The Philip Hart House-Sleeping Porch

Every old home needs an advocate. A special someone who understands and cares about the details, the history, and the sense of place inherent in a period home. Those advocates may save that home from the wrecking ball or the vinyl siding salesman or the addition that would look better on a gas station. Two of those advocates are David and Nan Greenwood.

Their home is in Hart’s Village just outside of the Village of Millbrook. Philip Hart built his home in 1800 and the village of Hartsville grew around his home and mills. A very early industrialist Mr. Hart owned a gristmill, a sawmill and a fulling(a step in the production of wool cloth) mill. The wood framed home is a stunning example of a center hall Federal design.

Philip Hart’s family in 1889 added a porch to the rear of the home. The first floor was open, off the center hall, and the second-floor porch was screened in and used by the Harts’ daughter-in-law, who suffered from tuberculosis. The family believed she’d be cured if she got plenty of rest and fresh air out on the porch. The porch is now used as a place to retreat and read, a perch to view the property or an outdoor summer bedroom as originally designed.

Nan and David bought the home in 1984; they immediately began a pain staking restoration of the interior and exterior of the home including the rear porch. The Greenwoods have furnished the home with period antiques and art work giving the home a most comfortable and beautiful style.

Screened Porches

Owning a screened porch on a buggy summer evening is like owning a castle with a moat when the barbarians attack. The screened porch provides a place to relax outdoors without having to pay attention to the barbarian bug population.

In general, the screened porches we design are larger than the average open porch. Most often they are designed as outdoor rooms and are furnished with sofas and chairs as well as dining tables and occasionally a fireplace. Screened porches can even be a cool place to sleep on a warm summer night.

New technology has made the screened porch even more attractive by extending the useful season and almost magically allowing us to change an open porch to a screened porch a the push of a button.

One of our clients wanted a large porch for entertaining and dining and to take advantage of the stunning view from that side of the house. The problem was that almost like clockwork at 5:00pm when they were getting ready to greet their guests, swarms of bugs would appear. They also did not want to obstruct their view at times and seasons when the bugs were not present. The solution was an automatic roller screen system which was hidden in the soffit most of the time, but when needed would descend and make the wide open porch into a comfy screened porch.

We have also included radiant heat pipes in the stone floor of some screened porches which allow the owners to comfortably use the porch earlier in the spring and later in the fall. When combined with interchangeable glass panels, the screened porch easily becomes a three or four season room.

These days we have more options than ever when designing the perfect screened porch. Bugs just don’t know what they are up against.