Home restoration, renovation present unique challenges

With its rich history and historic neighborhoods, Springfield has plenty of old homes that present opportunities for restoration and renovation. There are several such projects under way.

Woodland Heights

The stately brick house at 1920 N. Robberson Ave., in Springfield's historic Woodland Heights neighborhood, is getting a makeover that will turn back time and return it to its former appearance.

Owner Phyllis Ferguson, who is the operations manager for Mexican Villa, bought the house in 2000, but it had sat empty for about 20 years prior to that, she said. Originally, the house had a parlor and a kitchen downstairs and a large sleeping room upstairs. While she isn't sure exactly when the older part of the house was built, she knows that more rooms were added in 1878.

"A family by the name of Schuller owned the house from the early 1870s. They bought it from Ozark Land Company. Ozark Land Company had platted this area,"

Ferguson said. The Schuller family owned the house until 1946, when it was sold to the Shepherd family, who at that time built the two smaller houses behind the North Robberson property. Those houses are now rentals that are owned by Ferguson. Ferguson said the Shepherd family owned a bakery on Atlantic Street, across from Reed Middle School. During the Shepherds' ownership, the house was turned into apartments.

"It was just post-World War II and housing was in short supply because of the war. So then in 1946 they turned this house into four apartments, " Ferguson said.

The Shepherds owned the house until sometime in the 1960s. It changed hands rapidly a few times, until it was bought by Harold Thompson. It was vacant since 1980, until Ferguson bought it from the trust of Harold Thompson's wife.

"I've loved this house since the first time I saw it, which was probably 10 years before I bought it. I tried to find the owner, because I was interested in buying it at that time, and I found out that he lived in Kansas," she said. "I just kept watching it, and in late fall 1999, the house was for sale."

Ferguson closed on the house in 2000, and while she declined to say what she paid for the house, she did say she got it for a "fair price."

Making changes

Ferguson's project is a blend of restoration and renovation. She wants to restore the house as closely as possible to its original state including window latches and door hinges.

However, her home also will have a few modern touches. For instance, instead of an ice box, which would have been used when the house was built, she'll have a refrigerator. A microwave will accompany her 1930s American Stove Company gas stove and woodstove and she'll use all three to cook with when she moves into the house.

Ferguson looks at what is in the house, and then works to replace it with period pieces that come from demolitions and wherever she can find them.

"You wouldn't believe where I found some of this stuff," she said.

She's using all of the windows that came with the house, but on some, she is replacing the latches because they were put on in later years. She also is having some windows made in the same style because some windows were destroyed in a fire and she wasn't able to find others.

Ferguson, who's acting as her own general contractor but working with several subcontractors, tore out the apartments and most of the house's interior including a turquoise-blue shower stall that had been installed just inside the home's front door. Because of code issues, and also because she's adding a full bathroom upstairs and a half-bath downstairs, the number of bedrooms is being reduced from six to three. When she's done, though, the house will have about 2,400 square feet. Ferguson plans to move in by summer 2005.

A new garage also is being built, Ferguson said, but it will match the house as much as possible, using old brick from a demolition.

Ferguson said a large, old walnut tree was cut down to make room for the garage, but lumber from that tree will be used for a built-in bookshelf in the house's back parlor.

These old bricks

Possibly one of the biggest challenges for Ferguson's project is working with the old bricks the house was built with, which are softer than the bricks now used. The problem is with mortar, because it can't be harder than the bricks or it will make them break.

A mortar recipe from the Department of the Interior will take care of that, she said.

However, removing the paint from the home's exterior is entirely another issue.

"I've tried multiple products to remove it, and it's very expensive and it's very, very time-consuming," she said. "If someone had the magic formula for not hurting the brick because I can't sandblast it, because it's too old and it will deteriorate too much. And I have to be careful, I don't want to put chemicals on it that will be ecologically unsafe. But if someone had the magic formula for taking the paint off this house, I'd be a happy, happy girl," she said.

On Walnut Street

In the Walnut Street Historic District, architect Randy Russell and his wife, Maida, are continuing the renovation and restoration of their 80-year-old home, which is at the corner of Walnut Street and Cordova Court.

"My understanding is that it was built in the early 1920s. The actual date that I've heard is 1923," Randy Russell said.

The Russells have lived in the home for more than seven years, and the work under way isn't the first alteration.

"One of the first things that I did is I diverted the existing stone pathway in the front of the yard around an existing sycamore tree so that it was no longer being upheaved by the roots of the sycamore tree and created a nice winding stone pathway from the city sidewalk up to my front door," he said.

He has re-landscaped the front yard and put an irrigation system in, which has finally allowed him to have a lush, green lawn.

"There are so many trees in my front yard, and so much shade that without the irrigation system, it was impossible to grow grass," Russell said.

Details

All of the Russell home's wood siding has been repaired and repainted, Russell said. New exterior light fixtures, in keeping with the historic look of the house, also have been installed, and the upstairs bathroom has been remodeled.

In addition to some remodeling in the kitchen, the Russells are adding a master bedroom suite and a garage to the north side of the house.

"From an architectural standpoint, I wanted to make sure that all of the exterior details matched exactly, so that the addition and the existing blended," he said. "But at the same time, I wanted it to be clear that this was an addition, and this wasn't part of the existing. And what I did was I separated the garage and the master bedroom suite from the existing house by connecting those two freestanding structures to the existing house with two separate connecting walkways," Russell said.

The challenge of adding onto a historic house in a historic district, is to make sure that changes can be undone easily.

"Let's say some homeowner, years after I'm dead and gone buys my property and my house; let's say that he or she decides that they want to take the additions that I have added on off, and get the house back to the way that it originally was when it was first built. I wanted to make sure that the addition would allow someone to do that with minimal renovation work," Russell said.

Also included in the work is the roof of the home, Russell said.

"We have three layers of asphalt shingles on our roof right now, where previous owners just kept adding asphalt shingle layers on top of shingles," Russell said. "And below those three layers are the original wood shingles. We're taking all of that off and putting new wood shingles on everything to bring it back to the way it originally was."

Location limits

The location of his house in a historic district also is somewhat limiting

"You're limited by what the Landmark Board will agree that you can do. You're also limited by what your neighbors may or may not want you to do, because they have a definite say when you go before the Landmark Board," Russell said.

Russell said he's been thinking about his addition for several years, so he's had plenty of time to think about how to do it, and he hasn't had any trouble getting support from his neighbors.

However, Russell had to get some support from the city because of a zoning issue.

"One of the things that I did have to do was go through the Board of Adjustments in the Planning and Zoning Department, because my rear-yard setback was encroaching in the area that I wanted to build on to, so I had to go to the Board of Adjustments and get a variance to my rear-yard setback, or I would not have been able to do the addition," Russell said.

While Russell doesn't know much about the history of the home, he said he had his eye on it for several years, and he finally ended up putting a business card in the door to let the former owners know he was interested in buying it. Two days after he left his card, the owner who needed to move in order to care for a parent called and the sale quickly followed.

The Russells are looking forward to finishing up the ongoing work to the house soon.

"We're hoping to have everything done, ideally, by Christmas. More realistically, sometime in January," he said.