This house is to be found in Bayley's Cove in Bonavista on the way to the Cape. It may have been built by James Way, a fisher who obtained a grant of land for this property in 1869. And that may suggest a date for construction but, knowing Newfoundland land title practices, it may be possible that Way built his house before he acquired title to the property. The Trust had noted this house as early as 1974 and it was featured in Ten Historic Towns, the Trust's book on outport architecture. The Abbott House was considered important both for its form and for its structure. With its fairly steep, hipped roof, it is representative of some of our earlier houses. With its full-studded or vertical-log construction, it is representative of one of Newfoundlandıs oldest structural types - a type which has its origins in the tilt. Full-studding is a bit like the classical log cabin except that in this case the logs are set on their ends, not laid horizontally. Having noted the house we were most distressed when - a few years later - it was almost totally altered by the addition of slider windows which are the death of many a decent building.

When Curtis Linthorne acquired the building he realized it was important and that it had potential. He restored all the windows including the very pronounced drip mouldings above the windows - a feature that is characteristc of many mid-19th c Bonavista buildings. In doing so he saved a significant contributor to the architectural landscape of Bonavista and one which is now designated as a Registerd Heritage Structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador.