The master bedroom is in the addition to the main house. There are two bedrooms and a half-bath on the second floor of the main house.

The placement of the bread oven in the fireplace of Bonnie and Miles Harrison’s Colonial in Little Compton supplies proof that the house was built in the 1690s, if not earlier.

The oven is at the back of the giant fireplace, which was once the centerpiece of the original two-room dwelling. Miles Harrison explains: “Houses were built with the oven to the right of the fireplace after the turn of the [18th] century, and after many women suffered burns from having to reach into the back of the fireplace to retrieve bread.”

The Harrisons, who use the room as their formal dining room, have actually baked bread in the oven. “It works quite well,” he says. “You have to be very careful not get burned, though.”

The couple plan to move to either South Carolina or Georgia. They are selling their vintage digs, three-bedroom guesthouse and some 19 acres at 11 Taylors Lane in Little Compton for $1.025 million. The guest quarters were once a barn, he says, which was moved from close to the street to the backyard.

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Walk through the House of the Week

Inside the main house, they have turned the second original room into a library. It has a door leading to the back yard, a full wall of built-ins (cabinets below and shelves above) and lots of windows.

“The den used to be called the ‘borning’ room,” he notes. “Women would give birth in there, and then walk out into the kitchen to help with the cooking.”

At the turn of the 20th century, 11 Taylors Lane was a working farm, and it was considered one of the largest poultry farms in the country. The late David Patten, a former managing editor at The Providence Journal, spent summers on the farm visiting his grandfather, Isaac Champlin Wilbour.

In the 1880s, Patten’s grandfather, Wilbour, and William Tripp, who were chicken breeders, successfully bred a hardy hen they labeled the Rhode Island Red. It became the state bird. In his 1956 book, Three Sides to the Sea: Memories of a S’cunnet Childhood, Patten recalls seeing the birds in the nearby marshes.

Miles Harrison purchased 11 Taylors Lane as a bachelor in the 1960s. He found the property while visiting friends, who lived in Little Compton.

Soon after he married Bonnie, the two, who are self-described “beach people,” went to work restoring the house and putting on an addition of a master suite with a vaulted ceiling, fireplace, sliding glass doors to the backyard and a full bathroom. They also added a kitchen, walk-in pantry, skylights and small dining area that Miles Harrison refers to as “the grandchildren’s dining room.”

The dwelling offers 2,400 square feet of living space, and that includes two bedrooms on the second floor and a half-bath. The second floor hallway has walls covered with built-ins and storage spaces, and the Harrisons added skylights to brighten it up.

“We were told that the second floor was an all-straw, a hayloft,” he says. “The indentured servants lived up there, and I’m told it wasn’t too comfortable.”

The house has the era’s narrow circular stairs and tiny foyer. There are exposed beams throughout the house, and there’s a striking bay window with a built-in window seat in the living room.

When the Harrisons restored the wide-plank wood floors in the living room and dining room, they had the boards removed and sent them out for refinishing. They then put down a sub floor and then put down the original restored planks.

“I wanted them [the floors] to be stable and protected,” says Miles Harrison, who also added a full bathroom off the den that is opposite the living room at the front of the house.

The Colonial’s exterior looks quintessential historic New England with its grayish weathered shingles, a steep gable roof and six-over-six antique windows with wavy glass window panes.

Similarly, the guest house has late 17th-century charm. The living room has a giant fireplace with a fieldstone surround and a two-story-high ceiling. There’s a ground-floor room with a sink that could be turned into a kitchen. The second floor has a full bathroom and three bedrooms.

The vintage dwelling, circa 1690, at 11 Taylors Lane, Little Compton, is priced at $1.025 million. The estimated taxes are $5,116. It has a three-bedroom guest house, nearly 19 acres of land, and 2,400 square feet of living space in the main house. It has oil heat. Judy Chace at Residential Properties, (401) 207-9166, has the listing. How to submit a House of the Week

A different House of the Week appears each Saturday in the projoHomes section of The Providence Journal. The feature tells the story of the house and the people who have lived in it. If you would like us to consider a house for sale as a subject of this news feature, send a photo, information about the house and why it is of interest, to Faye Zuckerman, real estate writer,

75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902; fax (401) 277-8250; or e-mail pjhomes@projo.com. For more information, call (401) 277-7333.