• Courtesy Of Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
• The library at Bobby and Billi Gosh's home in Brookfield

Visitors often tell Billi and Bobby Gosh that their Brookfield home is more like a museum. Among the exhibit-worthy items in the house are an original lithograph by renowned Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, an authentic Tiffany lamp and a collection of rare books — including one with a letter insert signed by Napoleon Bonaparte.

Billi is a Democratic political activist and consultant. Bobby is a performing musician and composer who's written hit songs for the likes of Paul Anka, Diahann Carroll and Dr. Hook. In 1971, the couple bought the Brookfield property with a vision: to transform the existing 964-square-foot ranch house into the Victorian manor of their dreams.

More than half a century later, the couple have documented the completed 9,000-square-foot house in a new self-published book, The Neo-Victorian Residence & Art Collection of Billi and Bobby Gosh. Sold at Bear Pond Books in Montpelier and Phoenix Books in Burlington, the 236-page book contains full-color images of the home's rooms and highlights from the Goshes' vast art collection.

"I didn't do the book to make money," Bobby said. "It's a matter of saying, 'Hey, this is what I did for 50 years and what we did with collecting and building.' That's what I want to be permanent."

The four-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom house sits at the top of a hill with an expansive, 75-mile view. On clear days, the couple can see Killington Peak. They own 20.4 acres, so no construction will ever obstruct their field of vision. The yard includes a number of large sculptures, two ponds and a small guest cabin modeled after that of 19th-century American philosopher Henry David Thoreau.

• Courtesy Of Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
• Bobby and Billi Gosh at home in Brookfield

Characteristic of the Victorian era, the home's interior features elaborate wallpaper, stained-glass windows and high ceilings. In what the couple call "the stained-glass room" hangs the most quintessentially Victorian item: a leather mural depicting key moments in Queen Victoria's life. But the Goshes label the home's aesthetic "neo-Victorian" because of modern twists, such as a plush blue couch in the piano gallery.

"The Victorians didn't have comfortable furniture," Bobby quipped.

Many items originally headed for a dumpster have found a second life in the Goshes' house. The front entrance boasts vestibule doors salvaged from the historic mansion of colonel Robert Kimball, a financier who underwrote Randolph's town library. For their own home library, the couple repurposed 40 feet of oak shelving from an 1875 pharmacy in Schenectady, N.Y. Bobby secured the primary bathroom's distinctive furniture — marble walls, sinks, cabinets and mirrors — from a defunct Randolph barbershop dating back to 1919.

• Courtesy Of Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
• The entrance hall gallery

For Bobby, the irreplaceable antiques give the house its character. "If somebody came and knocked on the door and said, 'I'd give you $10 million for your house,' I'm not interested," he said. "Are you kidding? It took me 50 years to put this together."

The art on display represents only a fraction of the Goshes' collection; some 1,200 pieces are stored in two temperature-controlled rooms.

Bobby is drawn to art "that makes you think," he said, preferring realism over abstraction. Pointing to a piece hanging near the kitchen, he suggested that it looks like something he might have purchased "for $5 at a flea market." But upon closer inspection, its jumble of shapes forms a portrait of George Washington.

"It's intellectual art," Bobby said. "A lot of people don't think enough about what they're looking at to understand what the art is."

An entire room in the house is devoted to the work of Tom Deininger, an artist whose 3D assemblages of cast-off items resemble, from a distance, 2D paintings. Half a dozen Deininger pieces surround a Bechstein grand piano; the 20-foot "Plastic Paradise" looks like a mountainous landscape from afar. To enhance the viewing experience, Billi and Bobby invite guests to look at the art through inverted binoculars.

"It's just a pile of junk until you look at it the right way," Bobby said of Deininger's work. "And then it's just beautiful."

• Courtesy Of Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
• Bobby Gosh in the piano gallery, surrounded by Tom Deininger artworks

When Billi browses art, she's looking for an instinctive emotional reaction. Either "that's it, or it's not," she said. She and Bobby tend to like the same things. Both declined to name a favorite piece in the collection. "That's like asking who your favorite child is," Billi said.

Though Bobby primarily buys art for the love of it, he's developed an aptitude for identifying work that might be a good investment. Hanging above the primary bedroom's pink bed, for example, is "Winter Skaters," by German artist Anton Doll. Bobby bought the painting at an auction for $11. A New York City art dealer said he'd give him $16,000 for it. Bobby declined.

Sitting on the couch adjacent to the kitchen, Bobby reminisced about one of his and Billi's first apartments together, in 1960 in Reading, Pa., that they rented for $65 a month. They've come a long way since then.

"I just wanted to make this the place we wanted to be for the rest of our life," Bobby said. "I don't need to go anywhere."