The burnt-red, nine-room house at 104 Pulpit Road has stood on the same spot since 1814, and now that former owner Bobbie Lattig has sold the 68 acres on which it sits, she wants to donate the house to the town of Bedford.

As she presented the idea to town councilors on Dec. 6, Lattig described how she restored the house – from the crispy clapboard and crooked windows to the gunshot holes in the dining room walls. The house now has indoor plumbing, insulation and a new roof.

The town can have the 193- year-old house, but it must be moved off the property because developers are planning to build residential homes on the site.

“I’m doing this because I’m very attached to the house,” Lattig said. “If it has to be knocked down, I’ve come to terms with that. I’ll know that I did everything I could to save it.”

Town councilors expressed interest in the project, but were wary that it might cost too much to move the house. Lattig said she received an estimate of $27,000 to move the house to another spot on the property near the Pulpit Road Conservation Area.

Councilor Michael Scanlon estimated it could cost $100,000 to move it off site, possibly to the future town common.

Lattig transferred ownership of the property on Oct. 23, and has 120 days from that day to find someone interested in moving the house.

Greg Zimmermann, chairman of the Bedford Historical Society, has toured the home and sat alongside Lattig as she spoke to the council on Dec. 6.

“I haven’t recommended anything to the town yet, because I don’t have all the numbers. We’d (the Bedford Historical Society) love to see it saved, but we’ll have to see what happens,” he said.

History of the house The house was built by Nehemiah Kittridge in 1814, after he bought the property a year before, Lattig said.

Zimmermann said the house was solidly built -- with “mortis and tendon” joints unique to that time period -- and could be moved.

Also on the property is Indian Rock, where a local tribe held meetings.

The house didn’t always stand alone, however. When Lattig moved onto the property in 1967, a barn taller than the house sat behind it, and a garage with a chicken coop was between the barn and the house.

The barn was taken down because Lattig said she and her now ex-husband, Maurice Bourgeoise, could only afford to repair the house.

The windows were straightened and replaced, parts of the roof were replaced, and the house was painted. Also, a small room was added to the rear of the house.

They had never planned to buy the house.

Lattig and Bourgeoise drove from Manchester to Bedford with Hector Leblanc, the farm’s owner, to purchase a used Jeep. Leblanc had not lived in the house for 10 years, and it was in disrepair. Dirt had been pushed up against the sides of the home for better insulation. But, Lattig fell in love with the house almost immediately.

The house is situated on a hill, the driveway sloping up to it. Lace curtains stuck out from broken windows, a dead bird was in the living room and animals had made holes in the walls.

“I said, ‘Oh, my god. This is Robert Frost country,’” Lattig said.

So, the couple took their down payment for a two-family house in Manchester -- they had planned to put the money down in a few days -- and bought the house on Pulpit Road instead.

“We went to buy the Jeep -- and I don’t know what he would have charged us -- but we bought everything instead,” Lattig said.

For the first year they owned the house, the couple did not live in there full time. Instead, they lived in a three-bedroom apartment in Manchester and spent weekends at the farm.

“In April, we said we were going to do it. We’ll move in in April and stay until October, and if we don’t like it, we’ll get another apartment,” Lattig said.

That year, about 2,700 people lived in Bedford, she said.

After they moved in, she noticed some visitors would look around in wonder when they came into the house. It wasn’t the type of house that a pharmacist and a teacher would live in: no running water and only one electric light.

In response to reactions, Lattig typed out a Henry David Thoreau quote and nailed it to the back door:

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

The couple bought army cots and had friends and family over every weekend for barbecues, and brought water from Manchester.

Lattig and Bourgeoise did many of the repairs themselves. Lattig said while painting, she stood on an orange crate that had been nailed to a platform near the peak of the roof. Bourgeoise tied a rope around her and stood on the roof with the other end, in case she fell.

“We decided it was best that way, because I wouldn’t have been able to hold him up if he fell,” she said.

Neighborhood kids helped with some of the repairs, too. Helpers included members of the Kuhn family and Margo Christie, now Margo Wiggin, wife of Fire Chief Scott Wiggin.

Lattig said selling the house marks an end of an era in her life.

Lattig was an English teacher at Memorial High School in Manchester and raised her children at the Pulpit Road home.

“We go through all of these stages in life. I think this house became significant to me because so many stages of my life were connected to that house,” Lattig said.

Tenants, including her children, have lived in the house for the last 28 years.

Inside, only a few walls have been changed, and the frame is unaltered. Only one of the upstairs bedrooms still has its original wooden floor, Zimmermann said.

The developer, Ken Hapgood, has proposed building a neighborhood on the site.

“The developer is going to put up big houses and this little house isn’t going to make it,” Lattig said.

Zimmermann said part of the deal would give a small portion of the parcel, where Indian Rock is located, to the town for conservation land.

At the Dec. 6 meeting, the council asked the historical society to take the lead and come back to the board with moving costs and a plan for usage.