcom " Green
Acres, " with Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert, about a
Manhattan lawyer buying a farm and coercing his
city-loving wife to join him.
" When I first brought him here, he was not
impressed at all, " says Spychalski. " But you
have to understand Joe. He grew up in Bangkok,

November-December 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of November-December 2022

November-December 2022 - 1
November-December 2022 - 2
November-December 2022 - 3
November-December 2022 - 4
November-December 2022 - 5
November-December 2022 - 6
November-December 2022 - 7
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