Construction of this beautiful home started in 1882 and it was completed over the next seven years. It was the second residence in Longwood for master carpenter Josiah B. Clouser and family. Their first home was the hastily built Clouser Cottage, which still exists immediately behind it. This house was a much better exhibition of his skills as a craftsman. The family moved into this still incomplete home in 1885, eager to get out of the smaller cottage.
Phyllis and Tom Kidder purchased the home in 1975 for $25,000 from Betty McLeod and Dorothy Pearson. They shopped weekends to find fitting Victorian decor and painstakingly revived it. They raised their young son there for the next four years while they worked on the house. In the 1979 the family sold it to Mark H. Randall for $47,500.
Brian and Kristen Roy purchased the house in 2003 to be used as a consulting business. They did painstaking renovations to the building when tragedy struck in 2006. Literally, the house was struck by lightning that did $400,000 of damage to the property they had only spent $185,000 to purchase! Thankfully the building survived the brush with death and the insurance allowed for repairs and continued restorations. It has been completed wonderfully!
Other than as a private home, it has been used in various capacities as a home, antique shop (the late 60s, early 70s). During the 1980s and 1990s, it was used as a birthing center with midwives and known as Family Birth Center.
The home is an excellent example of a Frame Vernacular style with a Chinese Chippendale porch handrail. Its spindle completes the decorative touches that are typical of fine homes of that era.
