1983 Pantagraph Update on the House Restoration

The Pantagraph

November 23, 1983

Jones House Shaping Up

By: Terrie Joplin

PONTIAC — Seven years have passed since the home was purchased and the owners have yet to polish the antique furniture, relax in a rocking chair in the sitting room, or pull the handmade quilts over plump, down-filled pillows.

But the owners are not too impatient. They knew when they purchased the house that neither they, nor anyone else, would ever live in it.

When the Livingston County Historical Society bought the Jones home in Pontiac in 1976, they knew they faced a formidable project. The house, which was built in 1858 by John Dehner, is the second oldest brick home in the city, and was in danger of being condemned.

Even in its dilapidated state, though, the house had charm. Mary Dievendorf said that she has always thought the house was beautiful. Mrs. Dievendorf and Thelma Asper are co-chairpersons of the interior restoration committee. Their plan is to have the west sitting room decorated by spring.

The home is a two-story, four-room building in the Gothic style, with arched windows and a gabled roof. Named for Henry Jones, a prominent Pontiac newspaperman who occupied it from 1899 to 1921, the home has undergone many alterations. Several rooms had been added and the dwelling made into three apartments.

Now it has been restored to the original design. In 1978, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. That accomplishment means that certain regulations must be followed in renovating the house, said John Perring, chairman of the restoration committee.

On the interior, for example, existing plaster in good condition must be preserved, so the damaged plaster was carefully chipped away, and the new plaster applied to the irregular shapes of the original. The smooth white walls and ceilings display the old and new in a crazy quilt design of yellowish lines which mark the mergers.

The state provided $25,000 for the restoration of the exterior, Perring said. When one looks at the house, one sees the thick, gray shake roof, the rebuilt, red twin chimneys, and the arched windows in their restored frames gleaming with the wavy, pitted glass of the era.

Wooden tracery curves in the small panes framing the front door which has been stripped to the bare wood. A concrete walk, which will be replaced with one of brick, leads to the new front porch.

The brick exterior looks well-matched and intact. For repairs, stacks of bricks were brought from a Peoria building of the same era. Mortar was mixed to duplicate the original.

Inside the home, a stairway rises from a central hallway and curves to the east. The stripped walnut spindles and newel post are back in their original positions after having been removed to make way for a wall. Only three spindles had to be reproduced, said Perring.

Two large square rooms open from either side of the short, narrow hallway. The wide floorboards are dark with age and use, and marked where carpets once lay. The floors will be sanded and stained, and perhaps decorated with in-grain carpeting, said Mrs. Asper, which were sewn in narrow strips.

The soft brick of the three fire-places in the home is pitted and blackened from wood and coal fires. The hearths are unfinished. Comfort, though, comes through the metal vents dotting the floors. A heat pump, which will provide both heat and cooling, rests in the backyard.

There are only two shallow closets in the home, but the ample room dimensions suggest the presence of wardrobes. Although there may be a lavish piece of furniture, the bulk of the furniture will be ordinary, said Perring. Dehner, who ran a general store, was not a wealthy man, he said.

At the top of the stairs, light flows from the windows facing north and south. In the west bedroom, a small area thought to be a child’s room, faces south.

“We’d like to start with the child’s room,” said Mrs. Asper, but she and Mrs. Dievendorf said that that would be impractical, because the purpose of the restoration is to make the home available to the public as quickly as possible. Having the sitting room decorated and available for viewing is the more practical choice.

There have been many delays and money is a problem. “You could build a new house much cheaper,” said Perring. In order to reproduce the interior window trim, for instance, cutters had to be made for a lathe. There are also priorities as to how the money should be used.

Mrs. Asper said that wallpaper money went toward the brick wall, which was erected to protect the west side of the house from drainage. The low, wide wall itself is protected now by sheets of black plastic. A limestone cap of three inches with an overhang of two inches will finish the wall. But, said Perring, the Joliet limestone, which is harder than Livingston county limestone and which was used both for the original and re-stored window sills, is available only on a sporadic basis.

When the committee was faced with the drainage problem, they decided that a low brick wall would be appropriate to that era. When work was actually begun, though, said Perring, they made the exciting discovery that they were replacing the past. The present wall was built on the footings of a previous one.

In the backyard there are several projects awaiting the committee’s attention. The wall is to be extended along the east perimeter. A porch with “an arbor effect” and an outbuilding will be replaced, said Perring, and a turn of the century carriage house will be renovated.

A major project is the replacement of a wooden room at the rear of the house in which Dehner lived while his brick home was being built. The tantalizing shape of the missing room is apparent on the brick wall where the roof line rises to a peak, and the mortar between the bricks was not smoothed because the bricks were put directly against the one-room cabin.

When it is replaced, the room will be made into a kitchen and dining area, said Mrs. Dievendorf. With the exception of the wall, though, these projects will wait.

Work on the interior will begin this January, said Perring. Woodwork will be finished and a local decorator will apply the wallpaper, which will be selected from an assortment of replicas.

To guide their restoration efforts, the committee have relied on several books, the chief of which is a replica of Andrew Jackson Downing’s “Architecture of Country Houses” which was originally published in 1850. The book gives plans and detailed descriptions of popular styles.

Work will proceed as income dictates. “We keep solvent by only doing what we can pay for,” said Perring. He added that memorials are a significant source of income.

As work begins this winter on the west sitting room, the committee will direct its attention to restoring the other rooms. The public will see the sitting room first, but eventually, said Perring, the rest of the house will be open “several days a week” to those who enjoy a look at life in the 1850s.