In a magazine article on the history of Georgetown, Local Historian Wallace Furlong stated,

"in the early 1830's there were several cottages off the upper Long Pond Trcii4 one of which was Harris Cottage, built in 1833."

This date was based on a conversation with Margaret Harris, a great grand-daughter of William Harris, the original owner. The property remained in the Harris Family until 1990, when it was purchased by Chris O'Dea.

After what could be 160 years of existence, the house was in need of some repair. With this and three top carpenters from Port de Grave, headed up by lead hand Clem Morgan, the owner decided to undertake a complete exterior renovation of the original structure. Despite the birch bark building paper having withstood the test of time, the building was indeed in a poor state of repain This included rotten sills, studs and exterior sheeting & clapboard.

Old houses can be full of surprises. Here we see an old Irish flag that fell out of the rear wall during re-construction.

The owner decided that all exterior trim would be removed and salvaged, where possible. Chris restored the trim in his basement workshop, including the decorative bargeboard which was removed and restored. In addition, he fabricated all corner boards and window facings, complete with beaded edges applied with a hand plane.

The unique six-sided front porch was in a sorry state. It was totally re-constructed. It is unclear as to why the porch has two front doors. In any event, both were rebuilt and new windows were installed in keeping with the original design.

Even the smallest details were attended to in a traditional mariner including inserting dowels over nail holes in the sill cap, designing traditional fence pailings, building new window caps, and mounting a new final on the gable end. Other work included re-wiring the dwelling, insulating the exterior walls and modest interior renovations.

The exterior paint scheme uses traditional colours, buff with red and green trim. All of which highlights the original decoration of Harris Cottage.

With all exterior sheeting, clapboard and trim replaced or restored, Harris Cottage now stand as a testament to its original builders. Indeed, in 1990, Harris Cottage was designated as a Registered Heritage Structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland & Labrador.