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Fairfield to host tour of five unique homes Saturday
FAIRFIELD — Fairfield residents will have the chance to tour a selection of unique architectural styles this weekend.
A group of homeowners are collaborating to put together the first “Tour of Five Distinctive Homes in Fairfield.” The five homes will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30. There is no charge to attend.
“Tourists can visit the homes in any order and ask questions of the current owners,” stated the group on its Facebook event page. “These homes are rarely open to the public and have never all been open on the same day.”
The tour of homes was put together by John Freeberg and Susan Walch, and their home at 2329 Kale Boulevard is one of the featured homes. Freeberg said he and Walch built their home in 2011, and hosted annual open tours of it from 2012-2019.
“Recently, we were thinking that it was time to have an open house again,” Freeberg said. “I’ve long admired the [James A.] Beck House, so I thought about reaching out to those people because I’ve never seen the inside it. They were keen to have an open house, too.”
What started with a tour of two houses snowballed into three and then four. The fifth house on the tour is unoccupied, but it’s of great historical significance, and that is the Rodham Bonnifield House built in 1838 that still stands at Waterworks Park. That log house is only open to the public for special occasions, and luckily some volunteers have agreed to open it for Saturday’s six-hour tour.
Freeberg said he is happy with the variety of homes available for this year’s tour. He said he reached out to a few more homeowners, but some felt their home was not ready or they wanted it to remain private.
“I think we’ve got a good five,” he said.
Freeberg said he doesn’t necessarily plan to turn this into an annual event, but he noted that RAGBRAI wasn’t going to be an annual event when it started, either.
“If this does continue, I imagine the roster of homes would change every year,” he said.
The homes on the tour are:
James A. Beck House
401 E. Burlington Ave.
Built in 1896, and now owned by Richard and Kendra Lint
This home is named after the man who commissioned it in the late 19th century. Fairfield residents may also know this home as the “Sloca House,” after former owner Charles Sloca, a professor at Parsons College.
Richard and Kendra Lint purchased the home in 2020 and have been sprucing it up ever since. The couple posts photos and updates of their progress on the James A. Beck House Facebook page. Before moving to Fairfield, the couple and their daughter had been living in Portland, and Kendra was fascinated by a big, beautiful Victorian home with a round front porch and a tower. She investigated the home and discovered it was designed by George F. Barber. She began looking online for homes in that style, saw that the Beck House in Fairfield was for sale, and the rest is history.
James F. Clarke House
500 S. Main St.
Built in 1916, now owned by Sam and Jessica Garchik
James F. Clarke was a Fairfield doctor who, among other exploits, brought the game of golf to Fairfield after playing it at a doctors’ conference in Chicago in 1892. Clarke started a seven-hole golf course in town, originally called the Kahgahgee Golf Club and what is now the Fairfield Golf & Country Club. It is the oldest continuously run golf course west of the Mississippi River. Just a few years later in 1900, Clarke started the Fairfield hospital.
According to information from the James A. Beck Facebook page, the home that Clarke commissioned in 1916 was designed by the prominent Prairie School architect F. Barry Byrne, who worked with Frank Lloyd Wright. Byrne employed the artisan Alfonso Ianelli to design the furniture, carpeting, light fixtures and wall stenciling.
Renwick Cottage 2000
1105 W. Fillmore Ave.
Built in 2000, owned by Tim and Debbie Freeberg Renwick
This home was designed and built with reclaimed materials, and is just under 600 square feet. It was moved to its current location at the west end of Fillmore Avenue in 2019, when work spaces were added. According to the Beck Facebook page, its many space-saving features were inspired by Scandinavian rural architecture, houseboats and gypsy wagons.
“Both of the owners are artists, and the house is very deeply artistic,” Freeberg said. “It’s a delight to go into.”
To access this home, motorists should keep right when they come to the fork in the road that divides West Fillmore near Faith Baptist Church. Follow the red balloons by the gravel lane down to the home.
The Farm House at Hickory Highlands
2329 Kale Blvd
Built in 2011, owned by John Freeberg and Susan Walch
Freeberg said he and Walch built this home so that it would have the appearance of having emerged from the earth. The 1,150-square-foot home blends into the landscape. It has a number of unique features, such as the frame of the house being made from whole trees.
“Those are from the timber just 200 yards away,” Freeberg said. “You don’t see a lot of timber frames made with whole trees. Usually, the timbers are cut rectangular, but with ours, we stripped off the bark and put them up.”
The house also has a garden roof, where sedum grows. Freeberg said it can handle drought as well as a deluge.
“We have a variety of plants that come and go with the wind,” Freeberg said.
The Rodham Bonnifield House
Old Settlers Park, next to Waterworks Park
Built in 1838, overseen by Jefferson County Historic Preservation and Fairfield Parks Department
The Bonnifield Log House was built in 1838 by the Rhodam and Nancy Bonnifield family to replace the makeshift cabin built the previous year when they settled in what was to become Jefferson County. According to Fairfield history as recorded by Susan Fulton Welty in her book “A Fair Field,” in March 1839, when city commissioners were visiting the Bonnifields, they described the “pretty prairie” of the new town, and Mrs. Bonnifield suggested the name Fairfield. Years later, in 1908, the Old Settlers Association dismantled the long-deserted cabin, marking each log so it could be accurately rebuilt in Old Settlers Park, adjacent to Waterworks Park.
Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com
