“Old places have souls.” ~Anonymous homeowner
by Dorothy Kulisek
Jim and Deb Sweeney, whose family trees both proudly began generations ago in Wildwood, possess an ongoing love for Wildwood that is evident in the restoration of their historical home on Poplar & New Jersey Aves. Advertisements for The Shute Cottage, as well as for T. F. Shute General Contractor were found in a directory at the museum, revealing that the property was originally an apartment house built in 1895. The first floor was a horse stable, to which the Sweeney’s attribute their good luck in the home’s restoration project, having found a horseshoe laying just under the surface of the dirt floor, before Troiano Concrete came to pour new floors.
The Sweeney’s purchased the property in November 2013 from the Goodspeed’s, who owned the property for 78 years and were reluctant to sell because they feared it would be torn down by developers. Jim & Deb promised that their plan was to restore it to its original grandeur. True to their word, all of the electric and plumbing has been replaced in the past five years. Everyone in the family, including their children and Jim’s mom Marie, has contributed to the labor of love. Room by room, they’ve painstakingly worked sanding floors, stripping wallpaper, scraping paint and taking out the poorly-placed walls and additions that covered up beautiful features. The pocket doors, which separate the living and dining rooms, were a rare find. They were built on a Payson’s Pendulum, a system that’s application for a patent began in 1893. Contributing to the home’s memorable history, newspapers dating back to the turn of the century were discovered under one of the bathroom floors and were creatively used as decoupaged wallpaper.
Because the Sweeney’s cherish their away-from-it-all time in their shore cottage, they purposely have no Wi-Fi or television, truly maintaining its old world charm.
Those who pass by this grand old Wildwood home can’t help but notice the large sign hanging from the 2nd floor porch that reads Saoirse, which means Freedom in Gaelic. For the Sweeney’s, who were pondering what name to give the new old house, the spirit of the Irish echoed from the north of the island onto the thing they hold dearly … the freedom and joy they find in their soulful home by the sea…
