Marrimack Valley Magazine

by Michael Brindley
photos courtesy Design Associates, Inc.

   A hibiscus plant stands tall in the sunroom of Mary and Bud Enright’s Merrimacport home.

It is a bright, cool Saturday morning in February, and the sun is glistening off the waves of the Merrimack River. A family of ducks swims up to the shoreline as Mary Enright tells the story of how the plant was once on the verge of death.

Mary had given the plant to her daughter, but the family’s puppy had nearly destroyed it. The plant had been tossed in the garbage, deemed unsalvageable, but Mary saw that there was still some life left in it. She saw its potential.

   “It had a little green bud on it, a little growth,” she said. “That little tiny leaf was crying to me, hoping that I would notice. And I did. I brought it home, nurtured it and I put it out in the summer.”

   That was two years ago. Now, the plant is very much alive, boasting an array of flowers with creamy white petals and pink centers.

“It’s been going like this for weeks,” she said, touching it gently. “It just took a little attention and caring.”

Much like the way Mary cared for the hibiscus and helped bring it back to life, the Enrights together have shown the same type of enthusiasm and passion for restoring their Merrimacport home to its true architectural roots.

The couple, who are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, purchased the house in 2004 knowing full well it would take a great deal of time, energy and money to bring it back to its early 19th-century Greek revival design.

It took more than a year for the project to be completed and for the Enrights to move into the home.

Christopher Dallmus, an architect hired by the Enrights to be the head of the renovation project, said that over time, “unsympathetic” additions and alterations were made to the three-story house that didn’t fit the unique architectural design of the early 1800s.

“Many of the additions, there was no relationship to the Greek revival era,” he said.

Dallmus is a partner with Design Associates of Nantucket and Cambridge. During his more than 30 years as an architect, Dallmus has worked on many historic preservation projects in Massachusetts,
with both residential and commercial buildings.

The Enrights were close friends with Russ Morash, creator of WGBH’s “This Old House.” Morash recommended the Enrights work with Dallmus for the project. Dallmus met with the Enrights and
after seeing the house, agreed to work as head of the project team.

“How we got here had to do with the river and boating,” Bud said. “Once we got here, because of our friends who are in the field…we decided to restore this. And they redid it and we’re quite happy.”

It was Bud who initially expressed interest in the house, located just minutes from Route 495. In 2004, the Enrights moved from San Francisco to the east coast to be closer to their grandchildren.

They purchased an attached house in Ipswich at a country club.

But as Bud is quick to point out, it wasn’t near water and it never felt like home. For Bud, living near water was something he had missed since moving from the San Francisco Bay, where he would spend much of his time out on his boat.

“There’s something primal in all of us about being near water,” he said.

One day, he noticed an advertisement for a house for sale in Merrimacport. According to the ad, the house was on the water with a dock.

“For a male, that translated into a dock with a house,” he said, laughing.

With much trepidation on Mary’s part and a lot of enthusiasm on Bud’s part, they took a look at the house. Mary admits she wasn’t impressed at first. She only went along with her husband to humor
him, never seriously considering they would actually buy it.

She figured her husband would see the amount of work it would take to refurbish the house and would lose interest. But as she soon realized, that wasn’t going to happen.

“He was heart set,” said Mary.

One of the areas of the house that had to be completely removed was an addition to the rear of the house that Dallmus described as having more of a Victorian design to it than Greek revival era.

“We tore down the whole circa-60s and -70s addition,” he said. “We just took it to the dump. If you tried to renovate it, it would have just ended up costing more.”

White pillars and an overhang were added to the exterior of the main entrance to the house, one of the trademarks of Greek revival architecture. Before the project, the exterior of the house was entirely white. Now, it is a sharp bluish-grey with white trim highlighting the
building’s angles.

Inside, Dallmus said he wanted to keep that sense of Greek revival and also create spaces that allowed for its occupants to take in the view of the Merrimack River. Dallmus said he and other
designers weren’t slaves to the Greek revival style, trying to blend tradition with some modern aspects.

“The typical approach is to be respectful of the building. Something that is sympathetic and right to the building,” he said. “What gives us all the greatest joy and satisfaction is that our clients
are extremely happy with the investment.”

Dallmus said his passion for historical preservation comes from a sense of appreciation for keeping architectural history alive. “But it’s also about developing an understanding of that history for our
clients and an appreciation for it.”

Not all aspects of the house were changed. Among the parts of the house kept as is was the Brazilian blue marble fireplace in the main living area.

The Enrights filled the house with their own furniture, all of which had been collected during their time spent living in various parts of the world. The Chinese Mahjong table in one of the rooms
came from their time in San Francisco.

During a tour of the house, Mary stopped to point out the words that had been etched above the fireplace in one of the first-floor rooms near the entrance to the house: “East, West, Home is Best.”
Those words were there when the Enrights moved in and were kept there because it tells their story.

“Our hearts and souls are in a lot of places,” said Mary. “We’ve lived probably 15 places on the east coast and 15 places on the west coast.”

   Walking up from the basement to the first floor, black and white photographs of the family have been placed along the stairwell. Mary said that was done to represent the foundation of not only the house, but also the family.

   On the second floor is a guest room and Bud’s den. The spacious master bedroom has a picturesque view of the river. The third floor of the house is an attic that has been converted into a children’s area. There is a family room, a playroom and a bedroom on both ends of the floor. The playroom is scattered with toys and board games. A picture of Bud as a young boy hangs on the wall. Each room is
painted with bright, vibrant colors and the large windows allow for natural light to fill the house.

When asked to name his favorite part of the house – other than the dock – Bud thought about it for a minute and eventually decided on the main entryway to the house. That’s where those coming in get a sense for the feel of the house.

“You come in and you see that New England style,” he said. For Mary, the answer was easy – the corner of the sunroom, where she sits in her wicker chair. She calls it her “command post.”

“That’s a very comfortable spot,” she said. “In the morning, I’ll have my coffee and read my newspaper.”

The Enrights also took great care with the landscaping, particularly near the water. They brought in plants that were indigenous to the area and installed a new dock.

Both Mary and Bud enjoy talking about the history of the area they now call home. This part of Massachusetts was known for its horse-drawn carriage industry, explained Bud.

“This was the place where they supplied and they took out the carriages, took ‘em downriver to Newburyport … The bigger ships would take them around Cape Ann and over to Boston, and they’d
get into the distribution process,” he said.

He also points out that all of the other homes in the neighborhood enclave were built in a similar Greek revival design. That was done, he said, because everything Greek was popular at a time when people were showing their independence from Britain.

“Even though each owner is different, there is a theme here,” he
said.

The Enrights balked at going into the financials of how much the project ultimately cost. They did acknowledge that it ended up being more than they originally budgeted for, but said the cost is
more than reflected in the quality of the work.

“We weren’t really putting any budget on [the designers],” said Mary. “But they could really do what they thought was their best work in terms of reconstruction of this period house.” She gets up to point out the detail put into the windows in the sunroom, with their white, thin panes.

“It’s all authentic and they wouldn’t have been happy if they all did what was affordable. Everybody is proud of what they did,” she said.

Now, the Enrights have a beautiful house they can call home for the rest of their lives. They have fallen in love with the setting as much as the house itself.

Merrimacport is a section of the town of Merrimac that runs adjacent the Merrimack River. Before they had even moved in, the neighbors had already welcomed them.

There are social gatherings throughout the year. Sometimes it’s for a special occasion, like the Fourth of July. On New Years Eve, the neighbors get dressed up and make a dish for the annual party. There are also impromptu gatherings, promoted by one of the neighbors sending out an e-mail inviting people over for cocktails on a warm summer afternoon.

“There’s just a nice mix of people who, in good old New England fashion, keep to themselves, but they’re always there,” said Bud.

Mary is retired from a career working in early education. Bud still works in the field of computers. His work has him traveling a great deal, often back to Pasadena, where he works on a part-time basis.

The similarities in the stories between Mary’s hibiscus plant and the house were hard to miss. Because of the attention and caring of the Enrights, both are now full of life and beautifully restored.

Standing in the corner of the sunroom, Bud said that theme fits in with pretty much everywhere he and his wife have lived during their time together.

“We came upon something and saw what might be,” he said.