Life with Stuart - By Lucille Rossignol and Paul LaViolette

It is so wonderful reading all these memories of Stuart. Here's one of our stories:

THE PRELUDE
My husband, Paul LaViolette, bought our 1873, Second Empire, mansard-roof Victorian home in Wellesley in 1986 for $250K (a lot of money in those days, but apparently one of the cheapest houses in town. Here's why.) It had been rented for 12 years + , the fireplace chimney leaned AWAY from the house a foot and a half; you couldn't walk up the front steps without walking on the outside edges...the treads were all broken through; the kitchen cabinets had curtains across them; the back shed attached to the kitchen (wide open) had no heat; the cesspool in the back (original to the house) was constantly overflowing down the neighbor's driveway; one heating zone for a four bedroom house, all old radiators; the basement oil-burning furnace made of 3" thick cast iron looked like R2-D2 on steroids and had a hole in one side the size of a small, oval BREADBOX (you could look in and see the fire); all the dormers leaked every (and I mean every) single time it rained; two thirds of the windows were broken; the squirrels and chipmunks held mating rituals and track and field heats throughout the exterior soffits of the house and kept us company every night with their shenanigans above the dropped ceiling of our bedroom; it was an ecologically friendly home with an interior wall beehive on the second floor the size of three average front doors.
On to the basement: the floor was dirt and gravel; when it rained, pools collected in various places. My husband had placed the washer and dryer there and vented the dryer into a bucket of water....the cobwebs were so bad, it was a Halloween extravaganza. If the clean clothes fell on the floor, they immediately had to be re-washed. The old field stone foundation was leaking so badly, the stones were bulging in and out and beginning to lose their promise of holding up the structure; ferns grew on the inside of the foundation wall.......a rodent's heaven.....the "handyman's" garage, configured underneath the house had a garage door broken in the "up" position and if you stood inside it and looked up, you could see directly through the flooring of the room above, the dining room.....winter's were chilly....but the LOVE was HOT!!

I came into the picture in 1991, risking giving up my cozy Boston South End apartment for this man, because, after being divorced for nearly 12 years, I walked into his house (with all of its despair) and for the first time in my life, felt like this could be MY home.
The old bones of this structure were there and invited me in. I felt an energy here I had never felt before. I was so right. This would become OUR home. My Paul had a vision... a big vision. A simple marketing guy, he had an idea and was determined to see it through. He loved wood, had refurbished an old house in Newton, and spent countless hours trying to resurrect this old beauty in Wellesley. LOVE.... is there anything it can't fix???

ENTER WHITLA BROTHERS
For at least six months, we had envied (I mean jealously envied) the beautiful carriage house/garage the "Whitla Brothers" had done for the Pratt family on Abbott Road. We drove by a hundred times ogling the shape, the size, the windows, the stone foundation, the shingling, reading the sign on the front lawn that said "Whitla Brothers...Fine home Builders". We could NEVER afford them, we said, but the style and character was everything we had ever wanted, everything we had ever dreamed of for our old house.
Finally, we thought, we'll present them a small job, the front alcove ( a true remuddling) and see if they can fix it, make it look right for the period. We had hired an architect, Marjorie Marks, who came up with a design we were very happy with. It'll be the "nose job" the house needs, we thought.. We'll get a bid for the project from the Whitla Brothers and if they get it right, maybe they'll help us with the rest of the house.
Stuart and Doug put together a proposal and were finally ready to present it to us. We were nervous, having never gone through this process before. I thought we should make a good first impression, so I put out a spread of "heavy hor d'oeuvres", shrimp cocktail etc., beer and wine, so we could relax and discuss the project. That made them both even more nervous than we were, I think. Stuart walks in and says, "Uh, are you guys planning to have a party or something?" 'No", I said, "it's close to dinner time I thought you might like a bite to eat." Stuart then casually tosses the proposal on the table and says, "well here it is". They both seemed nice enough, though a little green in their marketing skills. After looking at their proposal we thought, "hey, we can afford this" and went with them and never looked back. John Kimball did the entire finish trim on that alcove, by the way. Fifteen years and eight projects later, Doug and Stuart "Whitla Brothers" became OUR brothers, our real friends.

In today's world, in Wellesley especially, most home owners and builders would have demolished the old bones of our building, rebuilt from scratch, top to bottom, fully finished, fully decorated and landscaped within a one or two year period. We did it the old fashioned way, I guess. We threw every bonus check, every extra sum of money we could, as our family started to grow, into this special house. We wanted the outside observer to have trouble distinguishing between what was old and what was new. And Doug and Stuart were the only ones who could help with the deception.

We have grown older now with Doug and Stuart. And with each new project on our house, their talents grew exponentially. Stuart became a craftsman beyond all our expectations. All our architect had to do was draw an overview scale of drawings once, and Doug and Stuart took it from there. What ever the challenge, Stuart would mull it over and come up with a solution that inevitably was the right one. He was quiet, soft spoken, but if his crew was engaged in a conversation, whenever he opened his mouth, his comments were poignant, over-the-top hysterically funny, or deeply serious. He never spoke unless he had something really important to say .I loved that and will always love that about him.

In our minds, Doug and Stuart were inseparable. One always covered for the other, or at least faked it superbly. They are closer than most brothers. And certainly not your typical family business.

Stuart, the energy you expended in our home remains here; a reminder that you were here and you did something special, very special for us. Our house is surrounded with memories of you and Doug and all the crews that have passed through here. Everywhere we turn, everywhere we look, your hand touched a wall, a window, a threshhold, a cabinet, a door knob we still use every day. Thank you for all your gifts. For all you have done for us.

Smooth sailing, dear Stuart. And send us a sign now and then from heaven. We'll be so longing for them.

Lucille Rossignol and Paul LaViolette