Here's the article I promised about buildings straddling the US-Canada
border. You can see there were 300 at one time and that 150 (!)
remain. I have another article about the Library mentioned here that
I'll also post.

Regards to all.
LN
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Life on the line: Richford farmhouse straddles two countries

By Erica Jacobson
Free Press Staff Writer (Burlington Free Press - 7/28/02)

Dora and Lyle Hurtubise can see Canada from their kitchen table on a
clear day.

Cloudy days, too, since its only a matter of feet from their Richford
kitchen table to their Abercorn, Quebec, kitchen.

A trip to the downstairs bathroom is also an international affair. So
is admiring the family's most recent portrait in the living room. Dora
positioned the framed photograph directly on the
border. Upstairs, the couple put their daughters to bed
in Canada for years.

Now a spare bedroom, the room is a favorite with guests.

"We've had relatives come from the big city and we'd say, 'You're
sleeping in Canada,'" Dora said. "It's like a big joke."

The Hurtubises, like at least a dozen other Vermonters, own one house
split between two countries. These international abodes are a New
England phenomenon. Some predate the permanent fixing of the border in
1842. Others were intentionally built on the border to take advantage
of differing laws between the two countries.

Of the more than 300 buildings that once breached the Canada-U.S.
border from Maine to upstate New York, less than 150 remain. Vermont
has one of the most well-known -- the Haskell Free Library and Opera
House which straddles the border at Derby Line and Stanstead, Quebec.

Beyond that, no one really keeps count of how many buildings are on
the border. But all are endangered species thanks to a 1960 treaty
banning construction within 10 feet of either side of the border. Kyle
Hipsley, deputy commissioner of the International Boundary Commission
in Washington, D.C., said that U.S. government's goal is to have a
border that is clearly defined and recognizable. Houses interrupt that
20-foot swath of no-man's land, so the commission isn't sorry to see
the structures slowly go.

"These line houses are gradually disappearing," Hipsley said. "It just
takes time.

"We hope eventually over the next 40 to 50 years, everything will be
gone."

Twice the tax

Life on the border is a relatively peaceful existence for the Hurtubises.

The Hurtubises daily see the 20-foot clear cut strip through the trees
that marks the border as it snakes up the hill across the valley from
their farmhouse. The family's cows were once barred from grazing in
their Canadian pastures because of a threat of hoof-and-mouth disease.
Occasionally, they spot a person who may have sneaked across the
border and call the Border Patrol.

Because their house sits in both countries, the couple was given the
choice of nationalities. They decided to remain U.S. citizens and send
their children to Richford schools. Geographically, it made sense
since the road they live on dead-ends only a few yards into Canada.
They get all of their utilities from the United States, although they
could have chosen Canadian companies. Being divided by the border can
come to mind but once a year, Dora said, tax time. The couple receives
two tax bills, one from each country, but only for the land they own
in each nation.

"We're taxed on both sides," Lyle said. "You can't get away from taxes."

Glen Elder, a University of Vermont professor of geography, said the
Hurtubises' attitude toward the border is natural.

"Your domestic home space, you never really think of it in national
terms," he said. "We're going into the bathroom, we're going into the
bedroom. We're not going into Canada. In reality, borders are sort of
symbolic. They're more important for people who are away from them
than for the people who are right up next to them."

And the boundary commission's desire to have a clear and effective
border is a challenge at such densely settled places as Beebe Plain
and Derby Line. There, renters in apartment buildings straddling the
line can choose whether to get their utilities from Canada or the
United States. Elder has even heard of one apartment house in Beebe
Plain where the first floor is in the United States and the second
floor is in Canada. Despite the obvious tangle that a border can
create, Elder said that some straddling structures should
remain. "I think they should be preserved," he said. "(It's a)
snapshot of the border at another time and place."

A house divided will stand

Lyle bought the farm in 1946 with its 35 acres in the United States.
The neighboring 90 acres in Canada were going to be sold for taxes, so
he bought those too. "That's what made this farm a farm," he said.

The couple married in 1950 and have lived on the farm ever since. They
think the house, with its square nails and hand-hewn beams, was built
years before the border was officially set.

They've gotten used to the Border Patrol helicopters flying overhead.
Japanese film crews once visited to make a documentary at their home
about peaceful borders. Dora keeps a scrapbook of stories about the
house done by both Canadian and U.S. media.

The U.S. government has no active program to buy out owners of houses
on the border, relying on a combination of time and attrition.
Obviously, buildings like the Haskell Free Library intentionally built
on the border between Derby Line and Rock Island, Quebec, will
survive. It's single-family homes like the Hurtubises that the
boundary commission hopes will eventually fall into disrepair and be
abandoned.

Don't count on it, the Hurtubises said.

"Oh, absolutely not," Lyle said. "Not as long as our eyes are open.

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