Joe and Jen Gatta had a dream of someday living in an old farmhouse. Their dream became a reality in the spring of 2022 when they purchased an old 1700 era home in West Chester. The original part of the house had been built in 1750 with an addition added in 1818 and a couple of additions added since that period.

The inside had been completely remodeled by the previous owners, but the exterior needed an update, so Joe and Jen reached out to us to help them with this portion. 

They were concerned about keeping things original to the time period yet making things functional and maintenance free. They also liked the look of standing seam metal roof, so we decided to do a combination of Cedar Roofing along with Standing Seam on the original 1750 portion as well as the pent roofs and the single-story lean-to. 

Towards the road we used 24” x 7/8” premium grade cedar shake as an accent with Bronze standing seam metal on the remainder of the roof. A substantial portion of the house was built using thick stone walls, a couple of the walls were covered with stucco, the plan was that we were going to chip off the stucco and repoint the stone walls. 

We brought in Narvon Exteriors to help with the stone portion and after they started chipping stone and we discovered that there was a reason for the stucco. A portion of the stone did not look good. There was brick filled in some areas where stone was missing, etc. We looked around until we found a stone that was a remarkably close match to the existing 1818 stone and applied a real stone thin stone veneer on top of the stucco. The result was amazing as to how close it matched-up. All the soffit and facias were replaced using AZEK products. Sections of the walls had cedar siding, which we replaced with AZEK window trims installed and then we a painter put a custom finish on James Hardie Siding to give it a 2- tone wood grain-stained finish.

All rain gutters were replaced with copper half round rain gutters to keep it in line with the 1800 era.

I want to commend Joe and Jen for keeping history alive with this house, they were formidable to work with and are overly concerned about keeping things as close to the original as possible.

This was one of the most rewarding projects that we have had an opportunity to work on. It seemed like nothing was straight and at the time we just had to lay down the level and eyeball things but at the end of the day the team here at Sunset Valley was able to produce an amazing transformation to this old gem.

I also want to Thank Joe and Jen for giving the Crew here at Sunset Valley the opportunity to be a small part of keeping the history alive and for giving us the opportunity to help them with this project.