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EDEN — You might say the Tredways are accidental preservationists.

In 2009, when Guerrant and Janet Tredway bid on the rundown, two-story house on Center Church Road in Eden, they had no idea that the home on the auction block was a significant piece of Eden’s past.

They only knew that the looming hilltop house had become an eyesore, and they worried that if it fell into greater disrepair, it could lower the value of the apartments they own behind it .

So they thought they would make a modest bid, fix the house up a bit so that it was presentable, and then decide what to do with the white brick structure that sits on a couple of acres.

Two years and almost a quarter of a million dollars later, the Tredways are recipients of the Eden Preservation Society’s first annual award honoring individuals or groups involved in a historical preservation project.

That wasn’t what the Tredways set out to do.

In 2009, the city of Eden and the county had released tax liens on the Center Church Road property and were offering it at public auction. With a bid of about $26,500, the Tredways won the first round, but the federal government also held a tax lien and decided to list the home online for $40,000.

Weeks passed.

No offers came in.

Last year, at the end of March, the federal government gave up and released its lien.

By default, as much as anything, the Tredways had purchased a rattletrap of a house.

By then, snippets of the home’s past were surfacing.

Built in 1850, it was one of the few remaining houses from that time period in Eden. It was constructed by Dr. Anthony Bennings Johns II, a prominent Leaksville (now Eden) physician during the mid-19th century.

Whatever grandeur the home had then had been lost under piles of garbage.

“There was so much junk you couldn’t see the floors,” says Guerrant. “The more we cleared, the worse it seemed to get,” his wife, Janet, adds.

They found floors caved in, walls rotting, and even a place in the kitchen that had burned and walled over.

The most recent owners had no electricity or running water. There was rotten food in the fridge, and rats and squirrels had moved in and made themselves at home.

The Tredways started bringing the house back.

And along the way, the house started to grow on them. They can’t remember when they got the idea to make the home an events center — a place for weddings, parties and community gatherings — but eventually that became their goal.

They hauled out worn furniture and hauled in antiques, most from their own collections, including a bowed-glass hutch that belonged to Guerrant’s great-grandmother, his Lionel train collection and Janet’s antique glassware and china.

Guerrant, an electrician, rewired the home and hired others to replace plumbing, install a heating and air conditioning system, plaster, paint, refinish, replace and re-roof. It got a new kitchen, one that accommodates catering.

The Tredways got to know the house inside and out, marveling at its beautiful arched doorways and uneven walls and floors.

“I think that adds to its character,” says Guerrant.

And they got to know more about the home’s past, much of the information coming from Melissa Whitten, director of the Eden Historical Museum. She has researched the Johns family, focusing mostly on Annie Eliza Johns.

Annie was the oldest of the Johns’ four children and would have been a teenager when her father completed the home that was called Bleak House, perhaps after the Charles Dickens’ novel.

It has the architectural features of an I-house – a symmetrical, two-story farmhouse, featuring two rooms on each floor, connected by large central hallways. Bleak House had a small front porch with transoms on either side of the door; and in back of the home, the kitchen would have been in a separate building.

It was made of brick, indicating that the Johns were among the elite of Leaksville. Johns’ slaves most likely made the bricks by hand and also farmed the couple of hundred acres of land surrounding the house.

Though Johns would have been a man of means, it was Annie Johns who guaranteed the family’s name would have a place in the region’s history.

During the Civil War, she served as a matron in a hospital in Danville, Va., the last capital of the Confederacy. For three years she lived there, nursing ill and injured soldiers, a job many would have considered inappropriate for a lady of her stature.

She became known as the “Florence Nightingale of the Civil War.”

Whitten’s research indicates that Annie Johns inherited Bleak House when her father died in the 1870s. Before her own death in 1889, she gave the home to her brother, Anthony Bennings Johns III.

In the late-19th or early-20th century, a two-story addition was put on the house. It grew again in the mid-20th century when a one-story wing was added on the east side of the home. By that time, it was most likely owned by D. Floyd Osborne, a local attorney and former Leaksville mayor, who bought the house around 1950.

At some point, a two-story portico with columns was added to the front.

In August of 2010, with their renovations nearing completion, the Tredways petitioned the city of Eden to designate the home a local landmark.

It isn’t the first landmark to the Johns family in Eden. A Civil War Trails marker commemorating Annie Johns stands in front of Church of the Epiphany on Henry Street, where Annie was a dedicated member.

Whitten is responsible for getting the marker placed near the church where Annie is buried.

A decade ago, Whitten stumbled across Annie Johns’ name at the Sutherlin Museum in Danville. Intrigued that this war heroine was from Leaksville, Whitten started portraying her in historical presentations to help others appreciate the era and the woman’s contributions.

On Feb. 20, when the Eden Preservation Society presented the Tredways with a plaque to recognize their preservation efforts, Whitten as Annie Johns was there to participate. In period costume, she welcomed guests to the home her father built.

Along with other members of the Preservation Society, she’s pleased that the home is being used again.

Now named the Johns Manor House, it has three guest bedrooms that can be used by wedding parties and several rooms for meetings and events.

Already, the Tredways have some events booked.

Contact Myla Barnhardt at 627-1781, Ext. 116, or myla.barnhardt@news-record.com.