Scott Pierce has lived in Rye all his life, his wife Janice since the age of 13. He invited her out on a date soon after they met in high school. Theirs has been a fine and long romance.
By Robin Jovanovich
{gallery}oldhouse{/gallery}
Scott Pierce has lived in Rye all his life, his wife Janice since the age of 13. He invited her out on a date soon after they met in high school. Theirs has been a fine and long romance.
The Pierces have loved all of the places they’ve lived, other than perhaps the apartment they lived in in Mt. Vernon many moons ago. From there they went to a garage apartment on the Old Post Road, then a home on Centre Street for 20 years.
The couple started talking about moving to a house in which there would be room for Janice’s widowed father to live with them. Janice had her sights set on moving to a house on the water. After a realtor told her about a turn-of-the-century Colonial on South Manursing Island, she brought Scott to look at it — in the dark. They were Manursing Club members and simply walked over one night. “But it’s not on the water,” Scott protested. However, when they made an appointment to see the house in the daylight, Janice knew this was the one. “I walked in and was already planning where I’d put the Christmas tree!”
Many Christmases and family celebrations later, including a daughter’s wedding, a litter of ten Golden Retrievers, and many garden parties, the Pierces have decided it’s time to get their senior lives in order and spend part of the year in Maine, where three of their four children live, and part of the year on Amelia Island, where they have a second home.
Sitting with them in their sun-filled family room recently, the Pierces talked about the house they’ve said has been a real home for 32 years and which they’re sad to be selling.
When the house was on the market in 1980, the Pierces were told they had to submit a bid right away because the owner, Albert Boardman, was leaving on his honeymoon. They put in a bid for the asking price, $365,000. “Janice wanted to bid more,” recalled Scott, who was in the bond business, an officer at EF Hutton in public finance to be precise. “Turns out we were the first and second bidder,” they said with a chuckle.
The Pierces took out the paneled gun room built by the previous owner, made a suite for Janice’s father, added a nook, updated the kitchen, redid the master suite, and made dozens of other improvements over the years. Janice, a member of the Rye Garden Club, has enjoyed tending to her garden, especially since they installed a 9-foot fence to keep out the deer that live just beyong their backyard in the Edith Read Sanctuary.
“We’ve love the fact that once we drive over the causeway we’re in a serene and peaceful world here,” said Scott. “Our house is a truly comfortable home where we and our family and friends have been able to relax. It’s been great to walk out the door to the club. Our little seven-member South Manursing Island Association is still making up the ground rules, and that’s been okay for all of us.”
Other than the fact that they don’t get very many trick or treaters at 6 South Manursing Island on Halloween, the Pierces say theirs has been a wonderful place to call home.
