BATH TWP.: Tim Franklin’s two homes couldn’t be more different.
One is modern and expansive. The other is cozy and traditional.
They’re just a short walk from each other, yet they are worlds apart.
The two buildings — a 19th-century farmhouse and barn — formed a sort of family compound while Franklin’s parents were alive. Now the barn is his residence, while the farmhouse serves as guest quarters and auxiliary office space.
They’ll both be open to the public May 19 as part of the Bath Volunteers for Service Home Tour, a fundraiser that will feature six private homes and a garden. The tour raises money for grants, gifts and scholarships that benefit students and the community.
Both buildings played an early role in Bath Township’s history. Franklin said the bank barn was built around 1810 and was shared by three German settlers who earlier had squatted on the site of the present Hale Farm. The farmhouse followed around 1818 and housed one of those settlers.
Franklin’s parents, Dr. Aris and Carol Franklin, bought the nearly 10-acre property in the early 1970s and renovated the house. In 1990 Tim Franklin, a designer and builder, purchased the barn and 2½ acres from his parents and started the long process of transforming the unused structure, a process that took three years just to get it to the point of being a functioning home.
He inherited the farmhouse after his parents’ deaths in 2011 and 2012 and has spent about a year and a half updating it.
The Georgian Revival farmhouse remains close to its roots, thanks to Carol Franklin’s vision. Her son said she was a creative woman who decorated the house with antiques and imbued it with a period charm.
There’s a sitting area off the kitchen brightened by multipane windows, a trestle table in the dining room surrounded by Windsor chairs and grayish green paint on casings and paneled walls that gives the house a Williamsburg feel. Carol Franklin even decorated the stair risers with decorative rugs she hooked, each representing a part of the family’s life — the year she and her husband were married, for example; her husband’s tennis and golf prowess; even the family’s three dogs.
A newer section houses an office, a garage and a master bedroom that was built to mimic the style of the early 19th century, while disguising 20th-century amenities such as walk-in closets.
Updating the house has been no small task. Just replacing the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom required removing built-in cabinets in the room behind it, because Tim Franklin didn’t want to disturb the Vitrolite tiles on the bathroom walls.
The house is just 50 yards or so up the road from Franklin’s barn, but their styles are separated by centuries.
The barn is a contemporary space within an antique shell. Franklin retained some of the original barn floors, left many of the structural elements visible and incorporated lumber from the property to create a house that combines the edge of modern design with the warmth of age.
A staircase with metal railings and reclaimed wood treads rises through the center of the house, leading to an open living area that’s segmented into distinctive spaces by such devices as partial-height walls, a screen and a low credenza. A half-round fireplace anchors one wall, topped by a towering spiral metal flue — one single pipe, which Franklin said made it a beast to install.
The bedrooms are steps up from the living area, and more stairs lead to a loft that serves as a game room. Plexiglass sheets are attached to the metal railings, creating an invisible guard against an errant pool ball beaning someone in the living space below.
Franklin kept the barn’s antique flavor by retaining elements such as old wood ladders and the original skip sheathing, boards in the roof that the shingles were nailed to. But he made the building comfortable and energy efficient by enclosing the whole shell in structural insulated panels, rigid insulation sandwiched between sheets of oriented strand board.
Fitting in bedrooms, office space and a master bathroom took some doing, so there are quirks such as a tub and storage space tucked beneath steeply sloped ceilings.
In fact, the barn’s renovation was a continual process of figuring things out and making things work, Franklin said.
“The project kind of evolved as it went along,” he said. “There’s not one thing that’s plumb. There’s not one thing that’s level.”
Nor will it ever be finished, he said.
If the barn stands for another 200 years, after all, life is bound to change a lot.
Mary Beth Breckenridge can be reached at 330-996-3756 or mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com. You can also become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MBBreckABJ, follow her on Twitter @MBBreckABJ and read her blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/mary-beth.