The Elizabeth Bishop House in Great Village, which was designated a heritage property in the late 1990s, is currently for sale by the group of 10 people who now own it.
“It’s just time,” said Sandra Barry, one member of a group of 10 people who have owned the property for the past decade.
“It’s not a simple matter. It’s not a decision we made lightly,” she said. “It actually was very difficult decision. It’s an emotional decision.”
Constructed during the 1860s, Barry described the home as being “like any old farmhouse in Nova Scotia.”
But its interior layout, with a steep, high-rise staircase leading to the second floor, small pantry, parlour room and many corners and roof angles is character-filled and was much loved by a young Bishop during her years in Great Village.
Bishop, who lived from Feb. 8, 1911, until Oct. 6, 1979, went on to become an acclaimed poet and short-story writer.
From 1949 to 1950 she was the Poet Laureate of the United States and in 1956 won the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry; the National Book Award winner in 1970 and the Neustadt International Prize for Literacy in 1976.
Born in Worchester, Mass., she came to live for a time with her maternal grandparents on their Great Village farm after her father died and her mother was institutionalized with mental illness.
In October 1917, after her paternal grandparents gained custody of her, however, she was very reluctantly torn from the house she loved so much and returned to live in the United States.
The house has been described as being the “centre” of her world and in 1919 her family brought her back to visit, as she did for many long summer vacations thereafter until she entered college in 1930.
Following the deaths of her grandparents William and Elizabeth Bulmer in 1930 and 1931, the house was sold to Norman and Hazel Bowers. When Hazel Bowers died in 1996, it was purchased by Paul Tingley, who in turn sold it to Barry and her group in 2004.
“We bought it because we wanted to protect it and preserve it and maintain it,” Barry said. “It’s just been our house, besides being the Elizabeth Bishop house, and we’ve shared it for 10 years (with artists who come there to work and be inspired).”
A sale price of $135,000 has been attached to the house and Barry said prospective buyers will be weeded out to ensure the next owner also has an appreciation of its history.
“We’re not in any hurry, we don’t want to offload this place. We feel a great responsibility about this house. This house is a dear, wonderful, special place. It had a huge affect on Elizabeth Bishop,” she said, of the home that has seen global visitors knocking on its doors for the past several decades.
“I think it was the actual structure. The physical structure had a huge effect on her very precocious mind. It’s a very quirky, lovely, strange, amazing old house.”
While on some levels it is “very ordinary,” Barry said, the house is also “quite unusual” inside.
“It has a lot of character,” she said. “It may sound strange but she wrote about it and she felt it had a soul.”
