Now an Arkansas Heritage Site, Johnny Cash's boyhood home in Dyess has been restored and opens for tours on Saturday, August 15, 2014.

DYESS, Arkansas Want to Walk the Line where Johnny Cash once played as a child?

Before he changed the music industry with songs like Ring of Fire and Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash spent his hardscrabble childhood in the small community of Dyess, Arkansas.

The Johnny Cash Boyhood Home, the newest of Arkansas State Universitys Heritage Sites, opens Saturday for public tours after a restoration project that includes other historic buildings.

When visitors walk into the home, they are stepping back into the 1930s. Cash family artifacts original to the home include the piano that belonged to Johnnys mother, his fathers shaving mug and even the original flooring in his childhood bedroom and the living room. The living room linoleum still has burn marks caused by the wood-burning stove.

Johnny Cash in 1969.

Other furnishings and objects are of the time period and mostly contributed by donors, said Ruth Hawkins, director of Arkansas Heritage Sites at Arkansas State University. They are based on the photos and memories of Tommy Cash and Joanne Cash Yates, two of Johnny Cashs siblings.

Period details include a pedestal sewing machine, a battery-operated radio like one Johnny Cash would play at night and the living-room sofa. The period icebox and corner cabinet were painted the apple-green color the siblings remember.

The Dyess Colony was a federal agricultural resettlement community created in 1934, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal program in response to the Great Depression. The colony provided homes and jobs for about 500 poor farm families, including the Cash family.

Johnny, called JR at the time, was 3 years old when his family moved into a Dyess home in 1935. Johnny spent his childhood in Dyess, attending school and church in the town. He also suffered an enormous loss when his brother Jack was killed in a sawmill accident in 1944. Cash left JR behind and became Johnny when he left Arkansas for the Air Force in 1950.

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Johnny Cashs boyhood Southern home opens for public tours

Not until architect Witold Rybczynski built his own home did he discover at first hand the fundamental poverty of modern architectural ideas, he writes in Home, A Short History of an Idea. I found myself turning again and again to memories of older houses, and older rooms, and trying to understand what had made them feel so right, so comfortable.

During the first 110 years after Topeka became a city, its residents built in a surprising array of architectural stylesusing native materials including brick, limestone and wooden planks. Surviving examples, lovingly maintained or restored, anchor the citys neighborhoods in North Topeka, Oakland and north of 10th Street, along a northeast to southwest corridor that runs between Kansas Avenue and Gage Boulevard. [See accompanying map and photos on cjonline.com.]

Historic Topeka, Inc., honored that diversity in a brochure produced nearly 20 years ago, identifying the unique architectural styles found in Topeka, locating each by neighborhood and identifying photograph. Our acknowledgements go to that group, which was active in local preservation efforts for more than 20 years. When the group dissolved its membership, continuing responsibility for local building restoration efforts and preservation activism was bequeathed to a new generationappreciative of the craftsmanship and architecture distinctive to a Topeka their grandparents might have known.

Many examples of this architectural diversity, some peculiar to the Midwest and Frontier Kansas, still can be seen on a tourby foot, bike or carthrough the neighborhoods they distinguish. For a helpful guide, when viewing these stately mansions, elaborately-trimmed Victorians and geometrically solid Prairie Style houses, refer to the re-creation of that Historic Topeka pictorial that follows.

Architectural styles are located by Topeka neighborhood and national region, a description follows of distinctive features and design influences, with photo illustrations. Road or street locations of local examples are provided. Navigate the vocabulary list and look over the accompanying map. Then get your bike out, grab a camera and some bottled water, and travel back a few centuries in time.

North Topeka

Style: Two or three stories, seldom one, built from brick, stone and wood; overhanging eaves with decorative and often paired supporting brackets beneath a low-pitched, hipped roof commonly topped by a square cupola or tower; tall, narrow windows, arched and set under inverted U-shaped hooded or pedimented crowns; elaborate, bracketed cornices and single-story porches.

Regions: This was a popular style in the Midwest, the Northeast seaboard area and in San Francisco; it is least common in The South, where there was little construction till after the Civil War and Reconstruction. The style began in England as part of the Picturesque Movement--a reaction to the formal, classical ideals dominating art and architecture for 200 years. Similar styles: Renaissance Revival, Informal Italian Villa. Local: Lower Silver Lake Road.

Style: Eastlake and the earlier, Stick Style, 1860-1880, refer to woodwork trim. This included lathe-turned spindle posts, balusters and railings and scroll-sawn cornices on porches; decorative brackets supported extended eaves; gable ends, window and door cornices were worked floral or geometric designs of raised wood. Named for English furniture designer, Charles Eastlake, the ornate trims and wood turnings also appear on the exteriors of Stick style houses.

Regions: Eastlake style is common in Northeast suburban and resort areasit was considered appropriate for wood-built summer cottages but not for urban homes. Brick versions create picturesque detail by pattern or color of brickwork. A West Coast Stick style, 1880-1895, developed unique features including a squared bay window and pilaster-trimmed windows and doors. [Local Landmark: The Segar Place, built in 1888 at 1132 NW Harrison in North Topeka, is Eastlake Victorian.] Local: NW Harrison Street.

The rest is here:
At Home Living: Architectural types shaped early Topeka

Want to "Walk the Line" where Johnny Cash once played as a child?

Before he changed the music industry with songs like "Ring of Fire" and "Folsom Prison Blues," Johnny Cash spent his hardscrabble childhood in the small community of Dyess, Arkansas.

The Johnny Cash Boyhood Home, the newest of Arkansas State University's Heritage Sites, opens Saturday for public tours after a restoration project that includes other historic buildings.

When visitors walk into the home, they are stepping back into the 1930s. Cash family artifacts original to the home include the piano that belonged to Johnny's mother, his father's shaving mug and even the original flooring in his childhood bedroom and the living room. The living room linoleum still has burn marks caused by the wood-burning stove.

Other furnishings and objects are of the time period and mostly contributed by donors, said Ruth Hawkins, director of Arkansas Heritage Sites at Arkansas State University. They are based on the photos and memories of Tommy Cash and Joanne Cash Yates, two of Johnny Cash's siblings.

Period details include a pedestal sewing machine, a battery-operated radio like one Johnny Cash would play at night and the living-room sofa. The period icebox and corner cabinet were painted the apple-green color the siblings remember.

The Dyess Colony was a federal agricultural resettlement community created in 1934, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program in response to the Great Depression. The colony provided homes and jobs for about 500 poor farm families, including the Cash family.

Johnny, called JR at the time, was 3 years old when his family moved into a Dyess home in 1935. Johnny spent his childhood in Dyess, attending school and church in the town. He also suffered an enormous loss when his brother Jack was killed in a sawmill accident in 1944. Cash left "JR" behind and became Johnny when he left Arkansas for the Air Force in 1950.

Arkansas was an important influence on Cash, who told audiences how "Five Feet High and Rising" and many of his other songs were influenced by his time living in Dyess.

"The little church in Dyess, Arkansas, has been such an inspiration to me, and (so have) the people from Dyess," Cash said at the 40th reunion of Dyess High School in 1990, in a video exhibited at the Dyess Colony Museum.

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'Walk the Line' at Johnny Cash's boyhood home

In a clearing off of a wooded lane in Stevenson is a white stucco, Tuscan-style villa with ornate cast-iron window boxes spilling summer vines, looking like the subject of an impressionist painting.

Inside, beyond the driveway and the arched, two-story center bay, the Iliev family Martin and Jessica, their 3-year old son, Max, and a pair of toy poodles, Sophie and Tiger welcome visitors to their newly built home.

In a large, open kitchen dominated by a center island that's topped with a 9-by-6-foot slab of white quartz, the Ilievs, who own Carbiz, recalled purchasing the 4-acre parcel of land. They donated the property's original house to Second Chance, a nonprofit that deconstructs homes and sells the salvaged materials at a discount.

"They came and deconstructed the whole thing," 28-year-old Jessica Iliev said. "Jon [Skarda of Shoreline Construction] built us this very green, geothermal house."

From the beginning, the Ilievs knew they wanted a contemporary, provincial look with the contrast of light and dark found in the alabaster walls and white cabinets against the dark pine trim of the windows and dark oak flooring throughout the first level.

The architecture shines in the details, such as 10-foot ceilings (both coffered and tray) with recessed lighting, bump outs, wide-width baseboards and interior door molding, and decorative uses of paneling.

In the home's first-floor open layout, rooms flow effortlessly into one another through the 50-by-30-foot space, with areas defined by furniture and rug placement. The decor is understated but dramatic.

"For the interior, we don't ascribe ourselves to any certain decor, and prefer a more eclectic mix of styles from new and old," Jessica said. "The common spaces reflect this the most. We've anchored the large spaces with traditional pieces and added color and flavor through accessories."

To balance the weightiness of the kitchen island, the couple chose glazed maple cabinetry with brushed nickel pulls and, for contrast, dark Portuguese soapstone countertops and backsplash.

A formal suite from Restoration Hardware in Baltimore fills the bump-out dining area. Belgian linen-upholstered oak chairs surround the 2-by-10-foot oak dining table. Shoreline constructed a built-in bar/buffet area on one side of the room, opposite a floor-to-ceiling china cabinet with intricate glass panes and the same glazed maple as the kitchen cabinets.

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Custom-built Stevenson home charms down to the details

Arkansas Culture and Characters Restored Johnny Cash Boyhood Home opens to visitors tomorrow Posted By David Ramsey on Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 4:48 PM The Dyess Colony Museum and Johnny Cash's restored boyhood home will be open for visitors tomorrow after a restoration project that began in early 2012.

The Dyess Colony was created by the New Deal in 1934 as a community for farm families struggling during the Great Depression. Johnny Cash's family moved to the community in 1935. Check out our story on the Dyess Colony and the restoration project from a few years back. There will be exhibits on the colony and its impact on Cash and his music. His boyhood home is restored and furnished as it was when the Cash family lived there.

Tours are $10 per person, more info here.

Photographer Kat Robinson got a sneak preview last May and did a big post on her blog.The Encyclopedia of Arkansas has lots more on the Dyess Colony.

Tags: Johnny Cash, Dyess Colony, Arkansas Culture and Characters, Image

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Restored Johnny Cash Boyhood Home opens to visitors tomorrow

This Federal-era townhouse, with its pleasingly demure countenance, offers no hint of what unexpected delights lie behind its stately brick facade.

Like many of its Georgetown neighbors, the home has been witness to history.

Not long after it was built in 1810, loyalists to the crown hid British spies in the house. Later, Confederates found refuge here. Rumor has it that it also was part of the Underground Railroad. What made it so attractive to people on the run was that its attic was connected to the other homes on the block, allowing for stealthy escapes.

In 1964, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Herman Wouk moved his family into the home during the time he was writing and researching The Winds of War and War and Remembrance.

When Jacobsen Architecture was hired to renovate the home, Simon Jacobsen found a few mementos Wouk had left behind. Among his discoveries were the steel balls that Humphrey Bogart used in the filming of Wouks The Caine Mutiny with a note that read, To Herman from Bogie. Jacobsen also discovered a secret room hidden behind a bookcase. Inside were .45-caliber ammunition, a telephone, a stool and a book.

This house has so many surprises, Jacobsen said.

And more than a few disappointments.

The house had not aged well. Most of the historic character had been stripped away.

There was nothing to keep, he said. The house had been attacked over the last 75 years before we got there.

Although hiring an architectural firm that specializes in contemporary design may have seemed like sacrilege to historic preservationists, Jacobsen Architecture has long married old and new in creating elegant, formal dwellings. Hidden among those baseboard- and molding-free walls, bright spaces and floating bookcases is a respect for traditional elements.

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House of the Week | Federal-era townhouse in Georgetown for $10.5M

Alpharetta, GA (PRWEB) August 15, 2014

Sir Grout, world-renowned hard surface restoration expert, is proud to announce a new service offered by its highly skilled technicians: stone cleaning and color enhancement. After over a decade of experience in hard surface restoration, Sir Grout has enhanced its state-of-the-art services by adding stone cleaning and color enhancement.

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Sir Grout's experts also hone and polish marble, restoring this luxurious stone to its true beauty. Sir Grout understands that every hard surface needs to be pampered from time to time. That's why it offers top notch services to meet every need. Householders and business owners can enjoy tile and grout cleaning and sealing, slip resistant application, grout recoloring and sealing, caulking, stone cleaning and sealing, stone countertop sealing, sandless wood refinishing, and wood deep cleaning, among others services.

Sir Grout takes the time to know what its customers need and provides them with top hard surface restoration services and unparalleled customer satisfaction. To learn more about the exceptional processes provided by Sir Grout, go to http://www.sirgrout.com or call (866) 476-8863. Check out all of Sir Grout's restoration services and request a free quote or in-home/office consultation.

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Sir Grout Announces New Services to Its Renowned Hard Surface Restoration Treatments

An El Paso couple who sued the El Paso Independent School District over home schooling has to follow state education regulations, and school officials can ask for evidence that children are being educated, a state appeals court has ruled.

The 8th Court of Appeals ruled earlier this month that Laura and Michael McIntyre and other parents who home school children do not have an absolute constitutional right to home school and must abide by state education requirements.

Chief Justice Ann Crawford McClure wrote in the Aug. 6 opinion that a district attendance officers can ask parents to provide evidence that shows their children are being taught, and can ensure that all students are either enrolled in school or are in a "bona fide home school" when there is credible suspicion.

"No parents have ever prevailed in any reported case on a theory that they have an absolute constitutional right to educate their children in the home, completely free of any state supervision, regulation, or requirements." McClure wrote.

Laura McIntyre who took part in the Stand Up for Religious Freedom movement in 2012, is a pro-life activist in El Paso. She and her husband were also part of 2012 El Pasoans for Traditional Family Values campaign to recall former El Paso Mayor John Cook, and former representatives Susie Byrd and Steve Ortega. The McIntyre's contributed $1,000 to the campaign.

The McIntyres did not return calls for comment.

Mark Mendoza, the director of the ALPHA initiative for the El Paso Independent School District who was also sued by Laura and Michael McIntyre, said the ruling does not mean the school district will interfere with a parent's right to educate children. In addition, proof, sought by an attendance officer, would not rely on standardized tests.

"The most important thing is the fact that this really clarifies the role that the school district plays when it is suspected that home school may not be happening," Mendoza said. "In no way do we want to question the right of the parent to home school their children. It is only when we receive an allegation that this decision clearly underscores the responsibility of the school district and the attendance officer's right to be able to verify that the student is being taught."

The Texas Home School Coalition Association advises parents to send a letter of assurance to the district, stating that the child is in fact being home schooled. The coalition recommends against filling out or providing additional forms or information to the district truancy officer.

In the fall of 2004, the McIntyres withdrew their nine children from a private school and began home schooling inside a motorcycle dealership, according to the ruling.

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Court: School officials can ask for evidence of home schooling

BALANCING economics with the need to preserve Toowoomba's heritage has again reared its head among city officials.

Council has overruled its own planning officers' advice by a majority of seven votes to four and opted to allow a character-listed home in Cavell St to be demolished.

The owner of the run-down East Toowoomba property plans to replace it with a new building in keeping with the historical streetscape.

The current house requires major work to reach a liveable standard, with rectification costs of up to $104,000 just to become structurally sound.

However, council's decision to override a recommendation by its own staff has riled conservationists.

"We have reached a new low in conserving our built history when councillors' opinions take precedence over recommendations by their planners and experts," said East Toowoomba resident Eleanor Cullen.

Cr Chris Tait said the proposal fell into a "grey area" where the replacement home would actually enhance the streetscape.

"What is there at the present time is probably detracting from the street," he said.

Cr John Gouldson argued the restoration costs were likely to multiply above and beyond estimates once work actually started.

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Demolition of character home one step closer

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

By: Bill Redekop

Posted: 08/11/2014 1:00 AM | Comments: | Last Modified: 9:57 AM | Updates

Enlarge Image

Doug Bergman and the Beausejour landmark he was 90 per cent finished restoring before it burned down July 20. The house is a complete loss. BILL REDEKOP/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Aug 7,2014

BEAUSEJOUR -- Suggest to free-spirited Doug Bergman his life sounds like a Jimmy Buffet song, and it turns into a eureka moment. "I worship him! He's my hero."

But the song with Bergman's name on it took on a sadder cast recently -- a pinch of regret, a dash of self-reflection and a heaping helping of Margaritaville.

On July 20, after returning from a wedding, Bergman discovered his house on fire. It's a 110-year-old heritage house he had been restoring for 20 years -- the restoration was 90 per cent complete. It was a gorgeous abode with a sort of curving mansard roof and two gables jutting out from each of three sides except for in back. It also had a widow's walk on the roof. A widow's walk was more common in seaports where supposedly a wife would watch for an incoming ship with her husband aboard. If the ship didn't come in, she knew she was a widow.

Bergman thinks his heritage home may have been a "kit house," one of those house designs you bought out of the Eaton's catalogue a century ago. People driving by would often stop and ask to peek inside the local landmark.

Bergman's trouble is he can't recollect much of what happened the night of the fire. He admits he came home hammered from the wedding reception. There's nothing illegal about being drunk -- a cousin drove him home. The fire was just smouldering in back of the house, otherwise his cousin would have seen the fire and helped him.

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Ordeal over burned home leaves man fuming