Gingerbread house Santarella’s ‘thatched’ roof is in desperate need of repair; the problem is, no one is sure how to fix it | Southern Berkshires

TYRINGHAM — When Joshua Williams and Shaun Mosley bought Santarella Gardens and its gingerbread house, they knew they had a mountain of repairs ahead of them. More than two years later, they still do.

The gingerbread house, a dairy barn transformed into an art studio by English sculptor Sir Henry Hudson Kitson, invites roadside stares with its 1920s storybook architecture featuring curving stucco walls, mounds of stone, turret and faux-thatched roof. Kitson dubbed the structure Santarella.

“It is so visible from the main road that it is a stopping place for people driving past,” said local historian Cornelia Brooke Gilder. “It is of extreme cultural importance to Berkshire County.”

The roof to the gingerbread house is leaking and will cost an estimated $600,000 to replace.

While Williams and Mosley dream of holding their own wedding at the property, they have been devoting time, energy and money to restoring the structures. They live in a place on the site they call the English cottage.

Their goal is to create a venue for local artists and nonprofits as well as to host community events.

“Although weddings can make you a good amount of money, we would like to offer something back to the community and the locals,” Williams told The Eagle.

The couple paid $1.1 million for the property in October 2020. They also took out a $900,000, 30-year mortgage and a $100,000 open-end mortgage, both with Berkshire Bank. Thus far, they have spent an additional $100,000 to $200,000 on repairs and maintenance.

Replacing the roof is prohibitive for Williams and Mosley, who aren’t sure what the best course of action will be for the property. They are open to ideas and advice and are weighing listing it on the National Register of Historic Places to reap tax credits.

They have replaced flooring, repointed a chimney, built a stick style gate and a stone bridge across an unnamed brook on the 4-acre property. Less visibly, they have replaced and repaired heating systems and made investments in insulation to achieve better energy efficiency.

Even before they bought the property, they reached out to several local contractors. However, because of the specialized work involved, they demurred at replacing the 80-ton storybook roof.

The roof consists of curved asphalt shingles of slightly different hues layered thickly to create the thatched appearance.

The only company they’ve found, in Florida, provided a $600,000 estimate for a full replacement. While there may be other ways to pull off a similar look with different and perhaps cheaper roofing materials, they don’t know of it.

They’re aware that 3D printing might be an option, but they haven’t found any companies that are using that technology with roofing materials.

Driving up the cost will be the demolition and disposal of the existing roof. “Getting dumpsters, tons of dumpsters to remove it, that drives up the cost as well,” Mosley said.

They are considering applying for state and national historic status. However, if that status is granted, it will only allow them tax credits for repairs to the exterior of the buildings as private owners. Listing is a several-step process that takes about a year. Because the property is in private ownership, it would remain ineligible for grant funding even if it wins national historic status.

“Earlier people who have owned Santarella have looked at all of this and have just felt tired,” Gilder said. But she also spoke favorably about Santarella’s prospects for achieving national historic status, should Williams and Mosley decide to apply, citing its roadside visibility as well as its potential for loss or destruction.

“When you’re losing a roof, that is key,” said Gilder. “And use of traditional materials and building techniques, there’s nothing like this in the Berkshires, so it is a unique building. I think it could qualify for the National Register without a question. … They’re facing an emergency for the roof. And this is a long process.”

Photographer Christy Butler discovered the depth of local interest in that particular architectural gem recently. He placed two photos of the gingerbread house on a private Facebook group called The Berkshires. One showed the gingerbread house in 2018 with a seemingly intact roof, the other showed it this spring with holes. Within three hours, about 250 people had commented.

While they are resident owners, Williams and Mosley occasionally rent out space on the property to overnight guests through Airbnb. That includes the four-bedroom house that Kitson lived in, as well as the silo he had moved to the property and converted into an art studio with a turret on top. The larger tower on the back of the gingerbread house that Kitson also built is rented out on occasion as well.

Kitson, the sculptor of the Minuteman in Lexington and the Pilgrim Maiden at Plymouth Rock, used laborers from the Works Progress Administration to move boulders from nearby farms to the site, Mosley said.

His servant from Japan created the Japanese garden behind Santarella. The garden has a meandering path to a lily pond with koi. It wends its way across an unnamed brook. There are lilies and irises as well as a large, curved stone bench there.

“He asked the local farmers to grow rye in hopes that he could have a thatched roof,” Williams said. “It did not go well.”

The asphalt shingles took two years to overlay atop the existing roof on the dairy barn with some parts of the roof having shingles six layers thick.

“He laid them almost with some points diagonal and almost vertical to create the look that he wanted, which is not how the asphalt shingles were supposed to be used to properly shed water,” Williams said. “So because of that, it just caused them to decay.”

Williams and Mosley have replaced the roofs of both turrets as well as the roof to the house Kitson lived in on site.

They hope to eventually restore the Japanese garden, a place Mosley said he can imagine might be used for walking meditation or yoga by community groups.

While Santarella Gardens has been used as a wedding venue, that’s not the plan Williams and Mosley have for the property.

“It becomes very exclusionary to a set group of people,” Mosley said.

Taking inspiration from Kitson’s name for the gingerbread house, Williams in the fall of 2022 broke out into the Berkshires in full makeup as Bella Santarella. He’s hosted events under that moniker and has recently become a mover on the Berkshire Pride committee, pressing for the expansion of events from one day to four at the end of May. Williams’ Bella Santarella will be a significant presence — as hostess — at some of those events.

Mosley and Williams are planning to stay.

“I think it’s that balance of, you know, paying honor to what he created and then making it so that it can last on for future generations,” Mosley said.

“Our goal is to do it,” Williams added. “We feel that we are less owners and more stewards of the property. We want to take it to the next level and to ensure that the gingerbread house specifically and Santarella Gardens as a whole can be kept, can be restored and preserved for many generations to come.”