The Grande Dame

The Farmers' Cabinet on 14 January 1887 reporting his death stated, "For nearly twenty-two years he occupied this elegant residence in a manner befitting a gentleman farmer of taste and wealth." The Stevens family continued to live here until 1940, when the last of their descendants, passed away. Built in 1790, during President George Washington's second term, it is known as the Stevens Estate. The Georgian Gothic five-room, two-story classic post and beam construction front to the home was added in 1810, by the well-known builder, Nathan Marden, as well as a three-story barn built with stalls for horses and cattle. In 1865 William Stevens, the fifth of seven children born in Mont Vernon, purchased the home from his father Asa, and added a six-room, two-story hipped roof addition to the southeast rear corner of the home (removed in 1940), and installed the first active bathtub in Mont Vernon on the first floor, with water pumped into it by a windmill. It also claims to be the first home in Mont Vernon to boast of having an indoor outhouse, a real luxury during the cold New England winters. Located on four acres on North Main Street in the heart of the Mont Vernon Historic District, this 5,000-square-foot home has four bedrooms, five bathrooms, five outside doors, 43 window openings, 1100+ individual panes of glass, and all original hardware. Most of the glass shows the flowing waviness that is common with glass over 100 years old. The home has four of its five original working fireplaces: one in the master bedroom, one in the library, one in the formal dining room, and the last one, a four-by-six-foot cooking fireplace with a built-in beehive baking oven in the family room. The estate has been maintained and kept in its original condition as much as possible, including the ornate steam radiators, horsehair plaster ceilings and walls, 80-year-old wallcoverings, original pumpkin pine floors, hand carved wainscoting, and ceiling moldings, as well as wide Christian doors with original hardware.