The Neo-Victorian Residence & Art Collection of Billi and Bobby Gosh

In 1971 my wife Billi and I decided to buy a vacation house in Vermont. We were renting an apartment on the twenty-first floor of a building on the East side of Manhattan. We looked at thirty properties all over the state and bought a three-year-old 24x40 ranch house. It was situated on the top of a mountain at 1750 feet with a spectacular seventy-five mile view. We knew we could make the house into whatever we wanted, but could not ever find a more beautiful location.We both loved...
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In 1971 my wife Billi and I decided to buy a vacation house in Vermont. We were renting an apartment on the twenty-first floor of a building on the East side of Manhattan. We looked at thirty properties all over the state and bought a three-year-old 24x40 ranch house. It was situated on the top of a mountain at 1750 feet with a spectacular seventy-five mile view. We knew we could make the house into whatever we wanted, but could not ever find a more beautiful location.We both loved Victorian houses and decor. I began going to auctions and buying Victorian salvage. In 1973 we added a mudroom to the house and a two-car garage. In 1975 we decided to leave New York City and moved permanently to Vermont. In 1978 we built our first major addition, which included a main entrance, master bedroom, guest bedroom, entrance hall, library and three-car garage on a lower level. In 1983 we built a 22x30 foot kitchen with an 18 foot high ceiling. In 1986 I converted the three-car garage into a state-of-the-art recording studio.The library has 40 feet of carved oak shelves from an 1875 Victorian drug store in Schenectady, New York. The Victorian casings came from the 1848 railroad depot in Randolph,Vermont, along with oak, tiger maple and birds eye maple casings, which were newly milled at the turn of the century and stored, but never used, in the attic of the owner of a Randolph building supply company. The Victorian pocket doors came out of a Randolph mansion, which was being renovated into a home for elderly people. The 1850 eleven-foot high stained glass window came from a church.The master bathroom contains a 1919 marble barber front. The kitchen has a 1910 tin ceiling with 1929 Art Deco hanging light shades.Many of these authentic Victorian features could have ended up in the dump. I was lucky to round them up and give them a new life. Over 50 years of building and collecting, we ended up with a Neo-Victorian home.