Left: Edna Jones stands at the front door of the 1790 tiny house on Fort Hill Street in Wiscasset in 1914. Right: the tiny house today, after a renovation by new owner Pam Logan. (Historic photo courtesy Pam Logan/Present-day photo by Charlotte Boynton)
Most of the historic homes in Wiscasset share qualities of grandeur and luxury, including the 1807 Castle Tucker, 1807 Nickels-Sortwell House, and 1792 Smith House, all large homes built by wealthy and prominent residents of the 1700s and early 1800s. Those homes are more imposing than the 1790 tiny house at 16 Fort Hill St., but it is no less a part of the town’s heritage.
The tiny house measures 448 square feet and sits on a quarter-acre lot. The ownership of the house passed from generation to generation of the Jones family from its construction until 2016, when Pam Logan bought it and beautifully restored it inside and outside with hard work and her love for the house.
The Jones family lived in the house for two centuries, beginning with George Jones, who left the house to his son, also named George. The second George left the house to his daughter, Edna Jones, who left the house to her sister, Pearle Jones Weimert. Weimert left the house to her son, Roy, and his wife, Sharon, who sold the house to Logan.
Over the years there were many changes to the house: vinyl siding was installed over the clapboards; electricity arrived; a bathroom was built in 1930; carpeting, plywood, and linoleum covered the pine floors, and paint or paneling covered the walls.
In later years, the family rented the house out. In 2016, the Weimerts were living out of state and decided to sell it.
Logan, living in New Jersey, had noticed the house four years earlier while visiting her friend Anthony Vitti, who lived in the area. She was attracted to the little house from the first time she saw it. When she heard it had been put on the market in 2016, she contacted the real estate agent to see the house.
Logan knew she wanted the house when she went into the cellar and saw the pine floors on the first floor from the cellar and the original beams holding up the tiny house. “I didn’t even see the upstairs,” she said. “I knew I wanted the house.”
She looked at the house March 17, 2016 and on May 5, 2016 she became the first owner of the house who was not a member of the Jones family.
She immediately started work. She replaced a sill in front of the house, removed the vinyl siding, and replaced some clapboards. She moved inside and began removing layers of plywood, carpeting, and linoleum from the floors and several layers of wallpaper from the walls.
The first floor of the tiny house includes a kitchen, dining room, living room, and front entrance with a stairway to the second floor. The second floor has one bedroom, a bathroom, and a reading nook.
After removing plywood, tile, and linoleum from the floors, Logan discovered wide pumpkin-pine floors that she refinished. Some areas were left natural, while she painted others. After clearing the walls of years of wallpaper and paneling, she papered the walls with new wallpaper.
Logan and her friend Vitti did a lot of the restoration themselves. Chris Malliet was hired to jack up the house, replace the front sill, remove the vinyl siding, rebuild the molding over the front windows, and build a deck on the side of the house.
The kitchen countertop was made from two pieces of pine milled by Mike Dottie in Warren. Logan said the cost of the wood was $80, plus 10 coats of a treatment to waterproof the wood. The water faucet is a replica of an old-fashioned hand pump that was popular in kitchens of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Logan shopped for bargains during the renovation, buying some of her living room furniture on Craigslist.
She plans to carry on the Jones tradition of keeping the house in the family. “I will leave the house to my daughter, Mattie,” she said. Her daughter currently lives in Florida, where she works as an excursion guide at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
Logan was told that Edna Jones hosted family Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve dinners in the house. Although Logan does not plan to host Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve dinners, she is considering an open house in the spring to show off her home, now restored to reflect its historic value.
Logan is a professional photographer and volunteers as a member of the Wiscasset Historic Preservation Commission.
