Home alone with history

LYNN – Steeped in history and located high above the city with “a million-dollar view,” the Stone Cottage between High Rock Tower and Essex Street is slated for repairs to keep it from falling to time’s ravages.Built more than 150 years ago, the house is due to receive $140,000 in repairs to its roof and other parts of the three-story building. City Community Development Department Project Manager Richard Mageary said the work is intended to make Stone Cottage “secure and watertight.””Basically, we’re trying to save the structure,” Mageary said.The building’s stone and masonry walls are solid, but the roof shows wear and tear, some of the windows are broken, and animal feces cover floors in some of the building’s 12 rooms.”In spite of its condition, we get calls every month or so from someone inquiring about buying it,” Mageary said.Stone Cottage, like surrounding High Rock Park, is owned by the city and not for sale. For 20 years, city planners have come up with ideas for renovating the structure. High Rock Tower received a major renovation along with the steep hill leading down to Essex Street, but $1 million plans for renovating the cottage have not materialized.Renovation plans included creating a room mirroring the house’s interior when the Hutchinson singing family lived in Stone Cottage. The building, once surrounded with a veranda with a sweeping view of the city and the ocean, was one of three homes originally standing on the cottage site.”In pictures it was gorgeous,” Mageary said.He said the house became a focal point for the 19th-century Spiritualist movement – an attraction that endured into modern times.”I met a group of spiritualists there one morning. They went through the house with meters, recording noises. They said they found all types of energy,” he said.He said the building was basically abandoned by the city after a live-in caretaker’s tenancy ended three years ago. Late last year, Community Development planners realized the building needed maintenance to save it from irreversible deterioration. A break-in six months ago underscored threats posed to the building by humans and nature.Security has since improved in the building and it is protected from fire. Mageary said this summer’s upkeep work, paid for with state and federal money, could still be a starting point for additional improvements.”The city hasn’t given up on the original master plan, which includes the cottage,” Mageary said.Mageary has close ties to the project. He has helped oversee High Rock improvement plans for 20 years, and he grew up in a house at Essex and Washington streets.”This is where we played as kids,” he said.