Sat Feb 11 2012
by Stephanie Fellenstein
Hudson Monthly Editor
This house at has come a long way since owners Jack and Chriss Stone first set eyes on it four years ago.
The 1927 kit house, one of the stops on the 63rd annual Hudson Home and Garden Tour June 17 through 19, was on the verge of being torn down when Jack had a vision.
"I was praying he knew what he was talking about," Chriss said, laughing.
Even Jack admits there was more work involved than he thought.
"Almost everything that could be wrong was wrong," he said.
The house arrives
The first of the "three sisters" -- three identical houses built next to each other -- originally belonged to Clifford and Clara Elliman. The house arrived in town by train, and two horse-drawn carriages delivered it to its current location. The other two "sisters" were finished a year later in 1928.
"At the time, they thought the railroad hub would be in Hudson," Chriss explained. "The three houses were built for three railroad executives."
The Stones were able to track down the Ellimans' granddaughter -- Merna -- who grew up in the house after her mother died. Merna helped fill in the blanks in the house's history when the three met in Connecticut. Old photographs showing Merna as a baby and later as a young girl offer clues to what the house, and neighborhood, originally looked like.
Joining the tour
The Stones are happy to open their doors to the public for the tour.
"People know this house. It's on a main road. We have had such community support throughout the whole process. This is our thank you to the community," Chriss says.
Visitors to the house will enter through the front door and gather in the reception area where a watercolor of the home by Nola Weiss hangs. Prints of Hudson in the four seasons, by Hilary Sheeter, hang further down the hall.
Immediately to the right is the living room.
"The windows, plaster and hardwood floors are all original," Chriss points out.
Attached to the living room is an enclosed porch. Built as an open porch, screens were added in the 1980s.
"It was in terrible shape," Jack said.
When the Stones enclosed it, they added a beadboard ceiling and carpet that is authentic to the period.
"This is our roaring '20s house," Chriss says.
On the way to the dining room, visitors will pass the original open staircase.
The dining room then leads to the central part of the house -- the kitchen.
"We gutted the kitchen," Jack says. "When we bought the house, there was a hole in the ceiling and rain poured through."
While the unique square shape of the kitchen is not as common today, it was very common in the 1920s, Chriss explained.
The kitchen was expanded slightly, and the Stones made sure the new flooring matched the rest of the house. An original built-in cabinet still stands on one end of the kitchen with new cabinets built to closely resemble the original. No detail is too small for the Stones. The new cabinets even include "rippled" glass in the doors, making them appear much older than they actually are.
Grueby green paint and tile, identical to the color of the kitchen in 1927, are featured on the beverage station. The color is repeated on the walls, in window treatments and through other decorative items in the kitchen. A tile back splash above the range features the trillium, the Ohio state flower.
The final feature in the kitchen is a breakfast nook tucked into a corner.
From the kitchen, visitors exit into a back screened porch. Built in 1981 -- dated newspapers were found in the walls -- the Stones added new screens, glass windows and floor tiles. Immediately outside the porch is a small pond.
"We wanted a pond where we could hear and see it," Chriss said, pointing out the goldfish swimming at the bottom.
Beyond the pond is a heated pool which was rehabilitated while the Stones were redoing the house. The pool and patio area are surrounded by a colorful mixture of plants, trees and shrubs, creating an escape off the main thoroughfare.
Rare specimens include a purple robe locust, German Christine Hageman daisy, lavender twist, weeping redbud, nishiki willows, sino calycanthus, "hartledge wine" and hinoki cypress.
"The purple robe locust will be doing its thing big time during the tour," Chriss said.
Unusual native plants include Dutchman's pipe, Paw Paw tree, bottlebrush buckeyes, ayssop, calamint and saucer magnolia.
An easel filled with photographs of the house over the years will be on display, helping visitors to see how far it has come.
"Jack's a big history buff. He took the house from the jaws of death," Chriss said. "We are just trying to honor its story."
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