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House in Falmouth saved from near certain collapse Date published: 6/19/2009
BY RICHARD AMRHINE In 1921, there wasn't quite the activity along Butler Road in Falmouth that there is today. Back then, it was called Prince Street, and significant traffic through the neighborhood was a long way off. But there was some construction going on--the house that the Rev. Ernest Fisher was building with his own hands. He was 41 then and had moved down here from Washington, where he had served as Worshipful Master at the Anacostia Freemasons Lodge. He was also a Methodist pastor up there, according to his niece Carol Shelton, who still lives in the area. "They were all Southern Baptists down here, so he changed to Southern Baptist," she said. The house he built was a modest two-story affair, but its location atop a hill afforded it a view of the Rappahannock River. It sits just east of Cambridge Street (U.S. 1), next to Falmouth Baptist Church. ENGINEER TACKLES REMODELING There's more to tell about the home's past, but let's fast-forward to 2004. David Bronston was in the market for a house he could fix up that would let him provide a piano room for his kids. He discovered 55 Butler Road, known locally as the Fisher House, and decided to take it on even though others who looked at it decided it needed too much work. "But me? I can do that," he said. "And I've tried to do a lot of it myself." The house was a mess, with some parts near collapse and a large hole in the roof that had allowed the elements to take their toll. It has been a challenging four years of work, but the open-ended project shows the progress he has made. Bronston is a structural engineer and runs his own consulting company, Rock River Engineering. His experience has served him well. There wasn't a whole lot to the original foundation, so he had to jack the house up to rebuild the underpinnings. He ended up raising the house 4 inches, completely rebuilding the collapsing front porch and remodeling the front facade. The Rev. Fisher had added wings to both sides of the house and to the rear, leaving it with a somewhat haphazard appearance.
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