Old house, new sale

66 Cat Rock Road, built in 1760 and listed at $2.595 million has a contract. The owners completely renovated this house and set it up, I hope, for another couple of centuries of use. We’re fortunate.

That’s a better fate than that of the Benjamin Reynold’s House, circa 1840, at 56 Clapboard Ridge Road, purchased for $8.750 in 2015 and torn down and replaced by one Ray Bartoszek. Mr. Bartoszek is a self-made man, which is laudable, with a 48m yacht, private jet, and a ranchette in Montana, but it’s a pity his wealth accrued before he acquired a sense of taste or history. That’s a common phenomenon.

As an aside, Mr. Bartoszek is currently embroiled in a dispute with his neighbors involving a baseball stadium he’s built on his property for his 11-year-old’s team. It’s probable that at least some of the animosity displayed towards him and his project by those neighbors can be attributed to his destruction of such a graceful landmark and piece of town history, but I doubt he cares.

Old and in the way