Published on February 18, 2014

After nearly a decade of restoration, Columbia home where Woodrow Wilson lived reopens

COLUMBIA, S.C. - After nearly a decade of renovations, the South Carolina home where President Woodrow Wilson lived as a teenager is reopening to the public as a museum not only about the politician but also the Reconstruction Era.

The home where the 28th president of the United States moved at age 13 and spent his teenage years reopened Feb. 15.

Wilson's father taught at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Columbia and was minister at First Presbyterian Church, where Wilson's father, mother and sister are all buried.

The villa-style home built in 1871 is one of four historic sites for Wilson along with his birthplace in Stanton, Va.; a home in Augusta, Ga., where he grew up; and the Washington, D.C., home where he lived after his time as president. The South Carolina home is the state's only presidential site.

Saved from demolition in 1928 after residents protested, the historic home in downtown Columbia closed its doors and grounds to the public in 2005 when plaster fell from the ceiling in some of the downstairs rooms and water damage to the home's foundation became evident.

"Rather than just start pulling out artifacts from those rooms that were affected, we decided to go ahead and close the whole site," said John Sherrer, director of cultural resources at Historic Columbia, which maintains the property.

The $3.6 million project to restore the home, which is owned by Richland County, was funded through tax money and private donations. During the nearly decade-long closure, Historic Columbia spent that time doing a historic analysis, which determined details like the blueprint of the home when the Wilsons lived in it and what had been added and closed up in the decades since.

"The end result was a building that, structurally, looked like it did when the Wilsons called this home," Sherrer said. "If Tommy Wilson (Woodrow's nickname) and his family had showed up here in 2005, they'd be walking around going, 'What's that window doing there?' or 'How can we get from this room to that room?' ... Now what we have is a building that more genuinely reflects what they would have been accustomed to."

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After nearly a decade of restoration, Columbia home where Woodrow Wilson lived reopens

Beacon-News STaff February 18, 2014 6:56PM

Updated: February 19, 2014 11:15AM

The city of Aurora announces another round of funding for the Single Family Restoration Program.

The program provides homeowners with forgivable loans of up to $30,000 to remove additional apartment units created in structures which were originally built as single-family residences. This program may be eligible to address hundreds of older Aurora homes that were subdivided after World War II.

The program is an incentive that will subsidize 90 percent of costs specific to returning a subdivided house back to single-family usage. A maximum of three units are allowed for subsidy at a $10,000 maximum subsidy per unit.

Program funds can be used for engineering/architecture, building and planning fees and construction costs related to a unit reconversion project. Owners must currently live in one of the units, and homes that receive program benefits can never again be divided.

The city will take program applications through 5 p.m., March 28. Application packages are available on the city of Aurora website at: http://www.aurora-il.org.

An application package and supporting materials are required.

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Funding available for home restoration program

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Casualty Restoration Services - Home Restoration in Cincinnati Ohio - Video

BAKERSFIELD, CA- A local woman battling stage four lung cancer returns home to find someone was in her house. But what they did to her home, brought a smile to her face.

Carmen Munoz had no idea what her son and his friends were up to. When she walked into her home Saturday afternoon she was greeted with cheers and shouts of surprise! Emotions poured out of Munoz as she saw her new kitchen for the first time.

Her home makeover was the first by a new charity organization called "Kitchens 4 Cancer." Its a combined effort from the Comprehensive Blood and Cancer Center, local contractors and Woodmasters to help cancer patients.

Munoz has lived in her home for 30 years and has always wanted a new kitchen. Her son, Raymond Saldana, is a contractor told her a little white lie this year saying that he did not have the time.

While she was away visiting family he contacted Kitchens 4 Cancer. Just last week the restoration effort began and Saldana thought some personal healing would take place as well.

"Whenever you do a remodel to your personal stuff it does some healing on the inside, Saldana said. I think there is going to be some healing going on in the inside"

He was right as 30 volunteers came out to make the remodel work happen in less than a week.

"We have all felt good everyone wants to help, Saldana said. The response for the community and all the people that wanted to participate, it is phenomenal."

Dr. Ravi Patel says the healing process is a journey not just for the cancer patient but for friends and family.

"The whole journey of cancer is a difficult one but there are many magic moments in it, Patel said. There are moments of happiness there are moments of crying but the thing about cancer is that it brings the whole family together."

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Cancer patient receives surprise kitchen upgrade

Austin, TX (PRWEB) February 18, 2014

Trilogy Restoration just completed a move to their new office space located at 2100 W William Cannon Dr Ste J Austin, TX 78745. The move was prompted by the continued growth Trilogy has experienced over the past year. As Trilogy continues to hire new project managers, superintendents, and other office personnel to handle their growing restoration business, the old office space just did not offer the space Trilogy now requires.

Trilogy Restoration offers an extensive list of restoration repair services including water damage repair, fire damage repair, storm damage repair, wind damage repair as well as mold removal and remediation. While many restoration companies in Austin only offer water removal and dry out services, Trilogy offers complete repair and rebuild services for practically any type of damage to homes and businesses.

Mr. Wright contributes Trilogys growth and success to the companys continued commitment to their clients. Trilogys goal is to restore their clients properties to their pre-loss condition as quickly as possible and to take care of all the small details along the way so that their clients can get back to their normal lives. This includes working directly with their insurance companies and taking care of most of the required insurance paper work for their clients. When you put your clients best interest above your own, it will eventually lead to growth and success, and that is what were seeing now, says Mr. Wright.

Several Trilogy Restoration crews are busy restoring many of the homes that experienced water damage during the Onion Creek flash flood on October 31 of last year. During this historic flash flood, more than 1,200 homes were damaged by water. Some homes experienced such extensive water damage that they required almost a complete rebuild. Many of these residents along Onion Creek chose Trilogy Restoration for their restoration projects because of their strong reputation in the Austin area and their vast experience in the restoration industry.

While Trilogy hopes to stay put in their new office space for a while to come, they look forward to continued growth in the Austin area and hope to serve even more local residents with their home restoration needs in the coming years. If your home or commercial property experiences damage due to a natural disaster or accident of any type, call the professional restoration team at Trilogy directly at (512) 582-7277, or to learn more, visit them online at http://www.trilogyrestoration.com.

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Expansive Growth Prompts Move to New Office for Trilogy Restoration in Austin, TX

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After nearly a decade of renovations, the South Carolina home where President Woodrow Wilson lived as a teenager is reopening to the public as a museum not only about the politician but also the Reconstruction Era.

On Saturday, to kick off Presidents Day weekend, visitors will once again be able to see the home where the 28th president of the United States moved at age 13 and spent his teenage years.

Wilson's father taught at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Columbia and was minister at First Presbyterian Church, where Wilson's father, mother and sister are all buried.

The villa-style home built in 1871 is one of four historic sites for Wilson along with his birthplace in Stanton, Va.; a home in Augusta, Ga., where he grew up; and the Washington, D.C., home where he lived after his time as president and is South Carolina's only presidential site.

Saved from demolition in 1928 after residents protested, the historic home in downtown Columbia closed its doors and grounds to the public in 2005 when plaster fell from the ceiling in some of the downstairs rooms and water damage to the home's foundation became evident.

"Rather than just start pulling out artifacts from those rooms that were affected, we decided to go ahead and close the whole site," said John Sherrer, director of cultural resources at Historic Columbia, which maintains the property.

The $3.6 million project to restore the home, which is owned by Richland County, was funded through tax money and private donations. During the nearly decade-long closure, Historic Columbia spent that time doing a historic analysis, which determined details like the blueprint of the home when the Wilsons lived in it and what had been added and closed up in the decades since.

"The end result was a building that, structurally, looked like it did when the Wilsons called this home," Sherrer said. "If Tommy Wilson and his family had showed up here in 2005, they'd be walking around going, 'What's that window doing there?' or 'How can we get from this room to that room?' ... Now what we have is a building that more genuinely reflects what they would have been accustomed to."

The home also now has a new roof, shutters and a wood foundation that needed to be replaced because of water damage. The project also included a revamp of the home's exterior paint scheme, which Sherrer says is now closer to what they would have been when Wilson lived there and is being replicated by preservationists working on other Columbia-area buildings from the same era. Once painted white and gray, now the home's outside is cast in more vibrant but still earthy tones, with tan and brown trim and deep blue-green shutters.

"It's exciting because this is a building that is important in its own right, but it's magnified when people use it as kind of a historic preservation laboratory, and in so doing, they can apply those thoughts to their own properties," he said.

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Woodrow Wilson's Columbia Home Reopening to Public

BATES CITY, Mo. - A Bates City father returns home to see the aftermath of the more than 40,000 gallons of water that leaked into his home, but surprisingly, Adam Parker appeared calm despite the buckled floors and missing ceilings in his rural home.

The Parker family of nine went to Florida to attend a wedding. Just days into their vacation, they got a phone call from a neighbor alerting them of the running water and mountains of ice that were forming around their home.

"Probably at least a couple of days before they turned the water off," Parker said.

Car problems delayed the family's plan to drive back home, instead Parker booked a flight that was also delayed due to weather. By the time he made it home, friends and a restoration company had already started cleaning and drying out the home. The plumber handed him a copper pipe with a tiny slit, believed to be to blame for all of the damage.

"We believe the pipe burst in our master bathroom and leaked for days undetected," Parker added.

When Parker walked in the door, bowed hardwood floors, soaked sheet rock, and wet furniture greeted him. He immediately started a video chat with his wife, who remained his Florida with his children and relatives. Parker is thankful that the running didn't destroy the entire top floor.

"I was worried that the entire top floor had caved in. I was relieved when I saw it was just sheet rock," Parker shared.

Parker says his calm during chaos comes from his faith in God. He is a missionary who works with families who want to adopt children for the Orphan Justice Center. He said he often works with families in crisis and people who don't have homes. This experience gives him new perspective on the people he normally serves.

"It makes me look at the families in a whole new perspective because they have no one to turn to; we are thankful to have family and a support system, but so often the families we work with don't, " Parker said.

The Orphan Justice Center has set up a fund to help family the rebuild. If you like help click here .

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Broken pipes flood a Bates City home

The Tennessee man charged with blowing up his wife's parents with a package bomb worked with children at his church's Sunday school, ran a home restoration business out of his in-laws' backyard and was convicted of arson two decades ago, records show.

Richard Dean Parker, 49, was being held in jail in lieu of $1-million bond after he was indicted in Lebanon, Tenn., on Thursday. Hes been charged with two counts each of felony first-degree murder and premeditated first-degree murder in connection to the deaths of septuagenarians Jon and Marion Setzer.

Investigators said that they thought Parker was solely responsible for the attack but did not give specifics about what evidence led them to him. They did not cite a motive for the bombing.

Nashville First Church of the Nazarene appears to have removed several references on its website to Parker and his 48-year-old wife, Laura Parker. But as recently as last week, according to online archives, it showed Laura Parker was involved in the church's women's ministry and that both she and her husband were Sunday school teachers. They were scheduled to host an event at their home last September, according to a calendar.

Pastor Kevin Ulmet couldn't be immediately reached for comment, but he told The Tennessean that he was "deeply troubled by whatever led to this act." Ulmet told the newspaper that he saw Parker several times when they were visiting Marion Setzer in the hospital on Monday. He said the Parkers have four children.

The Parker family lived behind the Setzers, holding different addresses but sharing a driveway. A website for Parker's company, Legacy Restorations, reads that the firm "can bring your historic building back to life, or provide building maintenance for the long term care of your old house or unique structure." The website says the company has operated since 1989 across the South.

Parker ran into trouble in 1990, according to Tennessee court records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.

On a Friday evening in July of that year, a 19th century, 5,000-square-foot log house on which Parker had been working caught fire. As part of a plea bargain on charges of felony arson and working without a license, Parker served four years' probation, from 1993 to 1997.

The home belonged to Danny and Rosemary Martin. "We want the people to know what hes really like," Danny Martin told The Times on Friday as he recalled his experience with Parker.

Martin said Parker first offered to fix up the house for nearly $150,000. He said Parker returned two weeks later and offered to do the work for $60,000 because he wanted to start doing business on his own and this could serve as a model to show potential customers. Parker and Martin signed a contract written by the now-dead father-in-law, Martin said.

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Accused Tennessee package bomber had been convicted of arson in 1990

Salisbury, North Carolina

SALISBURY Glenn and Beth Dixon bought one of Salisburys most historic houses Friday when they signed closing documents on the Fulton-Mock-Blackmer House at 112 S. Fulton St.

This is our forever home, Glenn Dixon said. At one point, if we live here long enough, it could be the Fulton-Mock-Blackmer-Dixon House.

Historic Salisbury Foundation sold the 1820 house for $150,000, and now the Dixons will begin a bottom-to-top restoration, which by any measure, will be challenging.

Realizing its an ambitious goal, Beth Dixon said she hopes her family can make the house their new residence by Christmas.

The house encompasses 4,800 to 5,000 square feet. It has four chimneys and eight fireplaces. Once it becomes a residence again, it will afford four bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs.

The Dixons plan to add a master bedroom downstairs, and they also will be bringing back the once grand porch/portico in front, which featured four full columns.

The Dixons will count on contractor Al Wilson and architect Jon Palmer to guide the restoration. The couple also want to accomplish as much of the project as possible this year, because N.C. historic preservation tax credits available for this property are scheduled to sunset Jan. 1, 2015.

The project will qualify for residential tax credits of 30 percent. Glenn Dixon said the couple would not have considered buying the house without the tax incentive.

The house, once owned by famed film and stage actor Sidney Blackmer and his wife, Suzanne, was severely damaged in a 1984 fire.

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Dixons purchase their 'forever home,' the historic Blackmer House