The Shafer House - a basement story

My family bought a stone house in Cape Vincent in the early 1960’s. That is when my love for stone houses began.

When I graduated from college in the 70’s, my husband, Dave, and I moved back to Cape Vincent and started looking for our first home. My Mom told us of an abandoned stone house that was for sale. It had been empty for over 10 years and never had any indoor plumbing, a furnace, running water and only a few electrical outlets long past being safe. The back metal roof had blown off it that winter and it was now or never to save this home. My Mom had heard that the owner was asking $3000 for it. My husband bargained with him and got the house for $2,500. What a deal! We had a mortgage of $75 dollars for 3 years. We closed on the deal Memorial weekend of a very cold spring.

After we closed on the house we went over to try to decide where to begin our “Project”  and I could feel an amazing cold coming up from the floor. Not sure what could cause such a cold, I looked into the full basement and it was filled with one huge block of ice. The basement was 30x30 by 5 feet tall and the ice filled just about all of it except for a foot or so from the floor joists. It is hard to imagine how cold that made the house. We got an industrial pump and started pumping the water around the edge of the basement where it had started to melt a little. We pumped the water back on top of the block of ice to help the rest of it melt. We did this for over a week before it all melted.  Until we got the ice melted, at times it was hard to work in the house because it was so cold. We discovered that the house had an underground spring and the spring would flow into the basement right through the wall. That spring the water had filled the basement and froze!

We ended up doing a lot of work in that basement. As I mentioned, the ceilings were around 5 feet  tall and the floor was a dirt floor paved with large flat rocks We wanted a basement we could walk in and have a small work bench, and laundry area. Some of the stone pavers were 2X3 feet and 3 inches thick. Dave, my Dad and his wife, Tarrant, and myself broke up those rocks into somewhat manageable pieces and carried them out of the basement in a wheelbarrow. Then we dug the floor down about 10-12 inches and made a drain around the perimeter and made  a sump pump pit. With the stones we removed from the basement, Dave made a stone wall on the edge of our property.

There were years of work to follow in that house. But it was a very beautiful home situated facing east to catch the sun rises and west to enjoy the setting sun. It was a bright home with large rooms and generous windows. The kind of place that made you feel comfortable right when you walked in. We sure poured our energy and love into the place and it was worth all the worry and work we put into it.   

– Jackie LaMora