Restoration Road (2021–…): Season 2, Episode 8 - Dutch Stone House - full transcript

It's a beautiful summer
day in Saugerties, New York.

The mighty Hudson River
flows through this terrain

and it's as stunning today
as it must have been

for the early
European settlers

who inhabited
this part of the country.

I'm here today to meet
my friend Kevin Durkin
of Restoration Living

who's about to begin
another exciting project.

He's found a structure hidden
in these Hudson Valley forests

that could very well be
a once-in-a-lifetime
discovery.

It's back there, isn't it?

- Do you trust me on this?
- -I do trust you.



- Yeah.
- -It's like it's giftwrapped in there for you.

I'm Clint Harp
and I'm traveling America

to shed a light on some
incredible restorations
and transformations,

get hands-on with some
of the builders

bringing these amazing places
back to life,

and make sure these
new stories live on
for years to come.

-Whoa.
-Isn't she a beauty?

This is Restoration Road.

There's a house
back there?

It's buried in there.

This is the opportunity
of a lifetime.

We'll never find
another one like this.

-Why?
-It's Dutch. It's rare.

-Dutch? I like that.
-It's pre-Revolutionary War.



They say 1743.

Well, let's take a look.

That's the Alamo
after the battle.

I mean,
that is rough, buddy.

It's in its
raw state right now.

- Oh.
- We are at the raw stage.

For sure.
This is very raw.

-The bones of it are good.
-Okay.

You know, cosmetically,
yeah, I understand.

But the bones are wonderful.

-And we're going for
the bones right now.
-Sure.

And the thing
about it is they're rare

and we'll never find one
to move it, ever.

- Mm-hmm.
- -They're largely all protected and rightly so.

But if it doesn't go now
and get taken out
and restored,

it will not be around,
probably, in another year.

There are beams falling down,
I'll show you.

- Well, we better hurry.
- -It's just such a part of history.

So, tell me what year
this was built again?

Well, 1743.

So, here, the Dutch
arrive in this area

and the settlers
started branching out.

The Dutch families out of
Kingston, out of Albany,

- going up the Mohawk River.
- Okay.

- And that's when the Brink family came here.
- -Okay.

Their house
was the first one.

This is said to be
Henry Brink's house.

So, we've got
the Dutch history.

We're pre-Revolutionary War.

-I mean, rich history.
-Yes. Oh, yeah. Very.

-Wow.
-But it's... It's kind of
dangerous in there.

-More and more
and more decaying.
-I kind of like it.

-Yeah, let's go.
I like dangerous.
-It is dangerous.

-It is dangerous.
-Good.

-Let's go look inside.
-This is a mess. It's a wreck.

If you love it
this way, you're going to
love it when you go inside.

Oh. Look at that.

Oh, Kevin, now you didn't
tell me that it had these
massive beams.

- Good grief.
- You know what?

They're said to be the largest
beams in a house

in the whole area.

- They're huge.
-Yeah.
Look at that thing.

I mean, this is
a house beam here.
This is not a barn beam.

- No. No, no, no. Yeah.
- It's a house beam.

This was a wonderful home
at the time.

This is not a rude
cabin somewhere.

- It's so unique.
- Yes.

I love this house.

Look at this fireplace!

So this is called,
like the jamb of a window,

-this is the jamb
of the fireplace.
-Okay.

This is incredible because
the Dutch had a fireplace

called a jambless fireplace.

And, picture this.
Take this thing out of here

and then just it's clear.

Put a layer of brick
on the floor and light a fire.

And that
was the fireplace?

That was
the fireplace.

And they'd hang a curtain
around, a fancy curtain

around here to capture
that smoke going up, also.

So it basically had,
like, a Vent-A-Hood.

Uh, it was a hood.
They called it a hood, too.

-You're right.
-Did they really?

That's exactly what they...
That's exactly.

-You get the picture.
-I got it.

I can't tell you how much
I want to start

tearing this thing apart.

- And see what's going on in here.
- -Yeah.

Because this
is like nothing else
that we've stepped in.

-This is not a pile of rubble.
-No.

-It is a miracle.
-Yeah.

-Whoa. Wow.
-Oh, wow.

-This is magical.
-Yeah.

This is almost 300 years old.

Uh, yeah.
Give it 20 years.

A rare piece
of American history.

- So let's talk about what we can see.
- And here it is.

- Plaster and lap.
- But look behind it.

-Oh.
-Is the original plaster.

- So this is old.
- You see that? Yes.

Okay, so the original is just
right up on the stone.

- Yes.
- There isn't any lap.

No.

- The rock is the lap.
- Yes.

And, sure enough,
there's straw in here.

I'm not seeing any hair
like we've seen before.

Well, how about the top layer?

-The real fine plaster layer
near the end, there?
-Yep, yep.

Crack that and see
if you see hair.

-Right away.
-Yeah.

- Look at that.
- I mean, hair from

-just about 300 years ago.
-This short...

- That's crazy.
- Yeah.

- Let's take a look up here.
- You first?

- Yeah.
- Okay.

This is just fascinating.

There's two
bedrooms back here.

This is basically
wide-open space.

I know we have this wall
splitting them into two.

When you build back,

what are you going
to build it back as?

I want to keep it
and restore it for people
to see

what an original house in that
time period looked like.

It's going
to become a museum?

No.
I want to restore it and I want to open it as a bed and breakfast.

There doesn't look
to be any sort of, like,

damage that I'm seeing
in terms of water damage,

fire damage...

-This is what's saving it.
-That metal roof, yeah.

That standing
seam saved this house
from disaster.

I would like
to get into the history

of this house even more.

- Who were they?
- -And why did they do what they did?

I want to take
this thing down.

And we're going to do it in
different clothes, I'm sure.

So let's go and come back
tomorrow and make a mess.

It's day one
of dismantling this
nearly 300-year-old

Dutch house
in upstate New York.

But before we can start
carefully deconstructing it,

we have to strip away
the brush that has been
hiding this gem for decades.

With the brush cleared away,
we get our first clear look

at this centuries old
stone house.

And it's just as special
as we thought it would be.

Well, it's still
a dumpster fire but
at least we can see it.

It's really a cool house.

And if we didn't get
it now, it wouldn't be gotten.

- No, uh-uh.
-It's gonna be...
It's gonna be gone.

You know, it really is
quite remarkable

because you really
just have stone walls

and these massive beams
holding up the second floor.

That's it. That's the whole
house. That's it.

Yeah. There's
not posts in there.

- There's not a post
in the house.
- There's... No.

The early reports
said that carved above a door

was Henry Brink's initials.

Okay.

But, what's the doorway?

They're not
above that doorway.

-But now that we're looking
at it, these were doorways.
-Those were doorways.

And maybe this is
what they meant when
they saw it early on.

So, two doors. Was this
what they were referring to?

It's...

-Right there.
-Let's see...

-Where?
-That's it right there.

Look at that.

- It's chipped but look at it.
- -Yep.

-Look at that.
-Look at that.

- That's so cool.
- That's cruising.

You get the "H"
and the "B".

Henry Brink.

-That's really, really cool.
-This is his house.

It's time to start
removing all the debris
from the interior.

We've only scratched
the surface of this
house's secrets.

And I'm very eager
to find out what hidden gems
are waiting for us inside.