A first-floor den has wide plank flooring and built-in bookshelves.

Douglas Yock occasionally has driven around his hometown of Bristol in search of a house older than his.

He takes pride in living in a place built in the late 1790s, and, he says, he believes his digs, the John Glover Harding House, circa 1798, just might be in the top 20 of Bristol’s oldest homes.

His home at 50 Franklin St., which is nestled between High and Hope streets, offers a notable example of a Federal-style or Adam Colonial. The front of the house features a pediment over the front entrance, a six-pane transom, Doric pilasters, and original pegged window casings with splayed lintels.

As for the historic home’s interior, it offers original hardwood floors and decorative moldings, such as a rope molding along the staircase. Chair rails exist throughout each room.

Gallery

Walk through the House of the Week

After raising five children in the five bedroom 2,240-square-foot house, Douglas and Kristen Yock have decided it’s time to downsize, and have put it on the market. They attached it to a price tag of $595,000. They bought the house in 1997.

The Colonial sits on about 12,000 square feet of land. It includes a two-story barn that has been converted into a garage with an automatic door, and parking for one car. There’s a second-floor loft accessed via a narrow staircase.

“Our kids used it as a play room,” Kristen Yock says. “They used to have slumber parties up there.”

The perimeter of the garage-barn offers noteworthy plantings. According to the Yocks, a former owner was an avid gardener, and she adorned the yard with unusual trees and flowers, and a pergola covered in wisteria. An arbor wraps around the barn and covers a brick walkway.

“We all loved the yard,” Kristen Yock adds. “My daughter had her wedding out here.”

A previous owner built onto the house a greenhouse with a back door leading into the yard, and it has another entrance from the home’s living room. The living room is a spacious area that spans the entire width of the house.

Being able to enter the greenhouse via the living room adds extra texture to the vintage dwelling. “In the spring, the yard fills up with colors,” he says. “We can get everything ready to go in the greenhouse. I live out here in the backyard in the summer.”

The back door of the house leads into the kitchen with white appliances. Formica covers the counters, and the floor is hardwood. Half the kitchen features a slanted ceiling and a skylight. The area was once a covered porch that was enclosed to enlarge the cooking area.

The unfinished basement, via a door in the kitchen, is where the Yocks keep their washer and dryer.

The kitchen, the home’s back staircase and an adjoining den, which could be used as a dining room, are inside a two-story addition that was added at the time of the Civil War. The den boasts the original wide plank floors, chair rails and the same type of crown molding found throughout the house.

The second floor of the addition includes a bedroom, a full bathroom with the original deep bathtub, and a walk-in linen closet. The closet, Kristen Yock says, was once used as a telephone room. The back hallway houses the door to a walk-up attic, which contains a room with plaster walls.

The hall connects to the second floor of the oldest part of the house, which has four bedrooms. To gain access to the two front bedrooms, visitors need to walk through the back bedrooms. There are entrances to the front bedrooms via the front staircase and a landing.

One of the back bedrooms acts as the master suite. It has the house’s second full bathroom.

The only working fireplace is found downstairs in the den. The living room’s fireplace is non-working. The Yocks believe the chimney was removed to put in a staircase.

Upon entering the house, a visitor stands in a small vestibule with the staircase in front of him or her. To the left is the living room with a decorative fireplace, mantel, crown molding, six-over-six windows and chair rail. To the right is a parlor that the Yocks use as the dining room.

The dining room has a plaster medallion in the middle of the ceiling, chair rail and molding of a repeating geometric design. Behind the dining room is a library/den, which features built-in shelves and cabinets, a walk-in closet, and a small corner cabinet.

Douglas Yock adds, “My favorite thing is that you walk only a half-block, and you’re in the center of town.”

The John Glover Harding House, circa 1790 and located at 50 Franklin St., Bristol, has two full bathrooms and five bedrooms. It has 2,240 square feet of living space and oil heat. It isoffered at $595,000, and the taxes are $5,442. Terri Ferreira, of Home Values Realty, (401) 480-5673 or email: terri@home-values-realty.com, has the listing. An open house is scheduled for tomorrow at 1 p.m. 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.