Foto Friday: Moffatt-Ladd House

The Moffatt-Ladd House & Garden is a National Historic Landmark in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

From their website (who knew there was colonial pre-fab housing?)

In 1760, craftsmen under the direction of master joiner Michael Whidden III offloaded the frame of the house from a vessel docked at Moffatt’s wharf, and raised and finished the frame. In his bill for services, Whidden III notes “Bringing ye frame from ye warf on ye Spot to Raise finding all ye Men finding all ye Vittles And all ye Drink of Every Kind at my own Expence at my house.”   Between 1760 and 1763 Whidden and nine apprentices, two journeymen, and other related craftsmen put in total of 3,272 working days on “your house fences & garding” and also erected a barn and a shop on the site. Other bills document the exquisite details throughout the house to Portsmouth carver Ebenezer Dearing. Architectural historians have attributed the distinctive balusters of the main staircase to turner Richard Mills (1730-1800) on the basis of similar balusters in Mills’s own home in Portsmouth.

The Counting House that overlooks the family wharves on the Piscataqua River was built about 1832.  The Coach House, comprised of an original warehouse and shop to which a carriage bay was added, dates from the late eighteenth century.