For years, Warren Aldrich was curious about a tiny cottage on Sawmill Road in Greenfield, never imagining it would someday become his family’s home.
“I had been fascinated by the cottage for years because it was so quirky, and it was so weird. I drove by it every time I went to the dump, and I always wondered about it. It wasn’t like a normal suburban home. It was like a shacky-looking cottage,” Aldrich said.
Aldrich said he watched the cottage progress over the years as the owners added landscaping, fencing, and other improvements to the property.
For decades, Aldrich and his late wife, Teresa, lived in Greenfield’s original meeting house, an 18th-century cape across from Stephenson Memorial Library, where Aldrich created notable perennial gardens.
“People would literally stop their cars and get out and ask me about the gardens,” Aldrich said.
When Teresa began to have health problems, the couple retired from their work caretaking severely disabled adults and began to look for a smaller home that would be easier to manage.
“For Teresa’s peace of mind, we needed a smaller place. We were driving by one day, and I said ‘hey, what about that?’ I called a realtor in town, and it was one of those crazy things where the house had actually gone on the market that very day,” Aldrich said.
Aldrich wrote a letter explaining the couple’s situation and “why it was a perfect for us.”
“The owner said he would sleep on it, and in the morning, he chose us. He had four offers, because the house was only $120,000, and there is just nothing available at that price,” Aldrich said.
The couple, along with their dog, Rollo, rented the cottage for several months until their other house sold.
“And then it was our home for four years, ” Aldrich said.
The house, which the Aldriches christened “Rose Cottage,” needed a lot of work, but Aldrich was undaunted.
“I’m always excited to take on a challenge. I can’t not do it,” Aldrich said. “I only notice all the potential when it ends up right in front of me.”
Aldrich was especially delighted with the banked lawn on the west side of the cottage, which he saw as the perfect spot to create a new garden.
“Any gardener loves a bank. In a flat space, there is no variety, and it’s one-dimensional. With a bank, it has multiple layers. I almost felt like this space was custom-made for me,” he said. “There was this huge rock, which I think is a glacial erratic. I never even uncovered all of it; it runs for 10 to 12 feet in every direction, and I have no idea where it begins or ends.”
Aldrich created walkways flanking the massive stone and winding throughout the garden, and extended perennial beds all the way down the bank. He accented the gardens with antique farm implements, including old wagon wheels, which he used to frame elements in the garden.
Aldrich hired Jarvis Adams IV to create a new, level driveway behind the house, leading to the primary entrance in the back. He also had help from landscapers from Fairwood Bible Conference in Dublin, where he was the cook for many years.
“The driveway used to come right across the front of the house, and that drove me crazy,” Aldrich said. “The Fairwood crew was wonderful; they cut into the bank in the front of the house and further defined it and gave it angles.”
Aldrich then set to work leveling the upper part of the lawn “one wheelbarrow full of dirt at a time,” and built a stone wall by hand. He selected shrubs to complement the glacial erratic and show the shape of the bank.
Inside the cottage, the Aldriches were happy to find “decent wood floors” and new paint.
“The cottage is 540 square feet, and it was very livable for a couple; very cosy. Someone had put a lot of money into this place. There was a brand-new fence, and the living and the bedroom had nice floors and new paint,” he said.
The kitchen was another story.
“It wasn’t even really a kitchen. There was just a shabby remnant of a sink, which we had to get rid of,” Aldrich said
Aldrich, who is also an antiques dealer and collector of midcentury modern decor, searched online sites until he found an entire kitchen that had been torn out for a construction project.
“It was all the cupboards and all the components of the kitchen. The cupboards were maybe a little dated, but they were beautiful cabinets. Someone had torn them all out and wanted to sell them, so I got the whole thing for maybe $1,000,” Aldrich said.
Aldrich hired Thompson Flooring of Greenfield to refurnish the oak floors to complete the kitchen. He used two of the cabinets to create a center island, using a hollow-core door for the top.
“I painted it teal, which was Teresa’s favorite color,” he said. “We also painted the bedroom teal.”
Both the kitchen and bedroom have high ceilings and skylights, which make the space seem airier and larger, but Aldrich struggled with the cottage’s off-center windows.
“The windows just drove me crazy. Every time I walked in the bedroom, I would say to Teresa, ‘I think we need to move the window,’ because it just made me insane that they weren’t centered — why would you do that? But Teresa would say, ‘Not another project!’ She was afraid it would never get finished, and she was probably right,” Aldrich said.
Aldrich doesn’t know much about the history of the cottage, which may have been a hunting or fishing camp in days past, situated at the bottom edge of the western slope of Russell Hill, and walking distance from Otter Lake and Sunset Lake.
“I think the living room must have been added on, as it is totally different, with a lot of windows,” Aldrich said.
Teresa, who was “more introverted,” loved the solid fence enclosing the patio behind the house, but Aldrich missed “being part of the world” after so many years living in the center of Greenfield’s village.
“Teresa loved being able to have privacy behind that fence, but I would always sit so I could peer out at the world,” Aldrich said. “I had a view of the sawmill, and we actually watched it burn down in the summer of 2022, from our patio.’
In the living room, Aldrich selected “Japanese Forest” wallpaper, created by an Italian design company.
“It’s very ethereal, moody, misty, foggy — I just loved it,” Aldrich said.
In the living room, Aldrich displayed some of his extensive collection of midcentury modern glass, including pieces by L.E. Smith and Viking, which he became interested in after inheriting several pieces that had been in the basement of his parents’ home. He particularly likes bittersweet orange and blue glass.
“These glass companies imitated finer European glass, like Orrefors, and they would market their products to housewives during the baby boom. This glass was wildly popular in the 1950s and 60s, and I just started to collect it, ” he said.
In the corner of the living room, Aldrich used a Japanese step-stair Tansu bookshelf to display his glass and vintage items, which he later sold for $900. He replaced the step-stair shelves with a vintage Japanese tea cabinet.
“I don’t become tightly attached to things. I can disengage. I enjoy the process, the creativity of creating a new interior, and then I’m ready to move on and start another project,” he said.
One of Aldrich’s most treasured items is a painting by William R. Davis, which he found at the NH Antiques Co-Op in Milford.
“It’s magical to me; it looks exactly like the valley where I grew up in the Catskills. It completely captures the view we had looking down that valley,” he said.
Aldrich has a knack for thrifting and finding used items online, many of which he sells at his booth at Eclectic Mix in Amherst. He also works professionally as a draper, creates window treatments, and is available for design consultations through “Thumbtack,” a professional design app.
“I have a knack for finding things, and I have an awareness of what is valuable. There’s what it looks like to you, and why it appeals, but there is also the monetary value, and what it will get in the marketplace, and you have to be aware of both if you want to resell,” he said.
In recent years, Aldrich also fell in love with vintage Ekorn Stressless recliners and began to seek them out to clean up and resell.
“I saw one at a yard sale down the street, and I said, ‘We have to buy that,'” he said. “I got it for $25, and I ended up trading it for $500 on Facebook Marketplace. The older ones have tubular chrome bases; now they have wood. People love them; they are built for relaxing, not working.”
Aldrich found an electric model Ekorn Stressless for Teresa, and it became her favorite chair as she navigated declining health.
This month marks one year since Teresa’s death, and Warren has departed Rose Cottage for a new phase of life.
“We were very happy there,” he said. “It was a good home.”
