news-record.com

Anyone who’s seen a Hollywood whodunit knows that when the mask comes off, amazing secrets will be revealed.

The same is true of an old house, when the veil hung by decades of age is lifted to show the glory of its original form.

The recent renovation of a 1,650-square-foot Queen Anne home at 408 Cedar St. tells such a story.

The project to restore the relocated three-bedroom, two-bathroom home was recently completed by Southern Evergreen, a local contractor that specializes in historic renovations.

Carpeting was pulled up so the antique heart-of-pine floors could be sanded and restored. Wallpaper was stripped off the second-floor ceilings to reveal the original beadboard. The chair-rail detail along the walls and the cast-iron sinks in the two bathrooms were preserved to protect the home’s character.

“Whatever we could, we saved,” said Nora Miller, Southern Evergreen’s principal interior designer and historic preservationist. She even analyzed the colors used in the trim and exterior to ensure the new gray color with darker gray trim and maroon accents honored the period in which the home was built, but also kept up with today’s styles.

The house is an example of the Queen Anne architectural style popular in the 1880s and 1890s. Its asymmetrical window and door placement,
bay windows on the side,
and gables at both ends of
the house are examples of the design style.

While pains were taken to keep the home’s character intact — “We changed very little,” Miller said — a number of modern upgrades were made to bring the house into the 21st century and to prepare it for use as a rental by landlord Mahlon Honeycutt.

Most of the windows were replaced with double-paned, energy-efficient versions in the same spirit as the double-hung originals. Plaster walls were doctored and covered with plasterboard to protect the integrity of the structure. “All the mechanical parts were updated,” Miller said of the plumbing and heating systems and the appliances in the kitchen, which also was modernized with new cabinetry, fixtures and vinyl flooring.

The overhaul was part of an effort to save the house, moved to Cedar Street from Blandwood Avenue in September, from demolition. Preservation Greensboro Inc. and its supporters orchestrated the relocation when plans for a new jail threatened the structure that preservationists estimate was built in the early 1900s. The home was one of several purchased over the years for preservation by the Zenke family, which helped restore Blandwood Mansion and co-founded the nonprofit Preservation Greensboro.

Honeycutt, who owns the once-vacant lot where the house was moved, worked with Preservation Greensboro and Southern Evergreen on the project and bought the house to use as a residential rental property, one of 10 he owns in Greensboro.

He’s very proud of the finished product. “It’s much better than we anticipated it would be,” he said. “They (Southern Evergreen) took personal pride in it.”

Honeycutt plans to allow curious residents the chance to see it today before the renters he approved move in later this month.

The open-house event was organized in response to the community interest shown in the project because of the public move, when the house was seen by many during its journey from Blandwood to Cedar, and the preservation itself.
“We wanted the neighborhood to see it,” he said.

The house doesn’t have any official historic designations because no efforts have been made on that front, but it will have a plaque declaring it a Preservation Greensboro project that will be monitored and protected by a preservation easement. That means the house will need to be properly maintained without alterations that would disrupt its historic character.

“Our role in the future is to monitor the house, make sure that it’s cared for and that it remains a beautiful property,” said Preservation Greensboro executive director Benjamin Briggs.

Briggs and Honeycutt noted how well the home fits in on Cedar Street, where houses of similar period and architecture already reside.

But, mostly, it’s just gratifying to see the finished house with a new lease on life.

“It’s probably going to last another hundred years,” Miller predicted.