When Pop (Harry) Zdepski was sent to the TB Sanitorium in 1934, the eldest child John quit high school and got a job building two identical brooder houses for Kenyon Nicholson a neighbor that lived at 67 Strimples Mill Road.[1] Mr. Nicolson was a successful Columbia University professor and playwright, he was therefore insulated from the financial hardships of the Great Depression. The Zdepski family benefited from his generosity during a time of need.
Brooder houses are used for raising young chickens. The surviving brooder house is 12 by 10 feet with an unusual hip roof that gives the structure a pyramidal appearance from the rear. There is a central door in the front with two flanking tilt-in windows. There are also two tilt-in windows in the rear of the building. It is of 2 X 4 construction with vertical yellow pine beadboard siding. A small ventilation transom is also present over the door frame to exhaust hot air by natural convection.
During the Second World War Mr. Nicolson secured two German merchant mariners as temporary farm laborers through a US Government program. These individuals were not prisoners of war, but rather detained enemy aliens. The men lived in the surviving brooder house. It was equipped with a 4” diameter chimney flue installed through the roof, a clothing hanger rack, some coat hooks and a curious candle sconce looking bracket. The men likely slept on cots.
This brooder house has made a lap around the neighborhood as Mr. Nicolson gave it to the Blackwell family who had it moved to 93 Federal Twist Road, on a sled pulled by a farm tractor during the winter, by our Uncle Walt Zdepski. Uncle Walt called the structure the “Dutchman Hotel” to connote the two Germans who lived in it during the war years. Uncle Walt had a gift for storytelling and colorful “G-rated” humorous words and labels for everyday occurrences and objects. We have not yet researched any records that may exist in the National Archives about Mr. Nicolson and the Germans, but it is likely that some paper traces exist, and we intend to explore this at a future date.
In about 1990, Mr. Blackwell asked if Linda and Mark might want the structure as it was a family-built outbuilding. Father Stephen Zdepski, with sons James and Mark constructed a purpose-built sled with steel-clad runners to carry the sled and during a cold snap with icy roads, Uncle Walt pulled the Dutchman Hotel to 88 Strimples Mill Road is a John Deere 44-40 tractor from Stone Rows Farm. The Dutchman Hotel now serves as a garden implement shed. It was extensively repaired, the foundation leveled and strengthened, in addition to re-roofed during 2018. James was the mastermind for the repairs, with Mark occupying the familiar role of “Gopher”.
Leave a Reply