Editor’s note: Kenzie Fields’s husband Shawn Fields collaborated with her in writing this piece. Shawn Fields is an oil painter. Kenzie Fields is a realtor and photographer. They live in an 18th-century village house in Mill River with their three children, and numerous animals.
We knew the house we bought in Mill River had a close neighbor, but our definition of close was relative. The apartment we left behind in Brooklyn had 80 neighbors within earshot, whose cooking you could smell and drying laundry you could see. Beyond the walls of 661 41st Street, there were eight million neighbors. So when, on Memorial Day weekend in 2010, we arrived with a car, a moving truck, three children under five years old, and a cat, we didn’t worry too much about the closeness factor. We had grass, and a wood stove, and you could hear the river with the windows open. I don’t remember the exact moment we met, but Martha’s foundation wall was about 8 feet from our bathroom window.
Her land wrapped around our yard; our every trip to the grocery store, every garden project, and every dump run came with steely observation and not always supportive—but always colorful—commentary. Martha had moved into her house in the 1960’s with her husband and her 4 sons; he worked for a local farmer and she worked as a cleaner. While we wholeheartedly felt we had a healthy respect for her deep roots in the town, she never missed an opportunity to remind us of our place in the order of things. In one instance—at our son Odie’s sixth birthday party an unwitting parent parked in front of her house instead of ours—there was some territorial yelling and plenty of profanity. She was pretty tough.
It was a surprise though, when driving home from Maine in August of 2019, we got a call from her grandson to let us know she had just passed away. I turned to the backseat and explained to the kids, and they all cried. I was taken aback. Despite the discomforts of our proximate lives, and the ranting, there was a lot of love exchanged as happens when lives move forward side by side. When Honey’s parakeet died in fifth grade, Martha gave her a $10 bill to go back to Petco to get another. One time I glanced out the window just in time to see Martha slowly tipping over on her pink moped into the street because she lost momentum coming around the corner. I was there to dust her off and wheel her bike back onto the porch. My husband Shawn had her to the studio to pose for a painting, and spent many many hours talking with her and listening. For as many times as she yelled at us in a rage, we could also get her laughing and punching us in the arm over a taunt– teasing her about this or that.
We knew it would make sense to buy the now empty house next door because our properties were so intimately touching, but it took 13 months of pondering, strategizing, walking away and letting go, until we saw a way to make it happen. We closed on September 10, 2020. Although the house had been maintained over the years, there was a question of how viable a renovation really was. It needed a new septic system, new windows, new roof, updated electric, plumbing, new kitchen, and new bathrooms. Because the purchase coincided with the middle of the pandemic, the circumstances created a hole in the fabric of time. Shawn took a “leave of absence” from his studio work and devoted himself to the demo, redesign, rehab, and remodeling of the house.
Shawn had to learn almost every carpentry and building skill as a total beginner; but the mission, the modus operandi, were similar to principles he had honed in the studio making paintings for many years before this project came along. These were his north star, and kept him able to move forward even when knee deep in rubble, facing looming and expensive and overwhelming challenges.
- The character developed by time passing and the impact of an individual history can’t be replaced. so think carefully before taking them away. Even if you just leave the ghost of these things—the odd layout, a steep staircase, a layer of paint— that is something.
- Look for ways in the space to create movement and energy
- Spend as little as possible on materials, but make sure to choose solidity and comfort. Make sure to bring authentic textures in, to convey warmth, and allow for mental clarity and inspiration.
Here are a series of before and after photos to show how we applied these principles.
We did not plan to spend as much time or money as the project eventually required (shocker!) but as a result, the slower pace and planning gave us time to feel out each decision—what to save, what to rebuild, and what to recreate. Friends and neighbors played pivotal roles at times along the way when we needed a steady hand, professional experience, and perspective. Tools were loaned, suggestions made, pats on the back given, and fist pumps thrown in our direction out vehicle windows as the neighborhood drove by. Our first guests to Martha’s were our siblings and their family on December 25, 2022. Our plan now is to rent the house to visitors, and to use the physical space as a springboard to explore the culture and history of the immediate environment. An idea Shawn was introduced to years ago while studying art, is “use your weaknesses as opportunities.” The idea that Martha’s was too dilapidated, too close to neighbors, and represented an impediment to the value of our house, was a chance for us to claim our strengths. From the proverbial front porch, we have a way to share our perspective of this place that has nurtured our family. The people here; the entrepreneurs, makers, thinkers, worker bees, and visionaries that make Mill River incredibly vibrant are to be celebrated and shared.
For information about renting this house, click here.
I dwell in Possibility
I dwell in Possibility
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –
Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –
Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –
Emily Dickinson
