First in a series on Brandon’s historic buildings
By JAMES PECK
In 1976, the Brandon Village Historic District was officially added to the National Historic Register (NHR). 245 of the town’s “architecturally and historically significant buildings,” mostly residences, “representative of the growth and prosperity of the village” from the late 1700s to the early 1900s then became nationally recognized.
Even for Vermont, this is an unusually large number of historic buildings for a town Brandon’s size. This series will highlight a few.
Most everyone who visits Brandon is likely familiar with the Otterside Animal Hospital at 28 Conant Square. It’s a yellow, 1 ½ story “bungalow” style building that doesn’t look that historic as compared to the statelier houses nearby.
However, looks are deceiving!
On the 1976 NHR application, the house was described as the “Thayer House – 1 ½ story, clapboarded, frame, four-bay cottage, with later dormered hip roof. Large ground floor windows. Window bays on the west elevation and the front (north) porch have scroll-sawn decoration; circa 1860s.” No other information was given.
“Later dormered hip roof”?
Upon more research, the house was in fact owned by the Thayer family and the hip roof was in fact added later. But the original house was built in 1848.
On the 1854 map of Brandon, the house appears as belonging to “H. Shafer,” but its footprint shape is different, a simple L. Deeds show that John A. Conant, the famous Brandon industrialist, built the house for his sister-in-law, Ann Holton Schaeffer, and her German husband, Herman. The house and lot cost $5,000, a goodly sum back then, and the Schaeffers lived there from 1848 on.
In 1865, Erastus Darwin Thayer bought the house from the widowed Ann Schaeffer and proceeded to significantly renovate it, making it more compatible with the house of John A. Conant next door and most of the other mansions in Conant Square.
Erastus Thayer, who was the third richest man in town in 1870 next to Conant and Nathan Sprague, Jr. (he had $158,000 in assets), added a 3-story tower with a mansard roof in the French Second Empire style as shown in the accompanying picture. The tower was very similar to one still on the Inn at Park Street at 69 Park Street which was, in fact, owned by Thayer’s son Eddy at one time. Both towers could have been designed by the same architect, Brandon native Peter B. Johnson.
Both towers are also shown on the 1890 birds-eye view drawing of Brandon. The one at Conant Square accompanies this article as shown from the rear.
1916 Fire
What happened to the tower and the second floor?
On a cold winter morning, February 14, 1916, the fire alarms went off at the Brandon fire house next to the Town Hall on Seminary Hill, less than 500 feet away and within eyeshot of the house. The account of the blaze was carried in the Brandon Union:
“Black columns of smoke could be plainly seen arising from the roof of the house recently purchased by C. L. Stay, the Erastus Thayer house, one of the finest residences in Brandon. The home contained 21 rooms and Mr. Stay had just completed repairs putting every room in fine condition.”
Charles Stay had bought the house less than a year before and had moved his family and undertaking business there only three months before the fire.
After the fire, Stay debated whether to tear the house town or to rebuild it, as the bottom floor and the furniture there were saved by the Dunmore Hose Company. He decided to rebuild and hired a young carpenter from Orwell named Phillip Purcell to rebuild it as a 1 ½ story bungalow. Purcell worked fast, saving as much of the bottom floor as he could and building a new hip roof and rebuilding the Queen Anne porch’s roof. In July, Stay moved back in.
However, things didn’t work out to Charles Stay’s satisfaction, business-wise, and he decided to buy an undertaking business in Newport, VT a year later in June of 1917. When he left, the Brandon Union said “His bungalow cottage, on one of the most desirable sites in town, is a decided addition to Brandon.”
In 1919, Stay sold the house to the Fred Barker family who lived there until 1955. Barker was a druggist and then opened a garage where he sold and serviced Willy’s autos at what is now 4 Conant Square by the bridge .
In 1955, Barker’s widow sold to the Arnold family, Robert and Muriel, who lived next door at #24. Sadie Arnold, Robert’s mother and the widow of Reverend Frederick Arnold (Episcopal Church minister), lived there until she passed in 1968.
The Arnolds then sold the house to Dick & Helen Noel, he of radio fame in New York City then at WFAD in Middlebury and WHWB in Rutland. The Noels opened the Sears catalogue store in 1965 where the Café Provence is today. Helen Noel was also the first woman on the Brandon Selectboard in 1973.
In 1997, Helen Noel sold the bungalow and former Thayer mansion to Drs. Susan and Arden Hayden. In 1998, Susan moved her veterinary business there, the Otterside Animal Hospital, and its been there ever since, now 26 years. Though Susan still works part-time there, the sole owner is now veterinarian Dr. Robin Crossman.
In the Otterside lobby is a framed picture of the former Erastus Darwin Thayer mansion. By the front door is a marker with the date 1848, the date the original house was built.
