Preserved 1910 home in San Antonios Beacon Hill might have been a mail-order kit house – San Antonio Express-News

Its rare that a 100-plus year old house located in a neighborhood that has seen plenty of bad times remains as unscathed as Kym Ricketts-Morris and Eric Morris home in resurgent Beacon Hill.

Built in 1910, the home was never abandoned, never vandalized and never sectioned into apartments. Instead it was for the most part well taken care of by a succession of owners who appreciated and protected its architectural integrity save for the occasional shag carpet.

And as the homes latest custodians, the couple hopes to continue that tradition.

The fact that the house is still here 110 years later is amazing, said Morris, who is retired from the Army and is now a social worker with the South Alamo Regional Alliance for the Homeless. And we do feel the responsibility to try to ensure that that continues, no matter how long we live here.

When the couple moved to San Antonio two years ago, they initially thought they wanted to live in King William, but quickly discovered homes there were out of their price range.

So we started looking around, and when we drove up to this one we said, Thats our house, said Ricketts-Morris, a master sergeant and Army combat medic at Joint Base San Antonio.

The five-bedroom, 2 -bathroom house has two stories with porches on both floors and a handsome gabled roof.

On ExpressNews.com: 1927 Alta Vista home gets modern addition in San Antonio

Its super comfortable and warm and welcoming, Ricketts-Morris explained as their youngest son, 6-year-old Luke, buzzed about. We do a lot of entertaining, and the house is nicely set up for that.

Theres still a lot about the house that remains a mystery, however.

They suspect, for example, that it was a kit house, sold by mail order and shipped by railroad to San Antonio for assembly.

Weve been in some other homes in the neighborhood, and they also have things like this, said Ricketts-Morris, gesturing to the built-in serving buffet in the dining room thats topped with a gorgeous stained glass window. The stained glass has different patterns, but apparently this was a popular option in these kit houses.

Other details they believe are original to the house or that have been there so long they might as well be include the Mission-style front and side doors, the wooden beams in the dining and living room ceilings, the wood flooring both upstairs and down and the pocket door between the foyer and the living room.

Sometimes it seems like the only thing not original is the plumbing and wiring, Morris said with a grin.

One of the previous owners, real estate broker Marcos Zertuche, lived there with his wife Lulu from 1995 to 2000. They did most of the restoration work, including removing plywood from the walls to expose the shiplap underneath before plastering over it. They also replaced the plumbing and made the updated the kitchen by adding modern appliances such as a dishwasher.

On ExpressNews.com: Monte Vista Home Tour features homes of Trinity University

The downstairs floors were covered by this red shag carpet, he said. When we pulled it up, there was this beautiful oak flooring underneath. Upstairs it was long-leaf pine. It was all still in very good shape, so all we had to do was refinish it.

Today the home is mostly furnished with many of the French and German antiques the couple collected during their postings in Europe.

We found a lot of it in old barns and in estate sales, Ricketts-Morris said. Actually, it looks better here than it did in our European home, which was much more modern.

The dining room table, for example, came from Spain where it had been in a home that had been vacant for 15 years. The bench seats look like small church pews, with intricate carvings along the top rails and seats that lift up for storage.

Upstairs theres a hand-painted dresser they found in a barn in Germany that they bought for about 50 euros ($55) that was insured for 10,000 euros (more than $11,000).

We dont know when it was made, Morris said, but you can tell it was pre-industrial because the only metal is the hinges. There arent any nails or screws, so the wood was assembled like a jigsaw puzzle.

Often in an old home like this, the treasures are hidden by later additions installed by previous owners. When fixing a roof leak, for example,the ceiling tiles were removed.

On ExpressNews.com: Moticello Park home went from overgrown to over the moon

What was revealed was the original ceiling made of wooden boards decorated with thumb and palm prints left by the workers who installed it back when William Howard Taft was president. Theyve since decided to keep the ceiling uncovered, hand prints and all.

Kitchens and baths in old homes are rarely original few modern-day homeowners have the patience to use the same appliances and fixtures their grandmothers did and the West Mulberry home is no exception. One of the previous owners, redid the upstairs bathroom, but decades ago, it seems, adding a pedestal sink and pink-and-white tile floor.

Its got more of a 1950s feel instead of a 1910 feel, said Ricketts-Morris, who did her best to make the room a bit more historically accurate by adding an ornately decorated wood fireplace mantle they found on the side of a road when they lived in Washington, D.C.

And when they learned that the previous owners had sold an historically accurate stove that had been in the kitchen, replacing it with a modern appliance, they found an old Hot Point model with a similar look to replace it.

Its doesnt work, so instead they use the inside of the oven to store their alcohol and mixers.

If not hot historically accurate, at least its efficient.

Richard A. Marini is a features writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | rmarini@express-news.net | Twitter: @RichardMarini

Read more from the original source:
Preserved 1910 home in San Antonios Beacon Hill might have been a mail-order kit house - San Antonio Express-News