You may find it interesting that our office was once a lovely private home, on the "edge of town" back in 1854 when it was built. We have fought hard against the elements to maintain the elegant and unusual wrap-around, covered porch that is more than 90 feet long. When you approach the office you will see that is it's distinguishing feature. (That, along with a life-sized Stegosaurus metal sculpture in the front yard! ha.. More about that later.) 

 OUR FAMILY TOGETHER IN 2010, 

WE HAD JUST FINISHED THE DINOSAUR SCULPTURE THAT DAY!

The original house has been added to at least 4 times that we can count. When we bought the office in 1988, the building had been carved up into 4 separate apartments. The building was not in the best of shape when we were handed the keys and the "make-over" to transition it to a dental office was quite an undertaking. Since we were fresh out of dental school and penniless, we did all of the contracting ourselves and much of the "grunt work".  (Along with some other "starving artist" friends.) We did demolition, light carpentry, or painting by day and slept on the floor in the old living room at night. 

One of the interesting finds during that first remodeling of the old house, was a built-in still, that we found hidden in a difficult to access attic space. The gin bottles were still lying on the floor beside the main fermentation apparatus, and it was perfectly plumbed to let out in the basement, so it must have been a huge operation.

Twenty years ago I saw a 90 year old man in the office who said that he could remember when the still's operators bootlegged the spirits out of town through a gas station that used to be on the corner at the bottom of Congress Street. Then they would take it out over the lake to Canada. We often wonder what we would hear, if the walls could talk...

Over the last 22 years we have been on a constant crusade to improve the old building and the yard, which is nearly a whole acre and mostly empty lawn. We too have expanded the building when the practice needed space to grow, and we have been our own contractors all along the way. We'll keep our day jobs, thank you,... but we DO know a lot about design and construction after all these years! 

I don't know if you have any experience with a 150+ year old house, but everything is twice as hard and twice as expensive as you expect it to be. Every time you peer behind a piece of old siding, drywall, or linoleum, there is a costly surprise! Yet we persevere!

In 2007, we tackled a major cosmetic make-over throughout the whole office and up-dated things like carpet, wallpaper and furnishings. I have a flare for that sort of thing and people do remark that the office "feels like a comfortable home". That's the highest compliment I can get. It was a difficult task to weave together the style of a historic home, with the needs of a health care setting, AND put our personal touch on the "feel" of the place.

Hopefully, the minute you walk in the door, you will know you have arrived in the company of friends.

Here are some photos of the office... (I see we need more!.. I'll have to put that on the ol' "to do" list!)...

Welcome to Our Office