Emerson-Wilcox House: Repairs finally underway at York’s ‘quirkiest’ historical home

YORK, Maine — Almost two years ago, Joel Lefever got a call about a car driving into one of the Old York Historical Society’s homes, leaving a garage-door-sized hole in the centuries-old structure.

This week the society, which Lefever leads as executive director, announced that work could finally begin on the damaged Emerson-Wilcox House, as an insurance settlement has been received to start paying for the work. It is one of several homes operated as a museum by the society that Lefever said captured an important time in early New England history.

The home, located across the street from York’s town hall, is one of the town’s most interesting historic structures, according to Lefever. Part of the building was originally dragged from another part of town to be conjoined with the home, and it has also served as a home, tavern and store.

“There are a number of 18th-century houses,” Lefever said. “This is one of the quirkiest of all of them.”

Car plows through historic home

The crash occurred on May 31, Memorial Day weekend of 2021, just before 11 p.m. A car was traveling west along York Street when it crashed into the east side of the house. Police said the driver was believed to have fallen asleep at the wheel, and no arrest was made.

No one was seriously injured, and Lefever said they were fortunate there were no artifacts in that section of the home known as the Long Parlor. The home was not scheduled to be open as an exhibit at the time, he said.

“It was of course distressing to see the damage, but it was relieving that it wasn’t worse than it was,” Lefever said.

Previous story: Car crashes through wall of 250-year-old Emerson-Wilcox House Museum in York, Maine

Restoring the damaged section was going to take a lot of effort and collaboration, Lefever said. The home is owned by the Elizabeth Bishop Perkins Trust, while the land is owned by the First Parish Church.

One of the first steps in restoring the building required society staff to sift through the wreckage and retrieve original damaged beams, window fragments, woodwork and flooring. With the help of preservation architect Deane Rykerson, the original placement of damaged framing elements was meticulously recorded.

Finding qualified experts to put the building back together proved difficult though, according to the society.

Also complicating the process of repairing the home was working with the driver’s insurance company which disagreed on the payout. The insurance company hired a construction estimator to determine repair costs and came to a total of nearly $77,000 which appeared adequate. However, the company then reduced the payout by 10% and refused to cover any additional expenses over $69,000, according to the society. The Perkins Trust would not sign a release that wouldn’t cover the loss, and the impasse lasted for many months.

Earlier this year, the trust found a new way forward with Ellis Insurance Agency filing a claim on the trust’s behalf with Hanover Insurance Group, the company that insures the house for the trust. Hanover settled the claim for the full amount, according to the society, and now work is underway to repair the damage.

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A home rooted in history

Lefever said York’s history is significant in that the town was once the colonial seat of government for Maine with administrative records that tell much about the past. The Emerson-Wilcox House, he said, was a part of that history going back to the first half of the 18th century.

George Ingram, the son of a local tavern owner, built the earliest part of the house sometime around 1735. In 1756 it was purchased by ship owner and importer Edward Emerson, and the west end of the Long Parlor is thought to be the location of Emerson’s store where he sold sugar, molasses, rum and spices.

The Wilcox family were the ones who ran the tavern for the longest period, according to Lefever. The home was purchased in 1817 by David Wilcox, a delegate to the 1819 Maine State Constitutional Convention. His daughter Louisa and her husband, a ship’s captain, inherited the house in 1856, and it then descended through the family until Dorothy Hungerford sold it to the Perkins Trust in 1953.

“It’s a very broad sweep of Maine history that this house represents,” Lefever said.

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Restoring Emerson-Wilcox House to its former glory

Restoration work will continue through 2023, and the Historical Society hopes to have the home open to visitors by 2024.

Lefever said work that needs to be done on the home will include adding heat at some point, as well. He said the hope is for the home to return as a strong attraction for the public to see what it was like to live in 18th-century York.

“We would like for this to have some sort of interpretation as more active, more comfortable and enjoyable to come see it,” Lefever said. “It’s not a grand house, but it represents what most people would have been familiar with who were not extremely wealthy but were comfortable.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: York, Maine, Emerson-Wilcox House finally getting repaired after crash