A Dream Built By Hand
When we first learned that Hurcil had built the cottage himself, something changed.
We loved the original oak floors, the vintage doors, and the way each room seemed to flow naturally into the next. We noticed little details here and there, but we hadn’t stopped to think about the person who made those decisions nearly eighty years ago. Once we knew his name, it became almost impossible not to see his work everywhere. The trim around a doorway, the proportions of a room, the way the windows welcome the morning light before it slowly moves through the rest of the house.
Those details suddenly felt much more personal. It changed the way we looked at everything.
At the time the cottage was built in 1945, the world was beginning to settle from the Second World War. Like so many families, the Vaughans were looking ahead to a new chapter. For Hurcil, that chapter began with building a home for his wife, Pearl, and their young daughter, Mary Elizabeth.
We suspect that this was not just a house for them; it was a new start… the American Dream. The cottage would be the place where birthdays would be celebrated, Christmas mornings would be remembered, and ordinary Tuesdays would quietly become part of a lifetime together. Thinking about that makes the cottage feel different.
As we’ve spent more time caring for the cottage, we’ve noticed things we overlooked when we first moved in. None of the details asked for attention. They’re simply there, quietly doing what they’ve always done. Good craftsmanship doesn’t demand to be noticed. It simply lasts.
We often find ourselves wondering what it must have been like to build a home like this in 1945. There must have been long days with unexpected challenges and moments when progress felt slow. But somewhere along the way, room by room, the cottage slowly began to take shape. And eighty years later, we’re still benefiting from that work.
One of the unexpected joys of living here has been realizing that craftsmanship has a way of introducing you to the person behind it. We’ve never met Hurcil Vaughan and we’ll never know what he was like over a cup of coffee or around the dinner table. But after living in the home he built, it’s hard not to feel like we’ve come to know something about him.
He paid attention and took pride in his work.
Those aren’t conclusions we’ve reached because someone told us. They’re conclusions we’ve reached because we see the results every single day. It’s easy to think of history as something preserved in old photographs or written records. While those things matter, history also lives in places like this. Sometimes the best way to understand the past isn’t by reading about it. Sometimes it’s simply by living with it.
The longer we care for the cottage, the more we realize that many of its greatest treasures were never hidden. They’ve been right in front of us all along… not tucked away in an attic or buried beneath old floorboards.
Just quietly waiting for someone to slow down and notice.
Until next week,
Next Time
When we first walked through the cottage, we noticed the obvious things. It wasn’t until later that we began noticing details that signaled this little cottage was more special than we realized.
