Our New Old House

This month we were thrilled to be invited to tour the grand mansion at the corner of 21st and University in Des Moines. Owners Aaron and Michael bought the house in 2009 and have been converting it back from being a commercial building as a former funeral home and retreat house into a single family residential home. They still have some work to do and opted to enlist the help of our Rehabbers Club members to come up with ideas about how to tackle some of their ongoing projects.

I took some video of our tour. It’s about 40 minutes long, so pause the player and give it time to buffer. If you have a Vimeo log in you can also download the video to watch on your own computer, which may fix the buffering problem.

Des Moines Rehabbers Club Meeting April 2011 from Kelli Griffis on Vimeo.

The grand entrance, which faces 21st St., features this beautiful tile floor:

The grand staircase flanks one side of the foyer:

Ornate, hand-carved newell post:

We started our tour in the receiving parlor. Here’s Aaron telling us about the history of the house. To his left is Michael. The room behind Michael was the original dining room.

Here’s the rest of the crowd.

The room behind the group is known as the library and has the most ornate crown molding in the house. It seems to be made of plaster and to have been cast and painted on the ground and then mounted to the walls in pieces.

The decoration seems to include some Arabic calligraphy script, which I’m seeking help in understanding. If anybody out there can read Arabic calligraphy and tell us what this says, I’d be truly grateful!

From the main foyer, pocket doors open to the formal parlor:

The formal parlor includes this gorgeous fireplace:

Pocket doors lead from the formal parlor to the receiving parlor and on through to the dining room. We speculated that another set of pocket doors would have led to the dining room.

The original kitchen was dismantled and a new modern kitchen is on the second floor. Aaron and Michael plan to restore a full size kitchen to the main floor. An original bathroom does survive, though, and it has some beautiful tile details.

The second floor shows off this beautiful curved hallway that lets in the light from the tall stained glass windows.

Five bedrooms and a servant’s apartment at the back make up the second floor.

This would have been quarters for the servants. The doorway on the right in the background is a pass-through closet to another room and includes a built in dresser.

A very small sun room was added on in the 1960s with a small addition. We speculated this was originally an open air porch that was later enclosed. It is only about 4 and a half feet tall.

This doorway goes back to what is now a modern kitchen. It includes two linen closets, which leads us to believe it was part of the servants’ area where they lived and cared for the family’s linens.

Next up was the third floor. Originally a ballroom, it later became the casket showroom for the funeral home and the area to the left of the stairs was the embalming room.

This unusual antique ceiling fan is on the third floor. I didn’t hear whether Aaron said this was original to the house or simply period appropriate.

From there we ventured outside and got a good side view of the house:

We talked about landscaping questions, including the unique challenge of having nearly an acre of parking lot.

One of Aaron’s questions was what to do with the sign. Some people suggested removing it and using the existing electrical wiring to run a fountain.

The brick driveway is a feature Aaron wants to restore and use, but part of it is covered by concrete. The part in the photograph is an example of some interesting ways to fit bricks together around a round driveway.

Next up we looked at the carriage house.

It has the original brick floor…

…and is a treasure trove of historic artifacts, including this unique piece of plumbing fixture. People had all kinds of speculations about this one. Is it a sitz bath? A tub specifically for bathing infants and children? Something specific to the funeral home business? You tell me. Leave a comment and tell me what you think.

A close-up of the knobs:

A small side staircase led to the carriage house apartment where the stable hands and carriage driver would have lived.

The place was in bad shape but we could all see the potential for a really cool living space or artist’s studio or something here.

It felt like entering a time capsule where nothing had been touched for a hundred years.

They found trunks full of old papers and letters, as well as some remnants of household items.

You could almost imagine a small team of horses grazing outside the window there.

That concluded our tour. Aaron and Michael have a beautiful home and lots of enthusiasm about bringing it up to its full potential. Thanks a million to both of them for sharing their home’s story with us. We’ll be checking back to find out how things are going.

Last month we held our meeting at the Trinity United Methodist Church in the River Bend neighborhood of Des Moines. The building is under major renovation and we got to hear about the project details and tour the building.

I forgot to take a picture of the exterior so here’s one from Google Street View:

Inside the sanctuary the historic pipe organ is being protected while the plaster is repaired around it.

This organ is the oldest of its kind west of the Mississippi.

We toured the sanctuary and learned about the roof repair, the plaster repair, and plans for refinishing the floor and pews. They hired an interior designer to pick out paint colors and local plaster craftsman from the neighborhood are donating their time to patch cracks and prep the surfaces for painting.

We trekked upstairs to check out the balcony and get a better view of the sanctuary.

The huge dome skylight over the sanctuary was once so covered in pigeon debris that it didn’t let any light through. It has been cleaned and restored and with a fresh coat of paint on the trim, the colors really shine.

Plaster workers broke channels into the plaster so that electrical cords could be installed for sconce lights.

We didn’t get to see the lights that would go there but maybe they look similar to the fixtures in the hallway.

In the basement there were bricked up doorways that once led to the alley.

The architectural details in the building are beautiful and they’re doing a good job of preserving them.

The renovation work continues and they’re always looking for volunteers. If you can lend your talents or want to learn a new skill alongside a more experienced craftsman, ask about volunteering at Trinity. They have a work day the third Saturday of every month from 8am-5pm. Call (515) 288-4056 for more details.

A few weeks back my friend Gianfranco visited from Chicago.  We had a great time while he was in town and even got a little work done!

We had a picnic in the park!

Franco helped Brandon get started building the shed.

The instructions were confusing.

We went to the Farmer’s Market with Christa and Lars. Christa bought leeks and was VERY happy about it.

There were some herbal delights…

Some alien tomatoes…

And Franco found a booth where he really fit in.

At the end of a long hot day we were all very tired.

The end!

 [tags] farmer’s market, photos, des moines, shed [/tags]

Went to the Des Moines Farmer’s Market and brought back lots of delicious food! Not all of it is locally grown. Our growing season just started. But it’s all very fresh and from pretty nearby, so that’s good.

Here’s Zoot contemplating stealing a tomatillo.

[tags]farmers market, des moines, vegetables, roma tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatillos, onions, eggs, asparagus, carrots, bell peppers, cats[/tags]

 This month’s meeting was hosted by a charming couple, Hal and York. Well, York did all the actual hosting. Their house is a late 1880s Victorian mansion in the Sherman Hill neighborhood. The people who built the house were Jewish and kept Kosher, so they had the house built with two kitchens, one for the Kosher food, and one for the food prepared for guests. This is the first house I’ve seen built like that, but I’m sure there must be more of them out there. It’s something I never thought of until now.

Here’s the house from the outside:

Here York (on the right inside the doorway) and Steve (on the left inside the doorway) introduce the house and give some of its history. The house had been built for a family with ten children (4 girls, 6 boys), then had been a rooming house, then a nursing home for around 60 residents! This is a big house, but NOT big enough for 60 people of ANY condition. Most recent history includes hosting parties for Barack Obama’s staff, family, and friends around the time of the Iowa Caucus. York told some great stories about Sen. Obama challenging his secret service detail to keep up with him as he made his way around the house.

The highlight of the house for me was the set of stained glass windows in the staircase.

York had really done his homework in researching stained glass and he told us that red and purple glass is the hardest and most expensive to make because it uses gold in creating the color. He also pointed out three round pieces that are pretty much priceless because they are blown with lead and the lead makes them crackle like spider web. The third coolest thing about these windows were the hand painted pictures. He explained that those pieces were probably fired six or seven times each because the artist would paint one color on, then fire the piece, then paint the next color, the fire the piece, and so on and so on. Can you imagine? Here are some close-up pictures:

York also had some good insight for other projects around an old house. For example, he explained how to use linseed oil to condition wood. He also explained the difference between using shellac and polyurethane. I was especially interested in that part because I’ve never used either and I’ve been trying to figure out which would be better for the woodwork inside my house.

The most surprising thing about this house was the third floor. The main floor is mostly functional for hosting parties. The second floor has comfortable bedrooms and living spaces that are decorated tastefully in a way that keeps the period style intact but displays the couple’s own modern tastes. The third floor was like stepping into a totally different building! Back in the 1980s whoever owned the house had the third floor redone as an apartment. (Originally, the third floor would have been used as a ballroom.) Whoever they hired as a carpenter to build all the cabinets, closets, and living areas was a genius! The whole area had a very modern feel. You’d never know you were in a Victorian home. Clean lines, modern furniture, and bright, neutral colors made the space feel amazingly open and fresh. I took a few pictures, but wanted to be a little careful since they do rent it to someone and I wasn’t sure how they’d feel having their living space shown all over the internet.

One of the coolest things I got to see from the third floor were the wooden shingles! Plus, a pretty neat view of the Des Moines skyline.

This trip had a bonus house in it! York’s friend owns the house next door and had given permission for us to look around in it too. The most beautiful thing about this house was the staircase. It amazes me that in over a hundred years of families and tenants living in this house, moving furniture up and down the stairs, and probably kids living here, this ornament never broke off!

The rest of the house is in pretty bad condition, having been split into several cheap apartments over the years and suffering a sorry fate of particle paneling and drop ceilings.   It’s going to be fixed up and converted back to a single family home soon though, so there’s hope for it!

One final note: York mentioned that when a house has been split up into multiple units the law requires there to be exterior fire escapes.  These tend to become eyesores after a while and are one of the main reasons people like to return houses to single family residences.  York explained that one of the things he recommends to people buying houses in Sherman Hill to reconvert back to single family houses is to tear off the exterior fire escape right away.  For one thing, it’s just one less access point inviting vandals if the house is vacant for a while.  And also, the house can’t be listed as a multi-family residence without that fire escape, so it’s sort of a back-up insurance that the house won’t be split up again if you have to sell it or something.

I always learn so much from these meetings!