When Kermit and Cheryl Williams first looked at what is known as the Fountain House in Wilton, it was being sold as a bed and breakfast.
While they had no interest in running a place where guests would stay for a night or two, it had everything they were looking for – enough space for their large family, beautiful characteristics and details, and a story that at the time dated back 135 years.
So when the price got to what they were looking to spend 17 years ago, the Williams saw it as an opportunity, a place where their kids could grow.
“No one was going to buy it for a bed and breakfast,” Williams said. “And we thought it was a really interesting home.”
Over the almost two decades since Williams and his family moved in, he has immersed himself in the history of the 5,500-square-foot, seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom home.
David Gregg, the great-great-grandfather of former New Hampshire Governor Judd Gregg, who was born in New Boston, built the home in 1869 not far from the center of Wilton following his return from the California gold rush. Williams said the house was constructed in an Italiante Victorian fashion.
“There are quite a few of them in California, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted something to look like the fine homes of San Francisco,” Williams said. After Gregg’s death in 1880, the house was passed down to his son David A. Gregg, whose donation helped construct the Wilton Public & Gregg Free Library. It remained in the family for decades until it was sold to another prominent Wilton businessman, Harvey Wellington Frye. Frye was the director of the Wilton Telephone Company, founded by his brother and seven others in 1900, and as Williams has learned “it made Wilton one of the early places to have a telephone system.”
David and David A. Gregg, along with Frye, were all state representatives and selectmen in Wilton. Williams, who served four terms in the legislature and is currently a selectman in Wilton, said something about the house must encourage political involvement.
In the early 1940s, the house was sold to Rudolph and Frances Konecny. Rudolph was a baker and chef from Austria and together they opened a restaurant in the house that was in operation for two decades, Williams said, and included an ice cream parlor.
“I have a postcard from the 1940s with a picture of the restaurant,” he said. “But at the time, big homes were not as interesting to people.”
The house was sold a number of other times, including to a pair of artists who took up the task of creating themes for each room. In the 1990s, the attached carriage house was turned into a dance studio, which Williams transformed into an in-law apartment for his mother.
“But even today the horse windows are still in the carriage house,” he said.
At the turn of the 21st century, it was bought with the intention of creating a bed and breakfast.
“They spent quite a bit of money to make it look like a Victorian. They wanted it to look like a California bed and breakfast,” Williams said.
One of the changes was the addition of what Williams described as beautifully detailed wallpaper, which remains to this day.
“It is some of the most ornate wallpaper I’ve seen,” he said.
The issue for the owners was that a rule in Wilton only allowed bed and breakfasts to have four rooms, and it was just not enough to make ends meet. That’s when it went back on the market and where the Williams story in the home begins.
They did a major renovation to the kitchen “as it hadn’t really changed much from the ’70s,” Williams said. They also transformed a half bath that had been done all in black.
“But most of the house was perfect,” he said. Since it was previously a bed and breakfast, each room had been named, something the Williams decided to keep.
While it was the right size for the family when their kids were young, Williams said the 5,500 square feet is a lot for just the two of them.
“We don’t use an awful lot of the house,” he said.
It was originally built for coal-burning stoves and includes four marble fireplaces, although they are not set up for wood burning.
The property is just over an acre, but “that’s good for being this close to downtown,” Williams said. When it was first built by David Gregg, Williams said it was part of hundreds of acres. There are extensive gardens, something Cheryl maintains, and at one point there was a swimming pool in the backyard. The circular driveway was often used as a turnaround location for the annual town parade, he said.
In the front yard sits a maple tree that Williams said predates the building of the house that is the second-largest maple in Hillsborough County.
And as for the titular fountain? It’s evident in the front yard in old photos of the home, but was not on the premises when the Willamses moved in; they heard from a neighbor that it was moved to Lyndeborough with a previous owner, but despite the house’s name, they’ve never seen it in person.