In 1986 Electric Boat (EB) Company transferred my job from Groton, CT to Newport RI. Mom and I prayed about whether we should move or get a different job. We were making friends in Salem, CT and the kids were doing well in school so we really did not want to move. After serious prayer about staying in Salem and getting no answer, we decided to change the decision to accept the move and then our prayer was strongly confirmed. This was the first indication that the Lord was involved. He had been involved in the Salem house but that is another story.
Later that day we drove to RI and started visiting open houses looking for at least a 4 bedroom house. We needed that kind of room with 8 children at home. At the first house we visited that Realtor said she had a 5 bedroom house in Exeter with pool, master bedroom suite, and formal living room on five acres at $225,000. Too much! Way out of our budget. We contacted a Realtor and started the search in earnest. After a few weeks of finding nothing in our price range or even close to our price our Realtor told us about a 5 bedroom house in Exeter with pool, master bedroom suite, formal living room on five acres and that the price had just dropped to $205,000. We went to look at it and the listing Realtor was the one who had told us about this house the day we had started looking six weeks before! Déjà vu all over again. We stretched our budget to make a very low offer of $175,000. It was accepted! I think that the Lord was again involved.
However, the house in Salem did not sell so after six months we released the sellers from the agreement telling them that we really wanted the house but it was unfair of us to tie it up with out our Salem house not selling. They took the house off the market and went to Florida for the winter. We made lots of renovations to the Salem house to make it more saleable. When the Salem house finally sold after nearly 9 months on the market we immediately called our Realtor in RI and made the offer again which was quickly accepted. Financing was quickly arranged. We closed the mortgage and moved in April of 1987. Again the Lord was involved.
This house was about 3700 sq ft. in two stories with an 800 sq ft finished basement with wet bar and large family room. It is a center hall colonial with four large bedrooms and a full bath upstairs plus a small sewing room over the entryway. On the main floor there was a formal 14 x 22 living room with fireplace across the east end of the house. The master bedroom was on the back side of the house with full bath and walk thru closet. It over looked the pool, sauna and back yard. Also on the back side of the house was the dining room also overlooked the pool and a kitchen held the northwest end of the house. Off the kitchen and behind the garage was a hall way running to a ¾ bath that served the pool and to the north was a porch that also over looked the 18 x 36 in- ground pool. In the front there was a 14 x 14 den. In all there were five bedrooms 2 ¾ baths for a total of 11 rooms (13 if you counted the large bathrooms). A two car garage finished the west front of the house. The house lot was about 1 acre (rider mower time) with 4 ½ acres behind us and which sheltered us from I 95. Our front yard was on Rte 3 which used to be the main highway from Ct to Providence when I was in High School 
In the first few years we had a ward party and a family reunion at the house. We told Mike that we wanted a better dining room table so he said “get me the 5/4 rock maple lumber and I’ll build you one.” When it was finished and fully extended, with 2 18” leaves, it was 11’ long! And it fit nicely in the dining room. The kids loved the pool and when we were not home the boys would use the roof of the porch as a diving board. Arrrgggh!
Kristen started kindergarten in Exeter West Greenwich school system and graduated in 2000 in the same school district. Mike graduated from North Kingstown HS, as the Exeter-West Greenwich Regional School District was just building a High School, but the other six all graduated from EWG. Lots of memories for the kids.
This house was also known as the house with elastic walls. The kids brought friends to stay for a day or weeks at a time. We had more than sufficient to meet our needs so did not mind sharing.
After getting laid off from EB in 1995 I went through various employments until I was able to retire in 2001. Mike was the first to leave and the house really began to get bigger and bigger as each child left. Mom says that she never found the end of cleaning it. We hung on to the house until our youngest, Kristen graduated from High School and then we put the house on the market, but with the expanding industrial area surrounding it had no attraction as a residence and did not sell even at a price that was 2/3 of comparable houses in residential areas. We received one commercial offer and accepted it. However, the town delayed the approval of the proposed new construction so the offer expired after 90 days. Our expanding light industrial neighbor, Ocean State Auto Auction made us a better offer and since it was a bird in hand we accepted that. 20/20 hind sight says we probably could have got them into a bidding war but we were anxious and it was sufficient to meet our needs. We asked and they agreed to rent the house back to us for ½ what the mortgage payment had been so we stayed there until November of 2001. The auction told us that it was time for their planned expansion and we would need to vacate the house. We decided then to move to Utah. Melissa and Amber lived in Utah with their budding families and we had loved Orem when we lived there before so we packed everything up and moved over the 2001/2002 New Years, and Kristen and her pets came with us.
About four months after we moved, our Exeter dream home was bulldozed and is now a parking lot. All we have now are fond memories and some pictures of our home in Exeter. What you see on the leftis what it looks like now. Just a huge parking lot. Life is not fair!
However, the house in Salem did not sell so after six months we released the sellers from the agreement telling them that we really wanted the house but it was unfair of us to tie it up with out our Salem house not selling. They took the house off the market and went to Florida for the winter. We made lots of renovations to the Salem house to make it more saleable. When the Salem house finally sold after nearly 9 months on the market we immediately called our Realtor in RI and made the offer again which was quickly accepted. Financing was quickly arranged. We closed the mortgage and moved in April of 1987. Again the Lord was involved.
This house was about 3700 sq ft. in two stories with an 800 sq ft finished basement with wet bar and large family room. It is a center hall colonial with four large bedrooms and a full bath upstairs plus a small sewing room over the entryway. On the main floor there was a formal 14 x 22 living room with fireplace across the east end of the house. The master bedroom was on the back side of the house with full bath and walk thru closet. It over looked the pool, sauna and back yard. Also on the back side of the house was the dining room also overlooked the pool and a kitchen held the northwest end of the house. Off the kitchen and behind the garage was a hall way running to a ¾ bath that served the pool and to the north was a porch that also over looked the 18 x 36 in- ground pool. In the front there was a 14 x 14 den. In all there were five bedrooms 2 ¾ baths for a total of 11 rooms (13 if you counted the large bathrooms). A two car garage finished the west front of the house. The house lot was about 1 acre (rider mower time) with 4 ½ acres behind us and which sheltered us from I 95. Our front yard was on Rte 3 which used to be the main highway from Ct to Providence when I was in High School 
In the first few years we had a ward party and a family reunion at the house. We told Mike that we wanted a better dining room table so he said “get me the 5/4 rock maple lumber and I’ll build you one.” When it was finished and fully extended, with 2 18” leaves, it was 11’ long! And it fit nicely in the dining room. The kids loved the pool and when we were not home the boys would use the roof of the porch as a diving board. Arrrgggh!
Kristen started kindergarten in Exeter West Greenwich school system and graduated in 2000 in the same school district. Mike graduated from North Kingstown HS, as the Exeter-West Greenwich Regional School District was just building a High School, but the other six all graduated from EWG. Lots of memories for the kids.
This house was also known as the house with elastic walls. The kids brought friends to stay for a day or weeks at a time. We had more than sufficient to meet our needs so did not mind sharing.
After getting laid off from EB in 1995 I went through various employments until I was able to retire in 2001. Mike was the first to leave and the house really began to get bigger and bigger as each child left. Mom says that she never found the end of cleaning it. We hung on to the house until our youngest, Kristen graduated from High School and then we put the house on the market, but with the expanding industrial area surrounding it had no attraction as a residence and did not sell even at a price that was 2/3 of comparable houses in residential areas. We received one commercial offer and accepted it. However, the town delayed the approval of the proposed new construction so the offer expired after 90 days. Our expanding light industrial neighbor, Ocean State Auto Auction made us a better offer and since it was a bird in hand we accepted that. 20/20 hind sight says we probably could have got them into a bidding war but we were anxious and it was sufficient to meet our needs. We asked and they agreed to rent the house back to us for ½ what the mortgage payment had been so we stayed there until November of 2001. The auction told us that it was time for their planned expansion and we would need to vacate the house. We decided then to move to Utah. Melissa and Amber lived in Utah with their budding families and we had loved Orem when we lived there before so we packed everything up and moved over the 2001/2002 New Years, and Kristen and her pets came with us.
About four months after we moved, our Exeter dream home was bulldozed and is now a parking lot. All we have now are fond memories and some pictures of our home in Exeter. What you see on the leftis what it looks like now. Just a huge parking lot. Life is not fair!
2 comments:
I remember running through that house for the first time and literally getting lost!!! It really was big enough for our family (which is quite a feat!) I remember the tire swing across the street and the chicken coop in the back yard that we turned into our little club house. I loved having lots of land with woods to explore and the pool was absolutely the best for a kid of any age! (I think I just about lived in my bathing suit almost every summer until I got a job.) It really was the perfect house! :)
Thanks for helping us to remember how blessed we were to have this wonderful house and how through prayer and faith miracles like this house really can happen for us! And thanks for the memories, dad.
I loved the Exeter house. I really miss it because that is where I went to high school. In a lot of ways it was a miracle that Mom and Dad were able to purchase it let alone that we got to live there for so long. We will always have the memories to fall back on.
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