1920s Craftsman home restored to former glory

Landon Reeves/Herald-Leader The Bever family added new appliances, paint, and cabinets to the kitchen of their house on Twin Springs Street. Pictured here is the kitchen after the renovation.
Landon Reeves/Herald-Leader The Bever family added new appliances, paint, and cabinets to the kitchen of their house on Twin Springs Street. Pictured here is the kitchen after the renovation.

Randy and Sharon Bever have spent nearly a year and a large chunk of their savings on refurbishing and rehabilitating a 1920s Craftsman home at 623 East Twin Springs St.

The couple discovered the home while looking to purchase a house in the Siloam Springs area, they said. As they were looking at a house on Delaware Street their real estate agent was inspired to show them the Twin Springs home.

As they viewed the outside the two decided that the home had absolutely no potential. But, after they entered the kitchen door, they discovered the hardwood floors and high ceilings they soon came around to the idea of buying the home, Sharon said. This required them to look through a couple of things, such as an inch of rotted cockroach carcasses on the cabinets, rotted wood on the back deck, a missing staircase in the middle of the house, not to mention the shoddy plumbing.

"It was PVC pipe which was illegal and not up to code at all," Randy said about the plumbing. "We had to replace all the fixtures in the plumbing system, all the toilets, all the vanities, and all the sinks."

"There was a lot of filth," Sharon said. "It was really dirty and in my opinion if you are not afraid to get dirty you can do a lot of things with an old house, but it is a dirty job."

The house was on the parade of homes for Siloam Springs in the 1970s. The couple had a brochure from the museum that listed it as the Graham House and highlighted the large front porch. The Bevers put a lot of time and money into that porch to restore it to its original glory, Sharon said.

The part of the house that took the longest to complete was placing a ship's ladder in the living space. Sharon and Randy had to bring in a ladder to get access to the more than 300-square-foot loft area on the second story. When they were looking at replacing the stairs the city informed them that the area for the stairs was too narrow. After finding out that moving the stairs to the outside of the house would be more than $7,000 they decided to go a different route.

Their "stair guy" who had thought of and crafted the ship's ladder was incarcerated and the two had to wait until his release to complete that phase of the renovation, they said. If he had not been imprisoned the whole project might have taken six months less than what it did, Randy estimated.

The basement offered another interesting problem. Apparently one of the previous resident's affinity for antique televisions and her or his collection was resting in the basement, collecting dust and losing value.

"We pulled out like 12 TVs," Sharon said.

"And they were early editions. We are not talking about 1990s TVs, they were more like 1960s TVs," Randy added.

The couple went through multiple carpenters, drywall specialists, flooring workers and more to get their final product, Sharon said. One of the larger problems they had was getting the contractors to show up after the bidding process.

Also of note is the effort that went into replacing the heating and air conditioning systems, adding a shared closet to the bedrooms, replacing the trimming, and adding a natural gas line. Sharon said that her daughter had a lot to do with the remodel as well by helping with the demolition of the old cabinets and a bathroom Jacuzzi tub, as well as painting the 10-foot-tall ceilings.

"I wanted it to be upscale, I wanted it to be a home people would fall in love with," Sharon said. "I was particular about how I wanted it. I wanted to make the house as if I was going to move into it, or my daughter was going to live here."

They ultimately decided to not move into the house, because it was too far away from their business, ACE Hardware in Gentry. Now they have it listed with Century 21. But this is not their first or last restoration job. They said they are inspired by HGTV, encourage home ownership, and have plans to build another Craftsman home in the area of the Dawn Hill.

"What I would like to see is others in this neighborhood and close to downtown Siloam to maybe follow our lead," Sharon said. "Follow the lead of taking an old home and bringing it back to life and bringing some of these old neighborhoods back to an area where you can raise a family and live for years to come ... and make it affordable for a young couple to buy a home again."

General News on 06/24/2015