All the Comforts of the 19th Century
Credit Randy Harris for The New York Times
John and Judy Hobday live in what could almost be considered a museum: an 1810 stone house that they have painstakingly restored to its (nearly) original state.
The bathroom and kitchen are outfitted with 21st-century fixtures and appliances, but apart from that, just about all of the furnishings and materials in this Stockton, N.J., house date to the late 18th or early 19th century, and some are even older. The floorboards may not be original to the house, but they are 300 years old and held in place with antique nails; the Windsor chairs and the Austrian cupboard are a similar vintage.
What is surprising is how comfortable it all is.
Sure, the ceilings are low — barely higher than seven feet, in fact — and the windows are small. On a recent rainy morning, there was so little natural light downstairs that the lamps had to be turned on.
But none of that seems to matter when you curl up in front of the fire on the English Sheraton sofa, or spend time sitting and reading in the American Chippendale wing chair, both of which have their original horsehair-and-cotton batting but have been reupholstered in oatmeal-colored linen. Even the spindly Windsor chairs at the kitchen table are welcoming.
Achieving that balance of authenticity and comfort wasn’t easy. Mrs. Hobday, who is now 58 and an interior designer, grew up on a farm nearby and had long admired the house, so from the beginning it was her project — one she swore to devote her life to, if necessary. But Mr. Hobday, 75, who is British, was a willing accomplice, equally enamored of old houses.
The couple, who have been together for 27 years and married for 17, met in 1984 at a local gathering spot (another old house, naturally, this one dating to the early 18th century and converted into a restaurant called the Sergeantsville Inn). She was single and living in an old carriage house up the road, while working as an account manager for Aramis at Estée Lauder in Manhattan. He was separated from his wife and living in a 19th-century house in the neighborhood, though he also worked in Manhattan, as an executive for a textiles company.
When the house went on the market in 1986, she immediately bought it, for $100,000, and began refurbishing it. But the project was soon postponed. Two years later, she moved in with Mr. Hobday, and a couple of years after that, the couple moved to Charlotte, N.C., where his office had relocated, selling his house and renting out hers.
It wasn’t until 2009, when he retired and they returned to the area, that the restoration began in earnest. They started with the exterior, getting rid of a patio that was added in the late 1800s, repointing the stonework, and putting on a new roof and copper gutters. Inside, they removed a boiler room to open up the first floor, put a new window in the living area and built a fireplace using stones from the property and a mantelpiece from the 1790s. They replastered the original walls, whitewashed them and painted the trim in Mrs. Hobday’s favorite shade of taupe, a color she calls Earl Grey.
That kind of attention to detail doesn’t come cheap. The restoration, which was completed last year, cost $1.1 million. And the Hobdays had to put in a lot of long days, often working side by side for 18 hours at a time.
“Our friends say we’re joined at the hip,” Mr. Hobday said cheerfully. “We work very much as a couple. We can finish each other’s sentences.”
He continued, “We go to antiques stores together, we garden, we go to nurseries, we get our hair cut at the same place at the same time.”
That’s a lot of togetherness. Doesn’t it ever get boring?
“No,” he said. “We have the same interests.”
As he put it, “We’re all about the house.”
Mrs. Hobday is more candid. On occasion, she admitted, she does need a little space. When that happens, she said, “I might send him to the dry cleaners or to the hardware store.”
But he’s never gone for long, because there’s always more work to be done.
Next up: the restoration of an even older structure. Mrs. Hobday is planning to turn an 800-square-foot outbuilding dating to the late 17th century into a design studio.