Home >  Lifestyle >  Homes

Saturday, November 03, 2001

By Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Dale and Betty Graff knew when they began constructing an artist's studio and woodworking shop out of two century-old log homes that the project would be neither simple nor cheap.

	Oak Noggin's kitchen houses Early American charm. (Gabor Degre, Post-Gazette Photos)

What the couple didn't plan on was that the two-story structure built behind their 20-year-old Colonial house in Jefferson Hills would end up as a bed-and-breakfast.

John and Lisa Donovan, conversely, began thinking about an inn shortly after they bought a 140-year-old Victorian farmhouse in South Strabane, Washington County. It wasn't so much the double front door, working pocket doors, seven fireplaces and carved walnut woodwork. It was more the four large bedrooms separated into two wings on the second floor that "screamed bed-and-breakfast," says Lisa.

Many people wonder what it would be like to live in a historically restored house. These two inns offer a little bit of that experience -- without all the work. But don't let appearances fool you -- each building involved lots of work, particularly the Oak Noggin Bed & Breakfast, the name the Graffs gave to their four-year project.

	The Oak Noggin Bed & Breakfast, 209 Waterman Road, Jefferson Hills. Information: 412-714-3571 or http://www.oaknoggin.com. The Inn at Martin Farms, 1989 E. Beau St., South Strabane. Information: 724-229-0929 or http://www.innatmartinfarms.com.

It started out simply enough in the summer of 1996. Deciding they wanted to use an old house as a jumping-off point for their new studio, the couple made arrangements to look at an abandoned house for sale in West Virginia. Then, paging through the local Pennysaver, Betty noticed an ad for an 1826 log house -- free, you haul.

Soon, they were standing on an embankment two miles from their home, inspecting a two-story clapboard house covered with Insul-Brick. Tearing off a small section of the siding, the couple was thrilled to discover a row of hewn white oak logs in near-perfect condition.

In agreeing to "take" the free log cabin, the Graffs were faced with two dilemmas. First, they'd have to uncover the original log structure. Then, they'd have to figure out how to disassemble it and move it to the empty lot beside their home.

It took the couple and their children nearly two months, working nights and weekends, to strip off the various layers covering the 18-by-20-foot house and remove the mud-and-clay chinking between the logs.

The interior was equally labor-intensive. The tongue-and-groove wallboards, for example, were hidden beneath 25 layers of wallpaper, and more than 200 tin cans had been sliced open and nailed to the logs to try to keep out drafts.

The cooking hearth provides a focal point in the living room at the Oak Noggin.

What made the arduous job a little less tedious, says Dale, a prepress supervisor for a printing company, were the interesting artifacts they discovered stuffed into the chinking and walls: old nails, Bibles, bits of quilting.

For help in moving and reconstructing the house, the Graffs turned to Roland Cadle, a veteran craftsman from Greene County who helped reconstruct the log cabin at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center. He numbered the 40 logs, then, using just ropes and two helpers, he carefully dismantled the house and delivered it to the Graffs' house.

More log homes

The following summer, the couple acquired a second log home. They needed a few of the timbers to replace logs damaged by moisture and insects on the first log house. They also wanted to expand it a bit, adding a kitchen and bathroom.

A friend remembered another abandoned log home, still full of furniture and sporting its original pole rafters, less than a half-mile away. Thought to be one of the oldest homes in the area, the 200-year-old house was originally owned by William McGill, whose land warrant on "Gill Hall" was patented in 1791.

Having watched Cadle take apart the first house, the Graffs decided to dismantle this one and move it themselves.

	Betty and Dale Graff created the rustic Oak Noggin Bed & Breakfast from two log structures, one from 1826 at one from 1791.

The following spring, Cadle started erecting the two sets of tagged and numbered logs, and by midsummer, the steel roof was on. The Graffs spent the next year finishing the inside with scraps salvaged from the two homes. The tongue-and-groove flooring in the addition, for example, was original to the 1826 house.

The idea of turning the log home into a bed-and-breakfast, Betty says, sort of "evolved" as the building slowly took shape. Not only would it allow it to be used more often, the Graffs reasoned, it also would allow the house eventually to pay for itself.

In January, the Oak Noggin Bed & Breakfast opened for business. With its unfinished log walls and wide plank floors, its four rooms exude a quaint, Early American charm (think Daniel Boone, only with central air and heating).

In addition to a walnut-stained beamed ceiling and antique floors, the cozy living room features a massive stone cooking hearth. Built by Cadle in the same manner as 200 years ago, it features a cast-iron cooking pot on a crane forged by Ambridge blacksmith Jim Hoffman. A door with handmade, 32-inch iron strap hinges and thumb latches opens onto the second-story porch.

Modern conveniences (TV, VCR, air conditioning) are hidden in a cabinet fronted by a door taken from a former stagecoach stop in Murrysville.

Betty found the combination wood/gas Stewart stove in the turn-of-the-century kitchen at an antiques store in Bethel Park. Dale built the doughbox out of antique boards he discovered in the basement of the second house.

Upstairs, the romantic bedroom features a woodburning fireplace and antique old-growth pine flooring that still bears traces of 150-year-old iron oxide paint. The giant rope bed, which the Graffs found in an old barn, was made in 1858. A framed marriage license from 1879 adds a touch of whimsy.

Down the hall, the pint-sized bathroom has beadboard walls, an antique clawfoot tub and pedestal sink the couple found in the trash. Betty crafted the log cabin patterned quilt hanging over the hall banister out of fabric she discovered in a trunk in one of the houses.

Lisa and John Donovan serve a homemade buffet breakfast at their bed-and-breakfast, The Inn at Martin Farms, in South Strabane. (Robert J. Pavuchak, Post-Gazette)

And the project's genesis, the woodworking shop and pottery studio? They're tucked underneath the B&B in the basement.

The Graffs feel they've created the perfect getaway while also preserving a piece of local history.

"This is what was here," says Betty. "If we hadn't come along at the right time, it would have been bulldozed away."

A picturesque farmhouse

The Inn at Martin Farms, on the other hand, was in no danger of disappearing. Furnished with period antiques and featuring ornate fireplaces and 11-foot ceilings, the farmhouse harks back to the formality of the Victorian period.

"The Martins probably sat in these rooms and talked about the Civil War and Abe Lincoln," says Lisa Donovan.

Two years ago, she and her husband, John, saw a real estate ad featuring the Martin house and drove out to Washington County to take a look. Rounding the bend leading up to the house, "our mouths just dropped open," recalls Lisa, a controller for an engineering firm.

When the Bethel Park couple first saw it, previous owners had restored the two-story Italianate farmhouse -- painted a deep San Francisco blue -- to its former glory, inside and out.

Nestled on 27 acres of rolling farmland and graced by covered front and side porches, the house was more than just picturesque. Built by brothers Matthew and William Henry Martin in 1864, it was listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.

	When Betty and Dale Graff tore off the Insul-Brick, they discovered hewn white oak logs in near-perfect condition.

The Donovans spent a year turning its two floors into an authentic yet comfortable 19th-century inn. In the elegant dining room, they ripped out a modern parquet floor and replaced it with hardwood rescued from an old tobacco barn in North Carolina.

Upstairs, they pulled up carpeting and converted one small bedroom into a luxurious master bath complete with walk-in shower, Jacuzzi tub, gas fireplace and small sitting porch. The couple also installed a large soapstone stove in the country kitchen and hid the parlor's tell-tale reminders of modern-day life (TV and VCR) in a large armoire.

They traveled to countless flea markets, antiques shops and estate sales in search of historically accurate furniture. The inn's most popular and romantic room, the William Henry Martin Suite, boasts a king-size poster bed and giant 19th-century armoire. Across the hall in the Matthew Martin Suite, a carved mahogany rococo queen-sized bed shares space with an antique mirror.

Historic approach

An addition former owners put on in the '80s now serves as the inn's cozy breakfast room. The turn-of-the-century bakers' table against one wall came from an antiques fair in Ligonier; the giant spinning wheel -- similar to the wheel that once turned water in the farm's still-functioning 150-year-old springhouse -- was a flea-market find.

In keeping with the Victorian atmosphere, the Donovans decided not to put TVs or phones in the five bedrooms. The only "modern" amenities are electricity and indoor plumbing.

"We wanted it to be as historic as possible," says Lisa.

Kept in the Martin family until the '80s, the farmhouse has changed very little over the last century and a half. The dining room still features its original pass-through cabinets to the kitchen, and every interior door sports a glass transom. A 1790s log barn still stands next to the spring-fed brook that trickles across the property. Instead of livestock, the barn is now home to the Donovans' four cats and four llamas.

"It's really a special home that doesn't exist anywhere else," says John.