Architectural designer Jerry Vis and wife Bettylou, a retired early childhood educator, carefully considered half a dozen estates in Ulster County, finally settling on a 1,100-square-foot, somewhat utilitarian farmhouse on Binnewater Road in Rosendale.
Built in 1905, and situated on six scenic acres with a winding shared driveway as the approach, they paid about $350,000 in 2007.
They've since put in about another $300,000 to gut, renovate, and expand the main house, add an art studio, carpentry workshop, and shed. There's also a vast permaculture garden and fruit forest.
It's now a superlative compound for the close-knit family, which includes three adult children and also Jerry's elderly father, who lives downstairs. "We made parts of the house quite a bit more elegant than it wanted to be originally, I suppose, with the large circular window in the dining room, but we adhered to the original lines, hence the cohesive feel," Vis adds.
Arts and Crafts, with New Built-Ins
"I'd describe this house as a typical Rosendale farmhouse for the period, slightly Arts and Crafts in style, probably a tenant house for the Hahn Farm," says Vis. "It has just the right amount of seclusion."
The house has wood siding and a large porch. There are three bedrooms upstairs. The two full baths are simple. Throughout the house, Vis has added special carpentry touches and built-ins, enhancing the Arts and Crafts flavor.
The once-simple house has worked well as a canvas for Vis's aggressive overhaul. "When we bought this house, it didn't have adequate insulation, so we added that, plus radiant heat," says Vis. "We've expanded to about 2,400 square feet in total, but you'd never know just from walking around inside which parts are new," he says.
"My husband amazes me with all the things he can do, all the details. I'm particularly fond of our bedroom, for which he made all the furniture. It's a serene adult sitting room, with a treetop view," says Bettylou. "Also my kitchen. It has a built-in compost receptacle. We call the pantry our 'cat apartment.' My spices stay organized. There's a place for everything."
Hold the White Paint
"We'd been living in Goshen, but I'd wanted to live Ulster County since college. We also spend every summer on Monhegan, an island in Maine; we like the rural life and appreciate natural beauty in our surroundings," says Vis, who is also an accomplished painter.
Accessible only by ferry, Monhegan is known as an arts colony; the Vis family has gone there every summer since 1979. "On Monhegan, we rent. If I owned a home there, I'd constantly tinker with it, the way I do here," he says. "I grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, I'm not one of those people who grew up vacationing in Maine, but a friend introduced me to the island years ago and now it's just part of our identity." It's also proved a good place to meet prospective clients, says Vis, who has worked on homes from Virginia to Monhegan.
"I have the soul of a painter," says Vis, described as a "master of color" by Upstream Gallery in Dobbs Ferry, which exhibited a show of his recent work in November. "That's why you don't see white on the walls of my house. I think it drains everything around it. Lots of white often doesn't look right in a period house, either. We've used a pale butternut on the walls of our living room. It creates a rich warm tone," says Vis.
Daughter Giovanna "Jenny" Vis, together with husband Paul Maloney, owns the Stockade Tavern, an atmospheric watering hole in uptown Kingston known for craft versions of yesteryear's cocktails.
Before opening the bar about three-and-a-half years ago, Jenny worked for her father designing houses. She used those skills to create Stockade's mostly Federal-style interior. Jerry and brother Ben built the booths, floor, and wall paneling. To dress up the 19th-century tin ceiling, they installed 10-inch crown molding that drops down to house indirect ambient lighting.
"Making the Stockade look the way it does really was a family effort," says Vis. "My wife and I love to go there early in the evening. We didn't used to hang out in bars, I can assure you, but when it's in your family..." says Vis.
"We stay at my parents' house about a month every summer, taking care of my grandfather," says Jenny. "It's a wonderful house. This Christmas, we're planning on sleeping over."
Son Tristan Planted the Permaculture Garden
Younger son Tristan, a permaculture expert who's relocating soon to Patagonia, currently lives at home. "Oh, there's plenty of room for all of us," laughs Vis, a calm and pleasant man.
Tristan added a pond, fed with rainwater collected from the roof, which trickles down in swales—sort of like ditches—to water the vegetables and companion plantings. Vis is proud of the family's permaculture commitment. "We just let Tristan experiment, practice what he had learned, and now we grow all this food, and never use a rototiller, insecticide, or fertilizer," he explains.
Vis Counterfeited the Hasbrouck House Fireplace Mantle
Vis graduated from the Parsons School of Design and later earned an MFA in painting and sculpture at Rutgers University in 1970. He and his wife bought an 1820s house in Rockland County. At the time, Vis was teaching art at a college in New Jersey. Renovating their house, Vis unearthed interesting period details, teaching himself as he went along. He proved so gifted that soon he found people willing to pay him for quality historic-home renovations and restorations. Jobs came by word-of-mouth.
Thus began a love affair with old houses that has grown, over 38 years, into Cottage Industries, a diversified architectural design firm he owns and operates together with his older son, Ben. One of their most challenging projects to date was to replicate a 1750 fireplace mantle and paneled room taken from the Hasbrouck House in High Falls and sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it's on display in the American Wing.
About two years ago, the Hasbrouck House's new owner, a businessman of ample means, hired Cottage Industries to create an exact replica. "We met with the curator of the American Wing and had all the access we needed," says Vis.
It was just the kind of rigorously purist job Vis relishes. Over the years, he's accumulated a library of 1,500 books on subjects pertaining to period architecture and woodworking. Vis also collects antique tools.
Vis once worked on a 19th-century ruin on the Hudson River. The place was in terrible shape. The closer it got to being livable, the more strange things began to happen. There was an aroma of soup cooking in the kitchen—before the new one was built. There were oddly intense smells of a burning cigar and fresh lilacs. The electrician quit after his tools were scattered about mysteriously.
Vis had a vivid dream. Two sisters were arguing. There was a boy. A candle got knocked over. There was a fire. One of the sisters died. The boy came to Vis in the dream and they had a conversation. Vis reassured him the accident was not his fault.
Then the strange events stopped. "So I believe in house ghosts now. They don't bother me," says Vis. "We're not very religious, but we do celebrate Christmas. My wife's cooking a goose, and food on the table made from vegetables we grew."
