For sale: this really old house

Would you like to buy one of the oldest homes in America, Milton's famous Bernard Capen House, a so-called ''First Period" dwelling dating from 1636? Yes, fancy dendrochronological dating places the actual construction closer to 1658, but it's in fantastic shape. I toured it Monday, and it feels stronger than my own home, which dendrochronology reveals to have been built shortly after World War II.

Preservationists are predictably atwitter about the fate of chez Capen, which is being dismantled. The leading authority on local frame houses, Abbott Lowell Cummings, says the number of similar houses still standing is ''finite in the extreme. Whenever a 17th-century house is threatened with destruction, it's a matter that should be brought to the attention of preservationists."

How did this house come on the market? When Roger Gregg, an outlying member of the Forbes family, recently died, his home -- the Capen House -- had to be sold to pay estate taxes. Although descended from the fabulously wealthy, swashbuckling opium trader John Murray Forbes, the Forbes clan is notoriously land-rich and cash-poor. Case in point: John Forbes Kerry, who gets to vacation on the family-owned Naushon Island but who owes his opulent lifestyle to his wealthy wife.

Josef Rettman, himself a builder, paid $770,000 for the gorgeous two-acre lot and house smack in the middle of horse country. He loves the setting -- he just got engaged underneath a grape arbor on the property! -- but admits he has no use for the historic dwelling. ''I'm 6-4, and all of the ceilings are 5-11," Rettman explains. ''It wasn't going to work."

The good citizens of Milton have engaged in much arm-flapping, threatening to adopt a one-year demolition moratorium. But that's just talk. The house, which was moved from Dorchester in 1909 to become a summer residence, has no landmark status, and Rettman got his demolition permit fair and square. The addition that Gregg built onto the house has already been destroyed.

Enter Mark Landry, president of Walpole-based renovator Landmark Services. ''No one wanted to see the house demolished," Landry says, so he and his crew have started a monthlong dismantling process. He will store the house in trailers, and will rebuild it if and when a client comes up with the estimated $600,000 reconstruction cost. That number includes an extra 2,000 square feet of added living space, probably necessary in the modern age.

Want to live in the style to which John Winthrop & Co. became accustomed? Call Landry at 508-533-8393, or e-mail him at mark@landmarkservices.com.

Newton does have a demolition delay ordinance for historic structures, but that didn't trip up New Balance capo Jim Davis in his quest to build his Garden City Xanadu. Down came the almost-100-year-old Georgian Revival mansion most recently occupied by the Swedenborgian church, and a $16 million ''stately pleasure dome" arises in its place. I bike by there every so often, and lately I've been watching what looks like a helipad take shape. ''It's just a courtyard," says Davis, who's been described as ''an unpretentious billionaire" by the Globe. ''It looks bigger than it is."

The new building is a close reproduction of the pre-existing mansion, with the addition of a three-car garage and a pool. Davis sounds like he's running for a Reebok Human Rights Award, making much of having saved one of New England's oldest ginkgo trees: ''We saved it, at considerable expense, and moved it to the far side of the property," says Davis. ''It will probably take 10 to 12 years before the tree recovers from the move."

A landmark status designation will not be necessary to save the Casablanca restaurant, the famed ''Casa-B" where the ghosts of Jack Lemmon, Edie Sedgwick, and Julia Child lurk. The beanery will not be changing hands, as I direly predicted in December. After entertaining offers from prospective buyers, longtime owner Sari Abul-Jubein says he has reached an amicable accommodation with his landlord, William Poorvu, and has signed a new lease for three years. ''I'm happy that we're going to be working together," Poorvu says. ''It's a legendary institution, and it should be staying in the Square."

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.