A circa 1840s home in Mathews is getting modern updates while retaining its 19th century charm, thanks to a Connecticut couple.

Frank Schmidt and his wife Patricia purchased a 20-acre parcel with 900 feet of waterfront on Garden Creek two years ago to use for hunting waterfowl. The old house “just happened to be on it,” said Frank Schmidt. His family had previously owned two lakefront homes in Minnesota that were sold after his parents passed away, and he wanted a place for his three adult children to get together, so he decided to make the Garden Creek house livable.

While the house had no plumbing, said Schmidt, an addition built in the 1880s had converted the home into a classic Virginia style that appealed to him. Adding to its charm was the fact that it had been owned by only two families in 170 years or more—the Hudgins family that built it and the Wagner family that had owned it since 1975.

Schmidt had the house elevated enough to get it out of the floodp...