A tour of the historic homes of Yardley, Pa., offers traces of the town’s past.
By: Megan Sullivan
In a historic home, little clues from the past always seem to surface, as if to remind its modern-day owners what life inside it used to be like. Bottles of liquor hidden within a stairway newel post may be from a stash long forgotten by a gentleman rebelling against Prohibition. Old newspapers stuffed within walls that once provided insulation now serve as interesting reading material as a new homeowner completes renovations decades later.
No matter how many walls knocked down and rebuilt and additions made, or how much siding replaced and paint applied, the home still clings tightly to its history. The Houses of Yardley, a tour of nine of Yardley (Pa.) Borough’s most distinctive buildings on Oct. 23, will share these traces of the past and show how they accent homes that have withstood the test of time.
The Yardley Historical Association will host the tour, which includes stops at an ancestral home of the original Yardley family, Canal Street Colonials, a variety of South Main Street houses in Federal, Victorian and Bungalow styles, and the Old Library by Lake Afton. An old-fashioned horse-drawn wagon will roll along Main and Canal streets to take visitors from one section of the tour to another. Money raised will benefit the association’s efforts to maintain the library and its collection of books, photographs, documents and ephemera.
Down busy Main Street, past current-day conglomerates Starbucks and Wawa, stands a beautiful Gothic Revival-style Victorian home circa 1850. A meticulous four-year renovation breathed new life into Bob Davis and Jeff Durachta’s home, while restoring the exterior as nearly as possible to its original appearance. Cedar boards beneath aluminum siding were repaired and painted a bluish-gray, and a green and plum trim was added. Cedar shakes replaced an asphalt shingle roof and the front porch was rebuilt using mahogany for the floor and the original columns.
Everything inside the house is brand new, save a few pieces, and designed in a 1920s to 1940s farmhouse style. "The house was built by the Quakers originally and they never really did anything fancy, so we’ve tried to keep the same farmhouse look," Mr. Davis says.
The original doors to the home were stripped and refinished, and now serve as the downstairs bathroom door. A mantel from the downstairs was redone and moved to the upstairs master bathroom, framing the sink and vanity mirrors.
Those little remnants of the past quickly surfaced as renovations were underway. "We were ripping out some stuff in the back here, and there was some newspaper from late 1897," Mr. Davis says, pointing to their plant room. A variety of old items were also found within the stairway newel post. "This here is a really interesting piece," he says, holding up a small green glass bottle. "It’s a bottle of smelling salts. I guess the gentlemen in the house would drink and the ladies would use the smelling salts."
A beautiful deck off the master bedroom with a hot tub overlooks the backyard garden and pond, complete with a staircase down the side of the house. An all-glass back wall in the dining room opens up to a lower-level deck.
Across the street is another historic home built in 1837, now painted a light green with dark plum shutters. Research done by current owners Dana and George O’Neil revealed that a family of spinsters originally owned the home. "There were a lot of, as they called them in deeds, spinster ladies just unmarried women that passed it from sister to sister," Ms. O’Neil says. The house retains many of its original features, but has been renovated to make it more livable for the couple and their two young children, ages 4 and 17 months. "I have nothing breakable in this house," she says, laughing. "I don’t have antiques, I have early Fisher Price and Playskool."
When they expanded the children’s playroom and took a full bathroom out, an original outside well was discovered. "It was lined with stone, it was pretty wild," Ms. O’Neil says. A second well was found underneath the kitchen sink and newspapers inside the walls showed that work was done on the house around the 1920s and ’30s. A large fireplace in the kitchen, leaded glass windows, a claw-foot bathtub and a dining room chandelier were small parts of the past retained. Narrow hallway closets also speak of the home’s past.
"It’s hysterical," she says. "You can’t fit anything in them. My god, they’re just useless, but that’s what they used."
The backyard has a large patio and a small barn that now serves as a workout room, storage area and potting shed. A small area in the front of the barn looks as though it once served as a place to keep horses. The upstairs loft could be turned into something really special, Ms. O’Neil says, but bats currently inhabit it. Next to a swing set is her daughter’s playhouse, a miniature replica of their home.
Off East Afton Avenue, a house constructed in 1835 for canal workers can be found on Canal Street, now painted in patriotic blue with a bright red door. The structure fell into disrepair, as can be seen in an old black-and-white photo, and was used for storage for the neighboring Leedom Lumber business in the 1960s.
"In the picture, it looks like a shack," says Leslie Jordan, who lives in the house with her husband Jim and their daughter. In 1970, the owner of the lumberyard moved in and added a kitchen, master bedroom and baths.
The Jordans completed a major exterior renovation last year. "(The lumber yard owner) had done a lot of renovations that were unusual and using the supplies that he had," Ms. Jordan says. "The siding was aluminum and two different colors, both tan-based, but one was a regular tan and the other a pinkish tan. Which was fine, if you only looked at one side of the house at a time," she says.
They replaced the aluminum siding with cedar, added a cedar shake roof, all-new windows and copper gutters. The owners right before them, who expanded the master bedroom and added a deck, did the only other renovations. Stairs now lead down to the backyard from the deck, to another deck atop a small ivy hill with a hot tub.
The home is furnished with a lot of family antiques, Ms. Jordan says, many from her grandparents’ farm in Montgomery County dating back to a land grant from William Penn. In addition to these antiques, which include a 17th century needlework from Lancaster County and a desk that was formerly President Martin Van Buren’s, the walls are decorated with artwork by contemporary American artists and artisans.
Having lived in a few different historical homes over the years, Ms. Jordan says she likes the look and feel of these types of houses, and thinking about how much history happened within them and all around them.
"I’m not put off by the fact that the doors don’t shut right or by holes in the floor or small closets… They need more love and care than a new house," she says. "I like the idea that they’ve been around a while and have seen the passage of time. To think, what was going on back then… And at one point, this was a new house to somebody."
The Houses of Yardley tour will be held in Yardley Borough Oct. 23, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Homes are located on South Main and Canal streets. Tickets cost $18 in advance and are available at McCaffrey’s, Signature Plus, Sprouts, Yardley Mail and Parcel, Yardley Jewelers or by calling (215) 321-3528. On the day of the tour, tickets can be purchased for $20 at the Old Library, 46 W. Afton Ave., or 27 Canal St. Carriage stops are located at the parking area next to the Cold Spring Beverage Company driveway on North Main Street, the parking lot of the north end of Canal Street and the Texaco Station on South Main Street. For information, call (215) 493-6625.