Mostly sunny. High 92F. Winds light and variable..

Partly to mostly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 73F. Winds light and variable.

The dream of resurrecting North Vernon to its former glory is manifesting into reality thanks to locals who were willing to put their money where there mouth was.

One example of this manifested resurrection comes in the form of the renovation of large, historic homes on State Street and Jennings Street.

Daniel Smith and Haylee Ballard, a young local couple, purchased the historic Tripp-Guthrie house at 208 South Jennings Street and have refurbished it while keeping as much of the original house in tact as possible. They are the first people outside the line of Tripp family descendants to own and live in the home. It was featured in the Jennings County Historical Society’s 2020 Town and Country Tour and will be featured again this year. It is also currently for sale.

Greg and Nita Hicks are owners of 405 South Jennings Street, another historic Tripp family home, which they purchased in November 2018. Nita said she has always loved Jennings Street and has long awaited a chance to renovate an older home. “People thought we were backward for taking this on at our age,” she joked.

The Hickses said the house didn’t need a lot of renovation, they just tweaked it to fit their needs by turning the dining room into a kitchen and turning the old kitchen into a downstairs bathroom. They removed the wallpaper and ripped up carpet to showcase the original, 134-year-old wooden floors underneath. They also tour down the old carriage house and built a new garage. The majority of the refurbishments took approximately 1.5 years.

Nita is retired from Hilex Poly and Greg was the first economic development director for Jennings County. Greg describes their home renovation as “another form of economic development, it’s preserving our history.”

But, arguably, the house that started the historic North Vernon home renovation trend is the Queen Anne at 305 South Jennings Street, known as the “Cone House,” that was completely dilapidated and condemned to the wrecking ball before Historic Landmarks and Greg Sekula stepped in to save it.

The Cone House, named for its builder, Joseph Cone, was designed by George F. Barber, a designer from Tennessee, whose designs were sold from catalogs. Many of the houses surrounding the Cone House were designed by Barber, but Indiana Landmarks describes this particular house as being the most elaborate.

Joseph Cone was a prominent local businessman who served one term as North Vernon mayor in the 1910s. His business, established in 1879, was associated with the manufacturing of spokes and elm hub blocks. Cone was also a board member of the First National Bank from its inception in 1885 and was president until his death. He also served on the Jennings County Council.

The home was later owned by Indiana State Senator Ray max Baker who served in the legislature in the later 1950s to the early 1960s.

But sadly, as time went on, the house was unable to be maintained until it declined into near-ruin. In 2017, the Jennings County Area Plan Commission secured a court-ordered eviction and signed a demolition order. But then Greg Sekula with Indiana Landmarks stepped in.

“The place had been on our radar for years,” Sekula said in an article on the Indiana Landmarks website. “The commission’s action provided the first significant opportunity for us to engage the owner in a strategy to save the house.”

Through the efforts of many, the house was stabilized, put onto the market and then into the hands of Tony Jordan. Over the past few years, Jordan continued to have the house restored to its former glory and the fruits of his labor can be seen to this day on a corner of Jennings and Vernon Streets. According to Tyler Stock, Jordan’s realtor, Mike Whitehead spent countless hours working on that house, specifically the woodwork. And thus, with his mission accomplished, Jordan decided to put the house back on the market.

The new buyer is a man named Rusty Hamilton who was given the keys to the house last Friday. Indiana Landmarks holds preservation covenants on the house and, according to Sekula, they are working with Hamilton on his rehabilitation plan for the property.

“I think the restoration of the Cone House was a catalyst with other rehabilitations of historic homes in the State Street and Jennings Street areas,” said Sekula, which definitely seems to be the case, with the works of Smith and Ballard, the Hickses and, more recently, Dave and Pam Woodall, as evidence.

The Cone House’s neighbor at 306 South State Street is currently under renovation. The house was purchased by Jennings County natives Dave and Pam Woodall of Woodall’s Roofing & Home Improvement. As their company name would should suggest, this reno is not the Woodalls’ first project, but they have never attempted one of this scale, nor is this house for a client, but for themselves.

Pam Woodall said that she has always been fascinated with Victorian Era houses. She recalled how she and her husband would pass by the house at 306 South State Street, which had been vacant for approximately five years, and wonder why no one had purchased it.

“We decided to take a look at it just out of curiosity, but once we saw the character and the beautiful woodwork of the home, we wanted to see it restored,” Pam said.

After purchasing the house this past January, Pam found bound copies of its warranty deeds spanning the years of 1825-1988; the first entry is from the U.S. Government to John Newland. She also found a bound contract with Orlando Bacon to construct the dwelling. The warranty deed shows that Bacon purchased the property on March 18, 1895, from N.D. and Eliza Gaddy, so the house was most likely constructed in 1895 or after.

With so much history to preserve, Pam said their plan is to keep everything in the house as close to its original state as possible. The first task was to remove all the debris from the interior of the home, then to cut down trees and vines that were causing problems to the structure as well as tear down an old carriage house that was beyond repair.

Due to some deterioration, the Woodalls have replaced most of the windows, removed the concrete floor and poured a footer and new concrete floor for the front and side porches. The front porch columns have been taken down and restored. As is the case with most historic home renovations, many more things need patched, painted, repaired, torn out, or replaced, which means someone is at the house every single day.

“There is still much to be done,” said Pam. “This type of task is a labor of love and one must have great patience, because when repairing one thing we, sometimes, find others things that need attention.”

The most difficult thing so far has been finding curved glass for a missing window in the turret — a small tower at the side of the house — which Pam claims is “a lost art in America.” A replacement window would not work because the surface is flat and the turret walls are rounded. After much research, the Woodalls were able to find a company in Florida that specialized in curved glass.

Pam’s favorite thing about the project has been discovering the home’s design and construction, as well as information about the families who lived in it. She learned that her house was designed by Barber, as mentioned above, and she believes her house is Barber’s design 36, as shown in the book “Architectural Ragtime.”

“I’ve found the whole process exciting, but there are a few things that stand out,” Pam added. One of those was finding that the last layer of wallpaper in the living room featured a train, which Pam said is “perfect for a railroad town.” She sent a picture of the wallpaper and the stamping from the back to a designer and architectural historian who specializes in wallpaper. He told her he believes it is from the 1940s.

“In 1941, William and Marie Fitzgerald became the second family to own the house,” Pam explained. “We found a marking in the turret that says, ‘GWR 1941,’ and in the basement ‘Furnace installed Lloyd H Robert, 9-1-41,’ so perhaps the Fitzgeralds did some remodeling and repairs after their purchase.”

Finally, Pam loves the number of people who have stopped by to share a memory they have of the house. Pam looks forward to hosting family holidays, get togethers, book clubs and tea parties once the house is finished, which should be, “God will, of course,” sometime this autumn.

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos.

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.