The Anchorage, a building constructed in the 1850s that was originally home to Douglas Putnam and his family and that was a nursing home in the 1980s, had some work done on the front facade.

The Anchorage is located in Harmar at the end of Putnam Avenue, high on a hill. It has been a part of Marietta since 1859, when Putnam had the house built for $65,000 of local sandstone and oak for his second wife, Eliza. The house is two stories tall and has 22 rooms and was built by local architect John Slocomb.

Ownership of the Anchorage passed to boat builder Harry Knox, who gave the house its name based on the shape of the driveways and walks in front of the house forming an anchor. Through the years the house was owned by families, until it became a nursing home after the death of the last member of a family to live in the home in 1962.

When the house became a nursing home, an elevator was installed on the front of the home.

This summer the elevator shaft was removed from the front of the Anchorage, according to Washington County Historical Society President Bill Reynolds. The work to remove the elevator shaft is part of a larger project, according to Reynolds.

“The project was enabled by a grant by the state of Ohio and matching funds from the Washington County Historical Society,” he said. Reynolds said the purpose of applying for the grant was to remove the eyesore of the elevator shaft and to return the front facade of the Anchorage to its original appearance.

Promanco is doing the work on the Anchorage, according to Reynolds.

The next part of the project will be installing three windows that used to be on the front of the Anchorage that had been removed due to the elevator shaft being installed, he said.

Reynolds said the windows will be onsite soon and will be installed in March. Another part of the project that has been completed is replacing the doors. A son of one of the board members of the Historical Society built new front entranceway doors as a copy of the original doors, he said.

Reynolds said the Washington County Historical Society has applied for another grant for work they want to do on the first floor. There was a residential kitchen in Anchorage, because it was a house with families living in it for many years. Over the years it has not been kept up, according to Reynolds.

“Our hope is to be able to at least have hot and cold running water (put) back into that kitchen,” Reynolds said.

The work on the kitchen will allow the historical dociety and the Anchorage’s tenant, Hidden Marietta, to use the kitchen space more efficiently, Reynolds said. .

The society also plans on adding a sink to a pantry kitchen in the house. The work for this will start soon, he said.

Reynolds said that in the future the historical society hopes to restore the floor in the billiard room. The floor is a marquetry floor, where hundreds of pieces of wood are used to make wonderful patterns.

According to Reynolds, the society is nowhere near getting the building back to its original self..

“Thanks to the partnership we have with Hidden Marietta we’re making some real progress,” Reynolds said about getting the Anchorage back to its former glory.

Michelle Dillon can be reached at mdillon@newsandsentinel.com