I love the wallpaper archeology, LOL. This house needs a Kaleb Higgins clone to love it back to perfection. It looks like the ceiling medallions are actually part of the light fixture, as I've not seen separate brass ones before. The style with the hanging chains is one popular in the late 1800s-early 1900s. I think the room with the built-in hutch and fireplace was a dining room, and the space behind probably a kitchen. Not sure if St. L city homes of the era had separate cookhouses. The balcony with the ornate iron railing is fantastic! Every fireplace is gorgeous, and thank goodness no white paint on the marble/stone. This was a very nice house when it was new. Thank you, Ken (and cameraperson), for arranging this tour for us.
I would love to see someone come in and fix this house up to its original glory! It would surely be stunning! The layout you've proposed would definitely make sense. What's interesting about kitchens in this time period/location is that the upper middle class and beyond would usually have 2 kitchens- one inside the main house and a summer kitchen that was detached. Glad you enjoyed this tour, cheers!
Wallpaper archaeology! I love this too. I clean lots of Victorian aged houses in my area and I always take a peek under the stairs and in the electric cupboard because you can see remnants of wallpaer....some are beautiful and original to the house and some are eighties floral!
The light fixtures shown are NEWER than the house (and the medallions ARE original. that's why they seem a bit..off). They are likely from 1920's-1930's. The canopies (part nearest the medallions) are "bell shaped", This is common on early electric light fixtures, but NOT on modern ones. Reason? While many of these fixtures were installed in new houses that had electricity from the start, Most were not. The "bell shape" is to accommodate the capped gas pipe from the original gas lights. The old gas pipes would still protrude 1"-2" from the ceiling. the deep "bell" is to hide the pipe. Most of these lights were NOT installed in "outlet boxes" but with a stud mounted directly to the ceiling, the wires just coming through a hole! If you ever notice in an old house that a light fixture is "off center" by a half an inch. Now you know why! From the floor it's almost imperceptible, but a close inspection will show it! Source: Every light fixture in my (1870s) house, LOL.
I can only imagine this house in its glory days. They don’t build them like this anymore. I would love to take a walking tour through some of the houses you have shared. Thank you!
This is a stunner, all that light! The built-in tells you the third room is the dining room and the one behind it is the kitchen, though it’s a bit big and a fireplace in the middle of the room tells you it might be two rooms that have been combined.
Very nice video, Ken! I was very happy to see that the cornice and the front wrought iron fence were still in place, but blown away that the pocket doors, marble fireplaces, ceiling medallions, and much of the original door hardware were also still in place. Thanks for sharing your tour of this diamond in the rough.
It's nice to see the bones of this older home, exposed brick, wooden derails in the doors & door frames, hardware on windows & doors, love all the fireplaces & mantles, the wooden handrails ( love the curve on rails going upsrairs) imagine putting that curve in & the wooden spindles & old glass, & the bathtubs lastly the medallions on the ceilings. It's a lovely house that could be lovingly restored to be a home. Thank you, sincerely hope this house is restored!!
So much potential!!! I can’t believe how much of the original charm is still left inside the home…and potential income from rental property in the rear! I am so in love! 😍
Lovely tour! A swinging door most often separates a food prep area from the dining area, this frees up a person's hands that are transporting food. Sometimes you can tell the dining room by a button placed on the floor to signal when a meal course has ended.
We live in a 1889 house and farm ,we have a swinging door from our butlers pantry into our dining room. I like to imagine the meals that were passed through that old door. (Birhdays, Christmas gooses etc🙂)
The TRUE tragedy about all these glorious old wrecks that fill so many of the central cities of Middle America is not the expense required to restore them properly, but the fact that their neighborhoods are now disasters beyond repair. We feel the loss of these endless acres of great Upper Middle Class areas acutely. NOBODY is going to miss the modern Suburban Baby Boomer McMansion, or the lifestyles THOSE monstrosities represent. Sigh. Thanks for all your great work, and keeping your passion so real Ken!
I saw this one on the market! I wish I had the money to buy and restore it! This is right in my neighborhood! It's so cool to see all the properties being fixed up around here! Thank you for the tour! It's cool to see others appreciate the neglected architecture here!
Love seeing the un-renovated, unpolished tours! There’s something really beautiful and interesting about a house showing its age. I would love to see the inside of the Sauer Castle in Kansas City if you ever get the chance to tour. ❤️
If I wasn't already knee-deep in a restoration project I would have loved to take this one on! I haven't made any announcements about it yet, but I've been working on a house that I've featured on this channel. I'll be making my first video about it this fall. In the mean time, I won't give any more spoilers 🤐
Rooms: Front parlor(public fancy) 2nd parlor(family space, less ornate) 3rd room with bay window and built in is dining room, then kitchen with access to hall and back(maid's stair)
Great video! Front room would have been the parlor, middle room is the entertaining room (music potentially), third room would have been dining, with the kitchen in the back. The back room may have been servants quarters with that back staircase for use of that individual tending to the home. Family would have been using the grand staircase in the front. This home is truly a time capsule and I hope someone restores it to the original provenance.
I thought similar about the rooms and uses. My great grandparents had a huge home in Champaign Illinois with So many similar features and basic styling. It was great seeing this vid.
I agree with the middle room being the entertaining\music room; third room was definitely the dining room. I'm pretty confident the rear room was the kitchen. I also think there may have been a butler's pantry in between which seems to have been completely removed. I really hope we see another video of this beautiful, historical home being restored!
What an incredible home. I currently live in an 1850 Italianate built by the tobacco baron James Liggett and it's an absolute trip being immersed in such history. And I thought my place was The Money Pit 🤣🤣🤣
I agree that the cupboard is the dining room. But this kind of home would have had a pantry/serving area between the dining room and the kitchen. Kitchens weren't extremely large back then. So I'd guess the large room behind the built-in cupboard was a pantry and kitchen and the wall between them is missing. Servant quarters at the top of the back stairs. A lovely house!
Wow! The handrail is awesome, I am so surprised but grateful that so much of the original hardware and millwork is still there. Hopefully someone will come along soon to restore her to her former glory!
Hey Ken! Just wanted to leave a comment to say how much I love this channel! It’s like ASMR for me haha. I really appreciate how chill and unpretentious you are as you go through all the details. Glad to see you’re up and about again! Looking forward to the next videos.
I would guess that the double parlor then the room with the bow window would be the dining room. The curvature of the stair rail is a work of art. You are right, the small room with the towel hook and small inset cupboard most likely was last used as a bathroom . Great property!
Those flu plate covers, heated with oil stoves when they stopped using the coal furnace. Probably divided up into flats at some point. Nice one, worthy of being saved.
Great observation! A person messaged me on facebook about 15 minutes ago saying they had lived in the house in the 50's. They said that the house was divided at that time to a 2 family flat (one family on the first floor, another on the second/third).
I think the third room must have been a music room or library. The fire place is too sophisticated for a kitchen. But its a beautiful house and i hope it will be restored to its formal glory
Has you were showing each one, I was imagining how beautiful they must of been. Only pray that someone with funds can bring her back to her glory days🙏🙏
Loved it! Thank you for the wide shots that allow the viewers to better see the space. I love urban exploration videos and have some favorite YT channels, but sometimes the guys filming go to these amazing old buildings and spend too much time recording the contents of drawers, for example, so we don’t get to see the spaces and the spatial distribution really much, which drives me insane 😅 but, of course your content is more architecturally oriented. And I agree with others comments, on this house I think the second room behind the pocket doors would be the music or library room, and the next one, with the built-in and the bay window, the dining room. I’m not so sure about the kitchen though, maybe it really was that last room in the back.
Hello, nice house, I think that, towards the front of the house, there are 2 parlors, like, the formal reception parlor, and the informal parlor or music room. Then, the third room with the bay window could be the formal dining room, or the library, because of the dark color of the fireplace, and because the kitchen could never be in that part of the house. Finally, the last large room could have been the kitchen, which should have originally had more dividing walls for accommodate the buttlers pantry, and serving pantry.
I love this house…..I enjoy seeing these beautiful home before they are finished. It will be gorgeous when finished. Thank you for sharing this lovely home. 💫. Is this home in St. Louis? There are a lot of homes like this there!
Yours is a wonderful presentation. It could easily serve as a sales tool for saving this or any other house, and your style of presentation is very professional. I have seen many presentations, as I have worked in Historic Preservation for about 55 years, started when I was 12, so I have had lots of experience with both very good, and very bad work. Just a few thoughts: First, this home has been systematically stripped of its antique plaster. Demolition of the old plaster is ludicrous. It is unnecessary, as new systems can be installed without plaster removal. For example, it usually makes more sense to lift floorboards in the rooms above to install new wiring and other systems than to pull down ceilings in any room for the same reason. Even broken plaster can be economically restored. Furthermore, the antique plaster was installed by master craftsmen, and was carefully applied to create flat surfaces on the rough and slightly unaligned timber framing underneath, as well as to create a standard reveal to match the thickness of the antique woodwork. In addition, antique plaster was more water and fire resistant, and more sound proof than modern sheetrock. Modern sheetrock has all the sound deadening of a paper bag. The new owner will now have to buy plasterboard and hire a contractor savvy enough to shim out the new work to approximate the lost but restorable plasterwork. Claiming that there is a need to insulate the outside walls ignores the fact that virtually every room in a house of this size has at least one outside wall, and any installation of meaningful insulation will require a major work. There are studies that show that insulating the outside walls of a home like this will not pay for itself during the life of an average homeowners’ ownership. The recommendation is often for very good attic floor and roof insulation. All this unnecessary and completely avoidable work will add literally many thousands of dollars to the cost of the renovation work. Plaster removal is usually a gross waste of money. Secondly, the multicolored mantels are almost certainly marbleized slate or cast iron. No one able to afford a large home of this size, never a mansion by Victorian Standards, would be able to afford inlaid stonework mantels. The mantels are very fine, but certainly never mansion quality. Third, any room with a formal mantel was a never a service room. A kitchen would have had some sort of chimney for a stove and stove pipe, or a brick recess for one of the wonderful Victorian era built-in cast iron ranges, but never a mantel. Kitchens were very hot from the cooking range, and there would have been no need for any fireplace, unless the house was a generation or more older than this house, and open-hearth cooking was the common and logical option. In addition, fireplaces and open-hearth kitchens were considered to be generators of soot and dust, and thus some Victorian mantels with their 'Summer Fronts' were actually very fancy heat registers for a furnace in the basement, and not intended for an open fire. Again, this was a fine and professional production. Congratulations.
One additional note. This house had multicolorted woodwork created through the use of different stains, and possibly different woods. This is clearly visible on the fantastic parlor doors. A careful restoration of the woodwork would pay for itealf as a homeowner investment.
Hope someone buys this old beauty and they refurbish it and you can do a after video to show the old girl off. Great video Ken see you next time. Be safe.
The amount of labor, and cost to restore this house are unimaginable ~ and it is hard to believe that it is for sale at $140.000. The lot may be of value, but the house is not. Nice detailed elements that are worth saving/recycling. Such a sad story.
The dining room is the one with the black fireplace and the built-in hutch. The next room was probably the kitchen (thus the woodstove vent), although some grander homes had just a service kitchen next to the DR and the main kitchen downstairs. If it was the kitchen, there would have been a butler's pantry to keep kitchen noise/smells out of the DR. Many Vics here have similar configs.
As always another amazing video! A beat-up treasure! Lots of work would be needed to make it livable. Forced Air Heat? Basement? Garage? I wonder why it was abandoned? No water damage.
Glad you enjoyed it! It would appear that it has forced air, however we are not able to confirm that as the listing states, "other." The converted Carriage House took the place of a garage, however it could be easily converted back. There is a basement, but we did not venture down there (we are still taking it easy as we continue to recover).
And the third room in with the fireplace in the built-ins, with most definitely the dining room. Then the following room in the back was most likely a kitchen with a wood-burning stove.
Could there have been a double parlor and the dining room had the built-in cabinet. The kitchen might have been in the back just off the dining room. So fascinating to see how people live long ago.
First room was reception parlor, second was back parlor or library. Third room (the one with the black slate faux mabre mantle) would have been the dining room. The rear room would have been a pantry and kitchen.
The room with the 2nd staircase was the kitchen. Most 2nd staircases went to the kitchen. Servants or nanny stairs are what the 2nd staircase was for. That came dirrectly from the gentleman who restored my own Victorian!
Hey there...I think you should check out the Shakespeare Chateau in Saint Jospeh Missouri. It was actually featured in a movie too. It is in the neighborhood know as Millionaires Row, with a bunch of other beautiful old mansions on the same street.
4:01 this room shows no sign of a fireplace, but DOES have a smokepipe access to the chimney, I'm gonna guess that THIS room was the kitchen. Having watched the whole video, I was struck by the fact that this house is a much larger version of the house I grew up in. (an 1880's house in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh). A lot of the details are VERY similar but ours was in a row, not a "stand alone" house. The second-floor hall at 4:42 - 5:40 took me right back! There's a LOT of houses like this in Pittsburgh (Lawrenceville and North Side especially.)😊 and at 7:00 I have an almost identical light fixture in my CURRENT bedroom. (It's from the late '20s/Early '30s) But I have shades on mine ("reproductions" from Home Depot, LOL!). The fixture itself AND push button switch on the wall are the "real deal" though!
A lot of the old features are still intact, so this house is ripe for restoration. It may be too large as a single-family home, but it might be tastefully divided into two apartments.
Thanks!
Thank you so much for the Super Thanks! You've helped us get closer to purchasing our next camera lens upgrade, cheers!
Wow, there's so much potential!! Somebody please bring this gem in the rough back to its Original glory!! Thanks Ken for another great video!!
That house is screaming “Restore me! Restore me!”
Agreed. She's a very pretty lady who still has her jewels. There's gotta be someone who can restore her & get her back to the dance.
I love the wallpaper archeology, LOL. This house needs a Kaleb Higgins clone to love it back to perfection. It looks like the ceiling medallions are actually part of the light fixture, as I've not seen separate brass ones before. The style with the hanging chains is one popular in the late 1800s-early 1900s. I think the room with the built-in hutch and fireplace was a dining room, and the space behind probably a kitchen. Not sure if St. L city homes of the era had separate cookhouses. The balcony with the ornate iron railing is fantastic! Every fireplace is gorgeous, and thank goodness no white paint on the marble/stone. This was a very nice house when it was new. Thank you, Ken (and cameraperson), for arranging this tour for us.
I would love to see someone come in and fix this house up to its original glory! It would surely be stunning! The layout you've proposed would definitely make sense. What's interesting about kitchens in this time period/location is that the upper middle class and beyond would usually have 2 kitchens- one inside the main house and a summer kitchen that was detached. Glad you enjoyed this tour, cheers!
Wallpaper archaeology! I love this too. I clean lots of Victorian aged houses in my area and I always take a peek under the stairs and in the electric cupboard because you can see remnants of wallpaer....some are beautiful and original to the house and some are eighties floral!
It's "gold" paint. They only look good painted white with the ceiling.
Yes, this house reminds me of Kaleb's from the Second Empire Strikes Back channel.
The light fixtures shown are NEWER than the house (and the medallions ARE original. that's why they seem a bit..off). They are likely from 1920's-1930's. The canopies (part nearest the medallions) are "bell shaped", This is common on early electric light fixtures, but NOT on modern ones. Reason? While many of these fixtures were installed in new houses that had electricity from the start, Most were not. The "bell shape" is to accommodate the capped gas pipe from the original gas lights. The old gas pipes would still protrude 1"-2" from the ceiling. the deep "bell" is to hide the pipe. Most of these lights were NOT installed in "outlet boxes" but with a stud mounted directly to the ceiling, the wires just coming through a hole! If you ever notice in an old house that a light fixture is "off center" by a half an inch. Now you know why! From the floor it's almost imperceptible, but a close inspection will show it! Source: Every light fixture in my (1870s) house, LOL.
Love this precious old home and hope someone can restore to former glory,
Gorgeous house. Can’t believe the fireplaces are still intact. Thanks for showing it to us.
Glad you enjoyed it!
That marble downstairs fireplace was magnificent
I can only imagine this house in its glory days. They don’t build them like this anymore. I would love to take a walking tour through some of the houses you have shared. Thank you!
This is a stunner, all that light! The built-in tells you the third room is the dining room and the one behind it is the kitchen, though it’s a bit big and a fireplace in the middle of the room tells you it might be two rooms that have been combined.
Very nice video, Ken!
I was very happy to see that the cornice and the front wrought iron fence were still in place, but blown away that the pocket doors, marble fireplaces, ceiling medallions, and much of the original door hardware were also still in place.
Thanks for sharing your tour of this diamond in the rough.
It really is a treasure chest of architectural elements, glad you enjoyed this one!
It's nice to see the bones of this older home, exposed brick, wooden derails in the doors & door frames, hardware on windows & doors, love all the fireplaces & mantles, the wooden handrails ( love the curve on rails going upsrairs) imagine putting that curve in & the wooden spindles & old glass, & the bathtubs lastly the
medallions on the ceilings.
It's a lovely house that could be lovingly restored to be a home.
Thank you, sincerely hope this house is restored!!
So much potential!!! I can’t believe how much of the original charm is still left inside the home…and potential income from rental property in the rear! I am so in love! 😍
Lovely tour! A swinging door most often separates a food prep area from the dining area, this frees up a person's hands that are transporting food. Sometimes you can tell the dining room by a button placed on the floor to signal when a meal course has ended.
We live in a 1889 house and farm ,we have a swinging door from our butlers pantry into our dining room. I like to imagine the meals that were passed through that old door. (Birhdays, Christmas gooses etc🙂)
The TRUE tragedy about all these glorious old wrecks that fill so many of the central cities of Middle America is not the expense required to restore them properly, but the fact that their neighborhoods are now disasters beyond repair. We feel the loss of these endless acres of great Upper Middle Class areas acutely. NOBODY is going to miss the modern Suburban Baby Boomer McMansion, or the lifestyles THOSE monstrosities represent. Sigh. Thanks for all your great work, and keeping your passion so real Ken!
Love the big windows!
What is most exquisite here are the fine proportions of the spaces. Simply stunning.
I saw this one on the market! I wish I had the money to buy and restore it! This is right in my neighborhood! It's so cool to see all the properties being fixed up around here! Thank you for the tour! It's cool to see others appreciate the neglected architecture here!
According to Zillow, this house sold on April 29, 2022. I hope the new owner restores it to its former glory. Lovely tour!
This home is just spectacular!!!!!!!
Love seeing the un-renovated, unpolished tours! There’s something really beautiful and interesting about a house showing its age.
I would love to see the inside of the Sauer Castle in Kansas City if you ever get the chance to tour. ❤️
Ken this house is calling your name to rehab I could see you in this style home. Loved it!
If I wasn't already knee-deep in a restoration project I would have loved to take this one on! I haven't made any announcements about it yet, but I've been working on a house that I've featured on this channel. I'll be making my first video about it this fall. In the mean time, I won't give any more spoilers 🤐
I love vintage things and just love your videos and channel. Please keep things fabulous and continue to showcase more old homes.
Rooms: Front parlor(public fancy) 2nd parlor(family space, less ornate) 3rd room with bay window and built in is dining room, then kitchen with access to hall and back(maid's stair)
It’s another beautiful day now because of This House🤩
Indeed, Christian.
Great video! Front room would have been the parlor, middle room is the entertaining room (music potentially), third room would have been dining, with the kitchen in the back. The back room may have been servants quarters with that back staircase for use of that individual tending to the home. Family would have been using the grand staircase in the front. This home is truly a time capsule and I hope someone restores it to the original provenance.
That would certainly make sense!
I thought similar about the rooms and uses. My great grandparents had a huge home in Champaign Illinois with So many similar features and basic styling. It was great seeing this vid.
@@katiemoyer8679 I just think it's very cool to live in a town called Champaign!
@@twistoffate4791 well Thank You 💫
I agree with the middle room being the entertaining\music room; third room was definitely the dining room. I'm pretty confident the rear room was the kitchen. I also think there may have been a butler's pantry in between which seems to have been completely removed. I really hope we see another video of this beautiful, historical home being restored!
Just happened upon this channel and what a FIND! I'm obsessively watching all of the videos. I love this Channel!!!!
What an incredible home. I currently live in an 1850 Italianate built by the tobacco baron James Liggett and it's an absolute trip being immersed in such history. And I thought my place was The Money Pit 🤣🤣🤣
I'm jealous! Sounds pretty fantastic!
It’s pretty wild. The tunnel and hidden staircase really threw me for a loop. Lebanon is an old town.
What a beautiful grand däme.Hoping a kaleb Higgins restores this diamond in the ruff.Great to see you Ken.
I agree that the cupboard is the dining room. But this kind of home would have had a pantry/serving area between the dining room and the kitchen. Kitchens weren't extremely large back then. So I'd guess the large room behind the built-in cupboard was a pantry and kitchen and the wall between them is missing. Servant quarters at the top of the back stairs. A lovely house!
Wow! The handrail is awesome, I am so surprised but grateful that so much of the original hardware and millwork is still there. Hopefully someone will come along soon to restore her to her former glory!
Beautiful home. The workmanship is stunning. Just lovely all around. I would like to sit in a chair in each room for hours just to absorb it all.
I can see this gem completely restored and decked out for Christmas.
I so enjoy these tours. I can see the beauty of this beautiful house. I hope that someone buys and puts the love back, thank you Ken!
It's hard to imagine that anyone lived in this house within the last 100 years; so much of it looks original and untouched.
Really enjoyed the tour Ken. Glad you are looking so well
Agreed. Ken's continued good health is a priceless "commodity". I hate it when my channel hosts are hurting!!
Hey Ken! Just wanted to leave a comment to say how much I love this channel! It’s like ASMR for me haha. I really appreciate how chill and unpretentious you are as you go through all the details. Glad to see you’re up and about again! Looking forward to the next videos.
I would guess that the double parlor then the room with the bow window would be the dining room. The curvature of the stair rail is a work of art. You are right, the small room with the towel hook and small inset cupboard most likely was last used as a bathroom . Great property!
I just the way you pan the whole room so we can see the room. You’re the best
Those flu plate covers, heated with oil stoves when they stopped using the coal furnace. Probably divided up into flats at some point. Nice one, worthy of being saved.
Great observation! A person messaged me on facebook about 15 minutes ago saying they had lived in the house in the 50's. They said that the house was divided at that time to a 2 family flat (one family on the first floor, another on the second/third).
💫Thank You. Love seeing the older building style features. 👌
Fantastic bones and great presentation!! Thank you 😀
I think the third room must have been a music room or library. The fire place is too sophisticated for a kitchen. But its a beautiful house and i hope it will be restored to its formal glory
Wow! What a beautiful home. I can only imagine how wonderful it would have been when it was built
Beautiful home ! I can only imagine how it was ! ❤️
Thank You!
Has you were showing each one, I was imagining how beautiful they must of been. Only pray that someone with funds can bring her back to her glory days🙏🙏
That room with the bay window would have probably been the library. Kitchens would never have had such a decorative mantelpiece.
Lovely filming, so much attention to the details. What a beautiful house x
I am a big history buff, just found you. Love the tours and the information you provide. Keep up the great work👍
It’s beautiful! Thanks for the tour!
Thanks very much another great Home. Thanks Ken !!!
Oh to have a few million to bring this house back to its glory! I hope it's purchased by a history lover.
Great video per usual Ken.
Fascinating and beautiful. Wish I knew more history about it.
I don't think this qualifies as a mansion, but is rather just a larger house. I hope someone does a loving restoration of it.
Loved it! Thank you for the wide shots that allow the viewers to better see the space. I love urban exploration videos and have some favorite YT channels, but sometimes the guys filming go to these amazing old buildings and spend too much time recording the contents of drawers, for example, so we don’t get to see the spaces and the spatial distribution really much, which drives me insane 😅 but, of course your content is more architecturally oriented. And I agree with others comments, on this house I think the second room behind the pocket doors would be the music or library room, and the next one, with the built-in and the bay window, the dining room. I’m not so sure about the kitchen though, maybe it really was that last room in the back.
Hello, nice house, I think that, towards the front of the house, there are 2 parlors, like, the formal reception parlor, and the informal parlor or music room. Then, the third room with the bay window could be the formal dining room, or the library, because of the dark color of the fireplace, and because the kitchen could never be in that part of the house. Finally, the last large room could have been the kitchen, which should have originally had more dividing walls for accommodate the buttlers pantry, and serving pantry.
That would make a lot of sense!
Beautiful house. Thank you for sharing.
This house is stunning!
I love this house…..I enjoy seeing these beautiful home before they are finished. It will be gorgeous when finished. Thank you for sharing this lovely home. 💫. Is this home in St. Louis? There are a lot of homes like this there!
Love this house. You would make an awesome history teacher. You have a nice soothing voice
Fabulous house!! Thanks for sharing!! You do a great job, very informative!!
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed this video!
This old beauty still has potential!!
It's absolutely a beautiful home
So much history!! I would love to dig into the archives on this one. Someone needs to restore the beauty to it.
This is a beautiful old mansion.
I love this channel. Good job Ken.
Yours is a wonderful presentation. It could easily serve as a sales tool for saving this or any other house, and your style of presentation is very professional.
I have seen many presentations, as I have worked in Historic Preservation for about 55 years, started when I was 12, so I have had lots of experience with both very good, and very bad work.
Just a few thoughts:
First, this home has been systematically stripped of its antique plaster. Demolition of the old plaster is ludicrous. It is unnecessary, as new systems can be installed without plaster removal. For example, it usually makes more sense to lift floorboards in the rooms above to install new wiring and other systems than to pull down ceilings in any room for the same reason. Even broken plaster can be economically restored.
Furthermore, the antique plaster was installed by master craftsmen, and was carefully applied to create flat surfaces on the rough and slightly unaligned timber framing underneath, as well as to create a standard reveal to match the thickness of the antique woodwork.
In addition, antique plaster was more water and fire resistant, and more sound proof than modern sheetrock. Modern sheetrock has all the sound deadening of a paper bag. The new owner will now have to buy plasterboard and hire a contractor savvy enough to shim out the new work to approximate the lost but restorable plasterwork. Claiming that there is a need to insulate the outside walls ignores the fact that virtually every room in a house of this size has at least one outside wall, and any installation of meaningful insulation will require a major work. There are studies that show that insulating the outside walls of a home like this will not pay for itself during the life of an average homeowners’ ownership. The recommendation is often for very good attic floor and roof insulation. All this unnecessary and completely avoidable work will add literally many thousands of dollars to the cost of the renovation work. Plaster removal is usually a gross waste of money.
Secondly, the multicolored mantels are almost certainly marbleized slate or cast iron. No one able to afford a large home of this size, never a mansion by Victorian Standards, would be able to afford inlaid stonework mantels. The mantels are very fine, but certainly never mansion quality.
Third, any room with a formal mantel was a never a service room. A kitchen would have had some sort of chimney for a stove and stove pipe, or a brick recess for one of the wonderful Victorian era built-in cast iron ranges, but never a mantel. Kitchens were very hot from the cooking range, and there would have been no need for any fireplace, unless the house was a generation or more older than this house, and open-hearth cooking was the common and logical option.
In addition, fireplaces and open-hearth kitchens were considered to be generators of soot and dust, and thus some Victorian mantels with their 'Summer Fronts' were actually very fancy heat registers for a furnace in the basement, and not intended for an open fire.
Again, this was a fine and professional production. Congratulations.
One additional note. This house had multicolorted woodwork created through the use of different stains, and possibly different woods. This is clearly visible on the fantastic parlor doors. A careful restoration of the woodwork would pay for itealf as a homeowner investment.
What a beautiful house!
Beautiful house and you showed it very well thank you 🌹
Glad you enjoyed it!
Give this house some TLC and be rewarded for your efforts 👌
Just beautiful I hopefully will get my chance to find and purchase a home just like this. I want those door knobs !
Hope someone buys this old beauty and they refurbish it and you can do a after video to show the old girl off. Great video Ken see you next time. Be safe.
I hope so too!
The amount of labor, and cost to restore this house are unimaginable ~ and it is hard to believe that it is for sale at $140.000. The lot may be of value, but the house is not. Nice detailed elements that are worth saving/recycling. Such a sad story.
I hope the HOUSE get restored as originally designed
I love this type of house! Hope someone saves it
The dining room is the one with the black fireplace and the built-in hutch. The next room was probably the kitchen (thus the woodstove vent), although some grander homes had just a service kitchen next to the DR and the main kitchen downstairs. If it was the kitchen, there would have been a butler's pantry to keep kitchen noise/smells out of the DR. Many Vics here have similar configs.
Laid out very similar to a house I lived in for a few weeks. Beautiful I hope someone saves it.
My fav style of house. I wish I owned it.
As always another amazing video! A beat-up treasure! Lots of work would be needed to make it livable. Forced Air Heat? Basement? Garage? I wonder why it was abandoned? No water damage.
Glad you enjoyed it! It would appear that it has forced air, however we are not able to confirm that as the listing states, "other." The converted Carriage House took the place of a garage, however it could be easily converted back. There is a basement, but we did not venture down there (we are still taking it easy as we continue to recover).
I love that house! I'm going to play my numbers so I can buy it, and restore it to it's original former glory 😂
I think I'll do the same! lol
In Bloomington IL you can visit David Davis Mansion, built 1872, and fully restored. It’s open for tours Wednesday through Saturdays
Respectable house for respectable people!
And the third room in with the fireplace in the built-ins, with most definitely the dining room. Then the following room in the back was most likely a kitchen with a wood-burning stove.
Wow glad to see they didn't strip this wonderful home. Beautiful just beautiful love to see if when its done whose the owner
Love the house.
I sincerely hope that whoever gets this house doesn't modernize it too much and keeps most of the historic charm intact
We hope so, too!
I agree! It would be great if the kitchen looked like it's as old as the house.
That "Music" room, I think might have been the butler's pantry. That back room was the Kitchen. Notice the hole in the wall for the stove vent.
Could there have been a double parlor and the dining room had the built-in cabinet. The kitchen might have been in the back just off the dining room. So fascinating to see how people live long ago.
That is certainly a possibility!
First room was reception parlor, second was back parlor or library. Third room (the one with the black slate faux mabre mantle) would have been the dining room. The rear room would have been a pantry and kitchen.
This house must have been beautiful in its glory days
Well it is showing under contract. It will be beautiful when restored
It needs Norm Abram, from the TV program, "This Old House" to come in and restore it to its former glory...
The room with the 2nd staircase was the kitchen. Most 2nd staircases went to the kitchen. Servants or nanny stairs are what the 2nd staircase was for. That came dirrectly from the gentleman who restored my own Victorian!
Hey there...I think you should check out the Shakespeare Chateau in Saint Jospeh Missouri. It was actually featured in a movie too. It is in the neighborhood know as Millionaires Row, with a bunch of other beautiful old mansions on the same street.
Wow!!! Thank you!
I loved seeing the house but you went so fast. I wished you had taken more time. I was nice to see such a beautiful home
Fascinating! 😍
it would make a great Hostal for travellers..great Dorm on the top floor, some private rooms and some grand salons..
4:01 this room shows no sign of a fireplace, but DOES have a smokepipe access to the chimney, I'm gonna guess that THIS room was the kitchen. Having watched the whole video, I was struck by the fact that this house is a much larger version of the house I grew up in. (an 1880's house in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh). A lot of the details are VERY similar but ours was in a row, not a "stand alone" house. The second-floor hall at 4:42 - 5:40 took me right back! There's a LOT of houses like this in Pittsburgh (Lawrenceville and North Side especially.)😊 and at 7:00 I have an almost identical light fixture in my CURRENT bedroom. (It's from the late '20s/Early '30s) But I have shades on mine ("reproductions" from Home Depot, LOL!). The fixture itself AND push button switch on the wall are the "real deal" though!
A lot of the old features are still intact, so this house is ripe for restoration. It may be too large as a single-family home, but it might be tastefully divided into two apartments.
Love this ! Thank you 😊 I sure hope someone fixes it up