On the Market: A Reimagined Fire Station Home in Dartmouth

A few miles from the beach, this antique single-family has an outdoor shower, radiant interior, and even a pre-firehouse history.


Photo via William Milbury/Milbury and Company

889 Rock Odundee Road, Dartmouth
Price: $479,000
Size: 1,635 square feet
Bedrooms: 2
Baths: 2

Calling all recycling champions: This completely repurposed home will make your heart sing. Back in the 1800s, the gabled abode functioned as a horse barn and lived on the property of a neighboring farm. A century later, in 1924, the building was moved and reinvented as the Russell’s Mills Fire Station, before evolving one last time into a residence and potting studio in the early ’80s. The shed remains in the stone wall-lined backyard and an outdoor shower has been added, too, so you can lay out at one of the surrounding beaches and then rinse off before tracking sand into the house.

Today, you can still see the imprint of each iteration. Weathered posts and beams hold up the structure, a callback to the open layout’s time as a farm building, and two garage bays are still easily discernible on the façade of the home, thanks to its years spent as a firehouse. Southern yellow pine floors reclaimed from the ceilings of an old mill building in New Bedford harmonize with the rest of the antique, wooden interior.

The overall feel of the space, though, is unquestionably fresh. The current owners, a portrait artist and his family, chose to fill the walls with vivid paintings and the rooms with midcentury modern furnishings. Combined with the loft-like floor plan and oodles of sunlight, it’s a recycled residence with endless potential to embrace the aesthetic of your choice—old or new.

For information, contact William Milbury, Milbury and Company, milburyre.com.

Photo via William Milbury/Milbury and Company

Photo via William Milbury/Milbury and Company

Photo via William Milbury/Milbury and Company

Photo via William Milbury/Milbury and Company

Photo via William Milbury/Milbury and Company

Photo via William Milbury/Milbury and Company

Photo via William Milbury/Milbury and Company

Photo via William Milbury/Milbury and Company

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