HANDYMAN'S SPECIAL

Grafton, New Hampshire $75,000

In the old days, Route 4 was the main road north from Concord to White River and Grafton was a popular stop alongside it. Nowadays the traffic is on I-89 and Route 4 is what the tourists use, some of them stopping at a popular attraction in Grafton called Ruggles Mine, the oldest mica and beryl mine in the country.

Few of them have seen this house. It sits close by Route 4, but out of sight from it, over the railroad tracks and beyond the town playing fields. It's been here for over 200 years. The style is vernacular Cape a bit taller than the classic center-chimney but with many of its features: thin window sash with nine-over-six panes, transom lights over the front door, massive brick chimney. Inside we saw the best of the period: floors and wainscot made from very wide pine planks (many of them beaded), three shallow fireplaces and a bake oven, raised-panel doors with original Norfolk-type hardware, horsehair plaster walls, built-in corner cupboard, exposed gunstock corner posts, seven rooms in all. Outside stand two old outbuildings and a shade under two acres of cleared land backing up to forest.

All of these things have been not so much preserved as left alone —the house has been empty for close to half a century and shows it in every way possible. You'll find no bathroom here, no central heat, no insulation, tons of work that need to be done. And kind of a magic that is becoming rarer and rarer even in northern New England, even in towns off the well-traveled road.

Call Charles Bent II Real Estate at (603) 523-7395. They're in Canaan, about ten minutes up Route 4.

Now you can live near a mica mine.

The appointments span centuries.