Preserving heritage one building at a time : Local man painstakingly restoring 90-year-old Patterson home
Posted on Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Editor's note: Each week this month, The TIMES will feature a piece of the heritage of Pea Ridge. A landmark in town, the W. T. Patterson house, is being painstakingly restored to its original 1918 glory. The craftsman bungalowstyle house, now owned by Dennis Turner, was owned by the Patterson family until the Turners bought the house in 1976. Dennis and his wife, Shirley, bought the house from the Patterson's daughter after the death of Mrs. Patterson. For the past three decades, Turner has been working on restoring the house.
"I flipped all the siding... that was a five-year project that took 12 years," Turner said as he laughed. He recalls that when he was about 13 he stayed with an aunt in Pea Ridge. That's when he first saw the Patterson house. Little more than a decade later, he bought the house.
"It had a small, 20-gallon water heater in this corner," Turner said, working in the kitchen where he is now putting in a new ceiling. He plans to install a tin ceiling. He used drywall when he restored the dining room ceiling, which has intricate detailing around the borders.
The walls, which were plaster, are now drywall.
"It's a neat old house," he said. "It had the old knob-and-tube wiring with two 30-amp fuses."
There was originally a Delco generator that ran off the windmill and probably provided enough electricity to power lights for each room.
"W. T. Patterson was one of the first to have power in his house, we've been told," Turner said.
He recalls sitting on the back porch seeing the wires outside the wall glow when an appliance was used inside the house. He replaced all the wiring.
"The roof had one layer of hand-sawn shingles and two layers of asphalt shingles," he said, explaining that he redecked and shingled the roof along with rewiring, replumbing and insulating the house. He also reglazed all the original windows, which are doublehung.
"I've worked on it ever since I've been here," Turner recalled.
Baseboards are 9 1 / 2 inches wide. Original boards of the tongue-and-groove floors are without knots. Beautiful darkwood trim outlining the arched doorway from the dining room to the living room is carved with details created before there were power hand tools. An air-lock entryway originally had two doors entering the home - one into the music room, the other into the living room. Turner floored the entry with tile and removed one of the doorways. There's an old pocket door to separate the music room from the living room.
Many of the light fixtures are original, but some are antique reproductions.
There was a coal-fired furnace in the basement which could be fed from a window. There are transom windows above the interior doors with the original hardware still intact and operable.
The five-bedroom house has two bathrooms, although it originally had only one - upstairs.
Outside, there is a hand-dug well with plumbing that is said to have fed the downtown with water.
There were originally two porches flanking the kitchen on the back of the house. Sometime in the history of the house, one porch was enclosed, making a utility room. The other still provides a secluded shady place to sit. The house also had a cistern in which the Pattersons are said to have kept their milk and butter cool.
The garage and smokehouse are original, although Turner said the smokehouse does not appear to have been used as such. He said city residents have told many stories about the gazebo on the back lot on which city children played shuffleboard.
Turner installed central air several years ago and went to great lengths to avoid having metal duct work visible outside the house.
"Some of the old colors are popular now," Turner said, explaining that the green in the dining room is very similar to the original color. There were wooden blinds on the windows, which have been replaced because the original cording was deteriorating.
The front porch and columns are concrete.
The huge maple trees surrounding the house were planted in 1937; Turner has the original landscape plans.
And so, he continues restoring, renovating and recapturing the loving detail in the old house, preserving one more piece of Pea Ridge history.
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