Preserved with love, and local expertise

(Photos by Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff)

The street is named after the second veterinarian who lived here in the early 1900s - a son-in-law of the first veterinarian, who in the late 1800s bought the home from a town clerk and local historian. Both veterinarians treated their patients in a back room on the first floor with its own entry. Today, that small room is used as a bedroom, and, remarkably, it's the only room in the nearly 300-year-old house that shows its age with some cracked walls and ceiling. The rest of the antique home is well preserved because the current owner, Ruth Broughton, and her late husband renovated it 30 years ago with tender loving care.

Broughton is a historian on the board of the Littleton Historical Society, so her expertise aided the restorations. The couple redid the kitchen cabinets using hand-planed pine from the attic floor. They added oak countertops, a copper sink, and soapstone drain board. They also built a pantry and reinstalled the bricks in fireplaces, adding a working Rumford fireplace in the kitchen, a gas stove in the family room, and large raised panel mantles that match an original in the master bedroom. The house is the fourth oldest in town and features original ceiling beams, wide pine floorboards, and a fun antique commode stand that serves as a sink pedestal in the lower-level bathroom. Many first-floor ceilings include beams and are on the low side, as is the entry to the second-floor stairway, but in general nothing feels cramped.

Despite the home's age and an occasional slanted or worn floor, it also features stainless appliances, first-floor laundry, large bedrooms, renovated bathrooms, many new windows, a screened porch, and rooms painted in appealing historical colors - though it's not clear if some of the rooms with wallpaper are historical or just dated. "The house has all the conveniences of modern day in an antique setting," said listing broker Lorna Rush of Barrett & Co. in Concord.

MINDY POLLACK-FUSI