Daily Newsletters
Account
Washington Evening Journal
111 North Marion Avenue
Washington, IA 52353
319-653-2191
A piece of history opens to public
NORTH ENGLISH — When businesses and organizations open their doors Saturday for holiday activities in North English, Barbara and Ken Brown will welcome visitors to their historic home at 113 Main Street.
Built in 1903, the two-story building that Ken and Barbara call home was originally Mahanna’s Harness and Buggy Shop, Barbara said last week from her home. Among its inventory were Velie buggies produced by Velie Motors Corporation in Moline, Illinois from 1908-1928. Willard Velie, the founder, was a maternal grandson of John Deere.
“We’ve lived a lot of places,” said Barbara. Ken worked for Exon Mobile, moving the family to several states, including Wyoming, Alabama, California.
The Mississippi natives moved to Iowa when Barbara, a retired psychiatrist, did her residency with the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City in 2003. Because they weren’t from Iowa, the Browns took little road trips to explore the state.
“We decided we’d stay because we like Iowa. We think liberally, but we live conservatively. It seemed to fit at the time,” Barbara said.
One day Ken saw an advertisement asking $8,000 for the property on Main Street in North English, Barbara said. They thought it was a mistake. Maybe the seller meant $80,000.
A call to the real estate agent confirmed that the price was $8,000, so the Browns drove to North English to look at it. The building had been vacant for 10 years, said Barbara. If the owner couldn’t sell it, the building would be demolished.
The Browns offered $5,300 and took title to the property. They put a new roof on it, but they still had to hang tarps that first Christmas to keep ceiling tiles from falling on them.
The tin ceiling in the guest room on the second floor is the only ceiling that is original, said Barbara. Ken used tin from ceilings elsewhere in the building to fill in the spaces, and he bought tin from other old houses to repair the ceilings in the rest of the home.
The Browns worked on the building while living in what is now a guest quarter — a bedroom with a kitchen. The Browns have sons in Canada, Florida and North Carolina who stay there, and a campaign worker stayed there once.
Carolyn Elwood, a member of the board of English Valleys History Center, as is Barbara, remembered having her hair cut and being hooked up to a machine to get a permanent in that room when she was a child.
The History Center has had tours of homes before, said Elwood, but this year it wanted to showcase downtown.
The Brown’s home has been on the holiday tour a couple of times before, said Barbara. Each time, more spaces in the house have been completed. “I think that’s why people come back, to see what we’ve done,” she said.
“It’s kind of like Iowa’s version of the Winchester House,” Barbara said, referencing the San Jose, California home of Sarah Winchester, the widow of firearms magnate William Winchester. “We just keep working on it.”
G.L. Mahanna, one of five brothers, built the harness shop. Curtis Mahanna worked out of the building across the street. He was a mortician and photographer and operated a furniture store, Brown said.
A fire across the street in 1900 or 1901 burned most of the buildings along that side, Brown said. In 1901, a fire burned the buildings on the side of the street where the Browns now live, including the building that had was originally on their lot.
Mahanna built the new building in 1903 and added to it in 1917, Brown said.
“We moved here full time in 2008,” said Ken. “We started spending most weekends here in 2007.”
The Browns restored the high ceilings and put windows where windows used to be. Ken said only four windows were left when they bought it. Others were filled in with concrete blocks or covered with plywood. “Everywhere there was a window originally, we put a window back in,” he said.
They removed plaster to reveal the original brick wall in a bedroom at the back of the house. They replaced the rotting floor with salvaged hard pine in the same diagonal pattern of the original floor.
The doors are not original, but they are old. “We try to reuse a lot of architectural salvage,” said Barbara.
The back stairs are from the Salvage Barn in Iowa City, Barbara said. Ken installed them. When the couple moved in, they had to access the first floor through one outside door and the second floor through another. The back staircase connects the two spaces on the inside.
“This room is pretty well finished,” Barbara said of the first-floor den. Ken put in the tin ceiling using pieces he purchased at a flea market in What Cheer and an old house in Atalissa. Barbara stenciled a pattern above the windows. The pattern isn’t even, she said, because the tops of the windows aren’t the same distance from the ceiling.
“We’ve lived in historic houses before,” said Barbara. “We like to reduce our carbon footprint. We like to reuse things when we can.” They do most of the work themselves.
The home will be open Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Barbara will serve coffee and other refreshments.
Admission is free, but donations will be accepted.
