Petersilie house 'restored, not just remodeled'

Currently under renovation, the Petersilie house is featured as a work in progress.The 2008 Washington-Wilkes Spring Tour of Homes is scheduled for Friday and Saturday, April 4 and 5. The annual tour is sponsored by the Kiwanis Club and the Woman's Club in partnership with the Washington-Wilkes Chamber of Commerce. This year's tour will feature three lofts on The Square in Downtown Washington on the Candle light Tour Friday night; and four homes on the Day Tour on Saturday. The lofts are Stephen Sanders and Linda Lurwig located over Pop-Lahr Possibilities on the corner of Spring Street; Renee Brown, over Master's Wildlife Services; and Roger and Vivian Walker next door to the Fitzpatrick Hotel. Hours for this tour are 6-9 p.m. Downtown shops on The Square will be open during regular working hours and from 6-9 p.m. Shops will be open for the Day Tour from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. The Day Tour homes are Peacewood, B.J. and Bill deGolian on the Tignall Road (former Saunders home); Gail Boyd and Ted Bush, North Alexander Avenue; Pamela and Rod Eaton, 211 South Jefferson Street; Beth and Frank Petersilie, 207 Water Street (former home of Lairiee and the late Wallace Rodgers.); and the John Boyd house at Tignall. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mark and Emilie Waters will host the Dessert Soiree Friday evening at their home on East Robert Toombs Avenue. Headquarters for the Candlelight Tour is at the Chamber of Commerce officeon The Square. Headquarters for the Day Tour will be the Washington Wilkes Elementary School on East Street off East Robert Toombs Avenue. Courtesy cars will provide transportation for visitors to the various homes and other sites. Any home on the tour may be viewed individually by paying $10 at the door. Churches, museums, and historical sites will be open on Saturday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; and Sunday, April 6, from 1-5 p.m. The cost for a combination Friday and Saturday tour package is $60.00 each. The cost for the Friday Candlelight Tour and Soiree is $35.00. Cost for the Day Tour on Saturday is $35.00 each. The Woman's Club luncheon on Saturday is by reservation only and is $15.00 each. Tickets will be available at tour headquarters and may be reserved in advance by mailing checks made payable to Spring Tour of Homes, P.O. Box 1293, Washington 30673; or by calling the Chamber of Commerce at 706-678-2013. For more in formation on the Tour and for a ticket order form, go to the Tour website at www.wwtourofhomes. com The News-Reporter will feature one of the homes each week. Featured this week is the home of Beth and Frank Petersilie. 210 Water Street John William Samuel Lowe, a Wilkes County landowner who owned extensive property in the City of Washington, built this house in the late 1800s. The house reflectsstyles of Greek Revival architecture with a tall columned front porch. In its original state the wide hall featured a wide central staircase with a gallery midway which divided into a double stairway to enter the upstairs hall. Sliding doors opened from the downstairs hall into the parlors and into the dining room. The back hall circled under the staircase gallery and opened onto the back porch. The eight Federal style mantels, interior woodwork and wainscoting were also original to the house. There were five bedrooms with walk-in closets and four bathrooms. The arched doorway fanlights are repeated on the second story balcony door. Mr. and Mrs. Jamie Ellington lived in the house in the 1940s and were owners of Ellington's Jewelry Store which was located in the building now occupied by The Sandwich Shop on The Square in Downtown Washington. Wallace and Lairee Myers Rodgers moved into the house as newlyweds in 1953 and later bought the house. After the death of Mr. Rodgers in 2003, Mrs. Rodgers sold the property to Frank and Beth Petersilie of St. Augustine, Fla., in 2005, and they began restoration of the stately old house. The new owners have tried to keep the house as much within in the period in which it was built as possible. Bathrooms have been upgraded, using clawfoot bathtubs and white tile to resemble fixtures that were used when indoor plumbing began to be more readily available around the late 1880s and 1890s. The only room that does take a departure is the kitchen. Modern devices are concealed as much as possible and where they were exposed an attempt was made to purchase things that looked old. Granite countertops were chosen because of Wilkes County's close proximity to the granite industry. An original kitchen cabinet was stripped. All of the wood in the house, except for insides of closets, has been stripped with careful attention to detail. Most of the paint colors have been taken from original chips of plaster that showed what was used. When unavailable, colors were chosen that were used at that time. The back porch had to be removed, so a sunroom and patio were put in its place. The master bath vanities are made of old heart pine to resemble the furniture aspect of bathroom fixtures of the time. The medallions were taken from a mold of the original medallions in another house in Washington. Overhead light fixtures have been chosen for the appearance of having been gas lighting converted to electric, as would have been the natural course of evolution for improvements. When stripping the wood, it came to light that several fireplace mantels had been sold at some point. Contractor Mike Dyches designed and built the replaced mantels to reflectwhat would have been built at the time. The fireplaces were installed as wood burning, then later converted to coal. This fact was discovered during the stabilization process and lining installation, so the decision was made to keep the wood burning design. At some point through the years, the front round wood columns on the porch had been sold and replaced with brick set in a square. Although these original columns were located, the Petersilies felt it best to just veneer the existing brick. The grounds have been landscaped in keeping with the time period. As Beth Petersilie says, "The house has been restored, not just remodeled. There is a difference and I think it will show in the final analysis."