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When Little House on the Prairie actor Melissa Gilbert and husband Thirtysomething actor Timothy Busfield bought a small home in the Catskills, it wasn’t much to look at. From the outside it appeared dilapidated, from the inside it smelled of must. But what was interesting about the cabin was that the previous owners had seemingly up and left all of their previous belongings — from cereal in the cupboards to shampoo in the shower. Still, that didn’t scare off Gilbert and Busfield. They bought the “little house” and made it into their own special haven.
Melissa Gilbert and Timothy Busfield’s first impression of the home
The first impression of the little cabin in the mountains was mixed. The couple’s realtor was visibly unsure.
“Huh, this is the house you like?” she asked, according to Gilbert in her 2022 book, Back to the Prairie.
The outside appeared to be falling apart. The roof looked like it needed work and the stucco was chipping off.
But the property was the showstopper. There weren’t neighbors for miles. The air was fresh, mountainous, and the surrounding woods were lush. Gilbert and Busfield wanted to move to the Catskills partially to get away from the hustle and bustle of New York City. They wanted open space. The property attached to this dilapidated little house certainly gave them that.
“I remember once reading in Thoreau’s journal that he came to the woods like ‘a hungry man to a crust of bread.’ I saw that in Tim’s eyes. I was more like a woman arriving at a restorative yoga class,” wrote Gilbert.
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Gilbert and Busfield’s new home appeared abandoned
What was eerie about the inside of the home was that it seemed as though whoever lived in the cabin previously had suddenly up and left without bringing anything with them. All of the musty furniture was still there. The walls were adorned with decaying deer heads. There were dirty dishes in the sink, clothes in the bedrooms, soap in the shower.
“Whoever lived here, it’s like they were just raptured up,” Gilbert told her husband.
The Laura Ingalls actor couldn’t help but be curious about the people who had lived there before them.
“People talk about staging homes,” she wrote. “This was anti-staging. Something about the scene felt dire and sad. There was a story here, but it had been left unfinished. The last act was a blank page.”
‘We decided to make an offer’
Despite everything — the smell, the furniture, the deer heads — Gilbert and Busfield saw the potential of the place. So they made an offer. After passing inspections, the couple got the house for ninety thousand dollars—”beer money for George Clooney,” writes Gilbert. It was a far less extravagant home purchase than other actors were making at the time, so the buy wasn’t covered in the Times or other publications. The property was simply marked as “off market” on Zillow. All the same, Gilbert and Busfield celebrated with champagne.
Read more about the transformation of Gilbert and Busfield’s mountainside home in Back to the Prairie: A Home Remade, A Life Rediscovered by Gilbert.
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