Graveyardbride

Administrator







Posts: 5,578

Administrator Update: John Proctor 'Witch House' for Sale Quote Select Post

Select Post Deselect Post

Deselect Post Link to Post

Link to Post Member Give Gift

Member Back to Top Post by Graveyardbride on

California Family Purchases Proctor House, Plans to Open it to Public



A California family (above) is moving into the John Proctor House, with plans to restore and open it to the public ... eventually.



The First Period colonial home at 348 Lowell Street in Peabody, Massachusetts, is easily distinguishable by its black paint and red doors. John Proctor, the man for whom it is named, was accused of witchcraft and hanged in August 1692 during the Salem Witch Trials. Proctor is also a prominent character in Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible.



The structure, likely built in the 1720s by descendants of John Proctor, has 3,910 square feet, six bedrooms and two baths, and was listed for sale in October 2018 with a price tag of $600,000. The last owner was Marion Raponi, who died Oct. 8 at the age of 90. She and her husband, Vincent Raponi, purchased the home in April 1968 and lived there with their four children for many years. “We really didn’t know a lot about the history when my parents first bought the house,” said Rosanne Bakos, the eldest Raponi daughter and representative of Marion Raponi’s estate. She was a junior in high school when her parents purchased the home. “The house was vacant for over a year and a half,” she continued. “My father was driving and saw the ‘for sale’ sign and he fell in love with the house.” It was her mother’s dream to restore the historic dwelling and she was able to do that for 50 years. “It was our family home,” she added. “We had bridal showers there, pool parties and cookouts. A lot of happy memories there.”



Bakos said she and her siblings didn’t expect the international attention the sale of the house generated through the fall and winter and they had “mixed emotions” when the sale closed last week. She added she is “very happy that another family is going to have that home to make their memories in.”



House changes hands. On Dec. 21, Barbara Bridgewater and Christopher Mendez of Huntington Beach, California, closed on the home. According to Joe Cipoletta, a listing agent for J Barrett and Company, which sold the house, there were multiple offers from across the country. “It was actually unbelievable,” she said. “We had interest from all over the world on the house. I realized I wasn’t selling a house, I was selling history and that’s basically what happened. People bought history.”



Mrs. Bridgewater first learned the historic home was for sale while watching TV. “It kind of sounds silly, but I saw it on TV,” she explained. “And we travel a lot. Every time we travel, we always check out the historic landmarks. It just seemed like a great opportunity, not only for me, but my daughters. They’re into history and English and The Crucible. Large characters in that book are John Proctor and Elizabeth Proctor.”



The Bridgewaters bought the house sight unseen. Inside, the Raponi family left them several books about the history of the structure and area. They also left some time period-appropriate furniture, including dressers and bed posts.



“It was a very smooth process,” Mrs. Bridgewater continued. “I thought it was really kind of neat ... and we just want to be the caretakers for now, in this part of time. It’s something different. I’m always on the lookout for things that are different and unique and this is about as different and unique as I could find.”



She added she and her family will be “bi-coastal,” splitting their time between California and in the Lowell Street home. Her husband is a supervisor for the National Insurance Crime Bureau and she is a supervisor with the state of California. “For now, we’re planning on living in it off and on,” she said. “We would like to restore and renovate parts of it. We are going to go with that first. We also would like to get in touch with the [Peabody] Historical Society. Just being able to see history and touch part of history ... was really neat for me.”



Public tours. The new owner said she also intends to furnish the house with period-appropriate furniture. Tours, she added, would likely be contained to the first floor, possibly the second, but staircases from the second to third floors are narrow and do not have railings, making access to those areas difficult for some. “There is a lot of work we need to do,” she admitted. “I’d want to check with the historic society, even if they would like to lead tours at some point. It’s just my intent for the public to see the site because whenever we visit places, that’s what we want to see. I think it’s only fair.”



The first floor is the oldest part of the structure and contains what was once the kitchen of the John Proctor House. A beam above the fireplace dates to the 1600s and a wall in the room can open to show the original wall of the building as well as historic wallpaper. A large hearth that was used for cooking was closed off by the Raponi family because it posed a danger to young children. Mrs. Bridgewater said she’d like to open up the wall to access the hearth eventually and possibly make it available for public viewing as well. “It’s just so different to own a piece of American history ... and the current owners have done a great job,” she added. “We want to continue on with it. Eventually, when it’s restored to a point where it can be showed to the public, we want to offer it so the public can enjoy it as well.”



Catherine Mendez, 17, the Bridgewaters’ daughter, is a senior in high school and considering attending college in either Boston or California, where she intends to study English. Her sister, Gabrielle Mendez, 22, is also an English major.



“John Proctor was actually a character that the house belonged to,” Gabrielle commented. “He was a real person ... it’s just mind-blowing that we actually own this house.”



“I think that’s why we were so intrigued by the house,” Catherine added. “I read and studied The Crucible last year. I thought it was really interesting and the witch trials, I’ve always thought that was really interesting. Honestly, I didn’t even know the Proctor house was still around. I never thought about it. When we found out it was real and we could own it, we were all supportive of my mom. I don’t think it sank in until we stepped foot in the house. It was so neat to see all the history.”



Source: Kelsey Bode, The Salem News, December 27, 2018.