Kemp-Shepard House
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The Kemp-Shepard House is a historic house on Highbridge Road (
Vermont Route 104A Vermont Route 104 (VT 104) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Vermont. The highway runs from VT 15 in Cambridge to VT 105 in the town of St. Albans. VT 104 is an L-shaped route that connects the city of St. Alban ...
) in
Georgia, Vermont Georgia is a town in Franklin County, Vermont, United States. The population was 4,845 at the 2020 census. Geography The town occupies the southwest corner of Franklin County, bordered to the south by Chittenden County. The western border of th ...
. The main block of the brick house, built about 1830, is an important early work of a regional master builder, and it is attached to an older wood-frame ell. It was built on land that was among the first to be settled in the eastern part of the town. The house was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1997.


Description and history

The Kemp-Shepard House stands in a rural area of eastern Georgia, on the north side of Highbridge Road just east of its crossing over an inlet of Arrowhead Mountain Lake. It stands on about of land, a remnant of a once-larger farm property, much of which was inundated when the lake was formed in 1937. The main block is a -story brick structure, with a front-facing gable roof and stone foundation. To the rear of this is an attached wood-frame gable-roofed wing. The main block is three bays wide, with the main entrance set in a recessed opening in the right bay, flanked by sidelight windows. The door and windows are set in rectangular openings with stone sills and lintels. There are two sash windows on the attic level, with a diamond-shaped brickwork pattern nearer the gable. The cornice edge of the gable consists of corbelled brickwork. The interior retains many original finishes. The rear wing exhibits late 18th century construction techniques in its framing, and its original vertical batten siding has been covered by wooden clapboards. with The Kemp-Shepard property was first settled in the 1780s or early 1790s, at which time the c. property had a log cabin built on it; this cabin was demolished in the 1980s. A wood-frame farmhouse, the ell of the present house, was built sometime between 1790 and 1810. About 1830 the main block of the house was built. It is the earliest known work of Levi N. Kemp, a poorly documented mason whose known surviving work is of very high quality. The brickwork appearing on this house was emulated in part by other masons, who built some of the other surviving brick houses in the area. The house remained in the hands of Kemp descendants (later named Shepard) into the late 20th century, and did not receive modern amenities such as plumbing and electricity until the 1980s.


See also

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National Register of Historic Places listings in Franklin County, Vermont __NOTOC__ This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Franklin County, Vermont. This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Franklin County, Ve ...


References

{{NRHP in Franklin County, Vermont Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Vermont National Register of Historic Places in Franklin County, Vermont Greek Revival architecture in Vermont Houses completed in 1830 Houses in Franklin County, Vermont Buildings and structures in Georgia, Vermont