Gedney House, 1665
21 High Street
Salem, Mass.
Directions
Open 11am - 3pm on :
Saturday, June 7
Saturday, July 5
Saturday, August 2
Saturday, September 6
Saturday, October 4
Admission : Free on June 7; $5 other dates; Free to Historic New England members.
Private Heritage Tours available with advanced reservations.
Please call 617-227-3956, June 1 through October 15.
Although the Gedney House displays the familiar oblong shape with
central chimney that is often associated with First Period
architecture, the original portion of the house was an asymmetrical
composition consisting of two one-room stories with gabled attic and
an attached parlor with lean-to roof.
Built in 1665, the well-crafted and sophisticated timber framed
house -- complete with binding and bridging summer beams, a large
number of connecting joints, and interior finish trim -- attests to
the wealth and social standing of the home's builder and first owner,
Eleazor Gedney. Gedney was a successful shipwright related by
marriage to John Turner, builder of the House of Seven Gables.
Around November of 1712, Gedney's daughter Martha was married and
the parlor lean-to was raised to a full two stories, the lean-to
chamber overhanging the parlor and street below. With the
accompanying removal of the front gable, the house achieved its
present shape, except for a rear two-story lean-to addition built
around 1800, when the overhang was also furred out.
The house is significant not only for its structural carpentry,
but also for its evidence of early decorative finishes in the hall
chamber and parlor. The introduction of lath and plaster ceilings,
beam casings, and paneled walls by the mid-18th century preserved the
colorful paint evidence underneath.
When SPNEA, now known as Historic New England, acquired the house in 1967, the later finish materials
had been stripped and the structural frame exposed. Three successive
color schemes, the earliest believed to be concurrent with the
house's construction, have been discovered in the hall chamber, each
emphasizing the room's framing in a different way. Conservation
measures taken by Historic New England and by the previous owner have been
color-coded dark green for identification purposes.
