By ROB MARGETTA
Journal Staff Writer
Photo by Richard Behrens copyright 2007
FALL RIVER -- Talk about reconstructing a crime scene.

The city landmark known as the Lizzie Borden house is on its way toward looking more like it did on the day in 1892 when Andrew J. Borden and Abbey Durfee Gray Borden were murdered than it has in decades.

When Rhode Island nursing home owner Donald Wood bought the house -- now a bed-and-breakfast and tourist attraction -- last year, he said one of his first priorities was to remove two structures added in the 1900s, which housed a print shop.

That work began yesterday, as an excavator crunched its way through the ceiling beams of one of the structures in the house's driveway, which was built around 1950.

One of the trickiest steps in the demolition was separating the house from the press building, according to Billy Williams, a foreman with E.W. Berman, the construction firm doing the demolition work. The two structures were attached in places.

"We just had to cut it away from the house first," he said.

Lee Ann Wilber, the house's manager, said that particular step was nerve-wracking for her.

"I was giving a tour in the house at the time, and every time they hit it with the excavator, it shook," she said. "I was almost waiting for my wall to fall down. But I have faith in them."

When the contractors are finished taking that structure down, they'll start on another, larger one next to the house, built around 1920, which was once the storefront for Leary Press.

Leary Press is still open, but has moved to Stafford Road.

Wilber said when the renovations are complete, the house will have a large parking lot and look more historically accurate.

In the place of the structure demolished yesterday will go a replica of the barn that once stood in back of the house. While the original barn stood about 15 feet from the house, Wilber said the replica would be located further to the back of the property, to accommodate parking.

The first floor of the new barn will contain the house's gift shop, she said.

The house itself will also be restored to look more as it did the day of the Borden murders, Wilber said.

Most significantly, she said, it will be painted to resemble its appearance in the early 1890s. But there's one problem with that goal -- no one's sure what the house's paint scheme was back then.

"It was repainted a couple of months before the murders, and it was only described as 'drab,' Wilber said."

Wilber said she can't quite remember how much the demolition and renovations will cost.

"I don't want to think about it. It hurts," she said.

To help pay for the work, the Lizzie Borden house has been selling bottles of brick dust from its basement.

Some customer -- lucky or unlucky, depending on your point of view -- could end up purchasing a bottle with ghosts from the house attached to it, she said. About 45 customers have bought the $5 souvenirs.

The house's history with the Bordens began in 1872, when Andrew J. Borden, a wealthy Fall River businessman, bought it in order to live closer to the city's downtown district. His daughter Lizzie became the prime suspect when he and his wife, Lizzie's stepmother, were murdered.

Lizzie was acquitted in 1892, and she and her sister Emma moved out of the house, to a home on French Street. Lizzie lived there until her death.

The Borden sisters sold the house in 1918, and it has changed hands several times since then.

Before Wood, it was owned by the McGinn family, who bought it in 1940 and used it as a private home and base for Leary Press. In 1996, they converted it to a bed-and-breakfast.

To contact Rob Margetta, phone (508) 674-8401 or e-mail rmargett(at)projo.com.