Glendale Holiday Home Tour

There's a reason people write songs and films about going home for the holidays. More than any other time of year, this is the season of homecomings, the time when we yearn for the comforts and traditions of the place that says "home" to us.

Ray and Kim Wood have only lived in their house for a year and a half. But this is a home.

The 1850s Tudor Gothic-style manor evokes a feeling of tradition and "holidays" that hits you as soon as you walk through the vestibule, step inside the massive wood doors and take in the home's dramatic entry. After all, it's not every entry that has plaster-cast Russian sleigh bells decorating the moulding on 13-foot ceilings.

Their home, the Samuel B. Allen House, will be one of the stops on this year's Glendale Holiday Home Tour Dec. 10. The home, which has a place on the National Register of Historic Places, has been decked out for tour occasion by Glendale Florist and Ethan Allen furniture. Look for an artificial tree in the entry, at the bottom of the grand, walnut-paneled stairway, trimmed with bows and bells. (The Woods' cats, Tristan and Caesar, love to curl up under it.) In the living room, there's a real tree from a local nursery decked out with pine cones and hydrangea that have been dried and sprayed. Then there are wreaths and garlands and other decorations, most of it natural and subtle in a way that you'd imagine it would have been back in Allen's day.

Allen, a druggist (though he likely would have gone by "apothecary"), had the stone home built from about 1852 to 1859. Before that, the property was the site of Heffner Tavern, and the Woods believe that a cellar on the property dates to that time.

But that's not even the most interesting thing about the home's three acres. A tunnel from the basement goes to the house across route 74, perhaps to a home that once belonged to another Allen family member. (Though it's sealed off, the Woods employed a company that used ground-penetrating radar to confirm its presence.) Kim said they think it was originally used by the family, though they have some indication that the house was part of the Underground Railroad at one time. And the tunnels may have had other uses as well.

"There's some lore that when Morgan's raiders came through, they put food, horses, runaway slaves – anything they could get in there" to hide it from the marauding Confederate cavalry, Kim said.

That the Woods came to own the 6,800-square-foot home at all was complete chance. Kim went to an open house there with her daughter, who is a history major and wanted to check it out for that reason. But things quickly took a turn.

"When I went through the house, the house said, 'you need to buy me,'" she said. "We just felt like it was a place that needed to be saved. The house needed us."

Kim's brother has a remodeling business, so she knew she had someone she could trust to do the needed work on the house. It had suffered extensive water damage, which meant mold and bubbly plaster on the inside. And outside, the porch was falling down, and there was so much overgrowth that she hadn't noticed the house when she'd driven by in the past.

That's all been fixed. On the porch, the new owners put back the sleigh bells, like those in the entry, that they could see were once there in old photos of the home. They also added copper scuppers made to look like wolf heads to drain the runoff from box gutters. (Water originally went to six cisterns on the property.) And they've remodeled the kitchen to better fit their needs.

A few other things had been made over the years before the Woods bought the home.  A butler's pantry was added. The front vestibule was enclosed. What once was a hallway became a closet and half bath. The living room, originally two rooms separated by pocket doors (you can still see in the moulding where it was divided), was opened up to one larger room. The basement, which would have once been just a hole in the floor with a ladder, was finished.

But despite all the changes over the years, the home still has a lot of its original touches. Like the hall chandelier, which once had gas going to every other light, and a crystal chandelier in the dining room that was electrified only within the last two or three decades. Despite its grandeur, and the beautifully ornate floral plaster work above it, Kim said the manor would have been considered a "casual home" for the period, a family home.

Electricity did exist at other parts of the home long before it was a common amenity. The original fuse box upstairs is numbered "52," includes the name of the company that made it, and covered by a silk embroidered cover with a photo of a woman presumably from the home's earliest history.

Ornate furniture from the early 1800s has also stayed with the home though multiple owners and may have been there since Allen's days. A dining table and chairs from 1901 have also remained with the house.

That's not all that has been left behind: The Woods have found all sorts of personal effects from previous owners. An 1800s wedding dress hung in the large attic. There were also meeting records from the 1890s stashed there. In the wine cellar, where "1852" is stamped in the concrete, there are bottles that date back to the 1960s.

Kim thinks it's not so surprising that those things have just ... stayed. People left those things behind because they tell the house's story, she figures.

"If you think of yourself as a caretaker of the property, you can understand the thought process there. That's how we think of ourselves. We want it to be here for another 160 years."

For the holidays, the Woods typically host 20 to 25 people, something that Kim said feels all the more special in this particular home.

"To us, the house is really warm and welcoming," she said. "It just draws you in. It seems like a home that has a lot of love in it. That's what we felt when we walked in."

Know of a Cool Home that we should feature? Email ssteigerwald@enquirer.com.

If you go

What: Glendale Holiday Home Tour

Where: For day of event ticket sales (noon-4 p.m.), head to Glendale Lyceum, 865 Congress Ave., or Glendale Community Library, 205 East Sharon Road. Tour attendees can tour the first and second floors of the Allen home, plus five other private homes, all decorated for the holidays. They can also visit the Glendale Lyceum, a 19th-century private club and popular wedding venue, where vintage clothing will be on display; and the Glendale Community Library, a former 19th-century private home, which will showcase hats and vintage beaded bags.

When: noon-5 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10

Tickets: $25 day of tour; $20 in advance (includes parking and reception)

Info:www.GlendaleHolidayHomeTour.org

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Source: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/2016/12/02/cool-homes-historic-glendale-home-decks-halls/94304238/

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