LIVERPOOL – News of plans to restore the Perkins House at the Queens County Museum in Liverpool was like music to Linda Rafuse’s ears.
The Perkins House is one of the highlights in the 2018-2019 budget for Queens County.
“The province has made the commitment to do a full historic restoration to Perkins House,” said Rafuse, director of the Queens County Museum.
Rafuse says Paul LaFleche, deputy minister of transportation and infrastructure renewal, said the Perkins House would be getting the “full meal deal.” LaFleche said when transportation and infrastructure renewal is finished with the restoration, the house will look like it did when Simeon Perkins first moved in.
“Those were his words to us – the board chairman and myself, in a meeting with them last year,” explained Rafuse.
This summer will be the third season Perkins House has been closed, said Rafuse.
In mid-December, says Rafuse, the first phase of restoration was completed with a French drain installed around the perimeter of the house.
“That was to keep any and all water away from the house,” she said.
That work is now finished and has been working well with all the recent rain, added Rafuse.
Another component to the first phase involved more shoring in the back ‘L’ of the house, designed to ensure the house wouldn’t get more structural damage.
Phase two, the house’s restoration, is set to begin in May.
“They will put the tender out fairly soon for the design work,” said Rafuse.
About Perkins House
“The house was built in 1766,” said Rafuse about the building adjacent to the museum.
Shipbuilders built the house that Perkins and his family lived in for about 40 years.
Perkins was a merchant, judge and Member of the Assembly.
He was “best known for the remarkable diary he kept,” explains the Government of Nova Scotia website.
His diary includes some accounts of life in a colonial town, the process of building his house and his family’s smallpox inoculation.