One of the home's most unusual features is an upstairs pulley system that raises the wall between the master bedroom and the bedroom of the couple's 15-year-old daughter, Libby, to create a larger space used by early settlers for Sunday worship meetings.
An L-shaped addition built in 1840 gave the house its kitchen and a "keeping room."
"This [keeping room] is where you would have kept your guests while you were making them coffee," Severance said.
Warm and inviting, the keeping room now serves as a family area, its huge fireplace one of two that are functional, although Severance has plans to restore the others.
The kitchen exemplifies 19th-century farm life with its wide ceiling beams dripping with dried flowers, herbs and a variety of copper pots and pans. A shining replica of an old wood-burning stove is tucked in the room's far corner behind a cherry island with windowed apothecary drawers filled with loose herbs and grains.
The second floor of the addition houses a glass-enclosed summer porch, "a favorite place to hang and jam out" according to Severance, and the bedroom of the couple's 16-year-old son, Matt.
Fond of entertaining, Severance delights in a house she says is "full of sharing."
Searchwell Farm will be part of the Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage in May.
"I love company," Severance said. "It's always tea time here; the kettle is always on."
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