House Tour: 1897 Victorian Mansion

[Music] welcome to preservation travels with lane and kevin here at our restoration nation do we have a treat for you today and yes i know you say that every tour but this time you're going to be absolutely blown away by what we're going to be showing you i'm standing on the porch of the pillow thompson house it is an exquisite example of the queen anne style of architecture that we know you love best this is a george barber home the floor plan was ordered from a catalog and this home was built by lumber from right here in helena arkansas some of the notable elements at the front of this house are not the turret not the tower but the oriole what makes this an oriole it would be a bay window where it not for the fact that it's on the second floor and it has supports underneath you see exquisite details like the glass mosaic above the door entry and on several other parts of the house that will sparkle in the sun the original wrought iron fence that runs the perimeter of the house and the gorgeous colors that have been returned to their original so let's go inside and take a tour not guided by me today but by award-winning tour guide raymond willie come on in to the pillow thompson house [Music] [Music] okay hello everyone my name is raymond willey and i'm a full-time employee of phillips community college and the pillow thompson house is owned operated and maintained at phillips phillips community college but it was donated to the college in 1992 by josephine thompson and her son george so josephine was put in a retirement home in 1992 and the son george being the only child got everything he wanted out of the house and gave everything else to the college so the majority of the furnitures and pieces that we have in the house are original family pieces the house was originally built in 1896 for 6 500 and it remained in the same family up until the time it was donated to the college so there were five generations to live here and josephine was the last so the restoration process started in 1993 and the house opened in june of 97 so now we're a rental facility for special events such as parties weddings receptions uh lunches and dinners now all of the colors that you'll find throughout the house and the wallpaper and the draperies now they were coordinated from the colors in the stained glass windows now all of the stained glass windows are original to the house and here this is the fretwork it was a trademark of the architect but on the outside it would be called gingerbread inside it's called fretwork so helena was a very unique place at at one time it was way ahead of its time at one time it was actually considered the jewel of the state because this is where the vast majority of the wealth was in the state at one time so here in the house the light fixtures that we have here downstairs are not original all original light fixtures were moved upstairs because there wasn't even any lighting fit lighting upstairs so helena was pretty much way ahead of its time electricity was here in helen around 1886 to 1888 so that's pretty early okay now this was the four you were in the parlor now and during the victorian time the win men and women would meet in the shipping room for doing gatherings for instance the male may be in this room and the women would be over here and the men would probably be smoking their big stogies cigars or maybe their pipes and here now this is the wife of the original builder and her name is jane folk car grace pillow so there's still our host of hog raiders here in town and also there are a host of pillows the piano we have is an 1890 steinway it's been tuned up and and people may use it from time to time during functions such as weddings and and other different type parties that we have [Music] [Music] [Music] okay here in the city room we have the original builder of the house this is jerome bonaparte pillow now originally he was a part of the humanoid plane in france so he was a direct descendant of napoleon but he was one of the largest land owners here in this area and he also owned lumber mills uh during one time helena was considered as one of the largest harvard markets in america and this gentleman owns several lumber mills for the house originally it was a mail order house out of a scissor robot catalog so during that time you can either get a floor kit uh a kit or the floor plan but there's a good possibility being that he owned his own lumber meals he may have just gotten those plans out of the children with catalog and lumber right out of his own meals to build the house and what they would do during that time they would send work crews out to the work sites to complete the house and here we have this is another picture of the wife jane now here she's a little older here than shield above the piano over here we have josephine and her son george now they're the ones who donated the house to the college and this is pretty much this is the couch that she's sitting on in this picture [Music] this episode is brought to you by curiosity stream which is literally my favorite streaming service you guys are gonna be so happy when we tell you this so curiosity stream you know how you're always turning on your tv and there's nothing to watch even if you have all the services we've got all of the services and there's still nothing to watch curiosity stream there is always something to watch it has literally thousands of documentaries by some of the world's best documentary makers as well as exclusive content that you could only get on curiosity stream and i know you probably think i'm lying right literally my you can ask him my favorite thing to watch documentary absolutely curiosity stream is the netflix for the knowledgeable it's the hulu for history buffs it's the disney plus for the scientists in us all and you know what else i love about it what so one of the reasons that i refused to get it for so long was i was like we cannot afford another streaming service seriously i know you're all out there going i mean how many more can you have right i don't want to spend 15 more dollars a month on another service 15 a month adds up guess what it's 20 a year you spend more than that on the coffee that you buy every morning before you go to work 20 a year can you believe that no i couldn't believe it and even better news if they use code restoration that's all of us code restoration use restoration at checkout and you will only pay 14.99 for an entire year's subscription that's a 25 discount for those of you who are bad at math that's a dollar 25 per month that's nothing that's that's that's less than nothing come on what's your favorite show on there it's uh the world's greatest houses i love the history of home and it's a three-part series actually each one is an hour long and it's narrated by kevin's good friend nick offerman parks and records from parks and rec he thinks they're very oh we're close or tight tight tight friends if you guys want to save 25 right now go to curiositystream.com restoration make sure you use restoration at your checkout and you will save 25 percent and only spend 14.99 for an entire year this is not a month a year a month can i can i just say it again a dollar twenty-five for you who are spending seven and a half dollars every morning for a coffee okay learn for a dollar twenty five you are welcome curiosity stream new in your life you're gonna love it you're gonna thank us for it goodbye [Music] now we're in the dining room and this is one of my favorite pieces in the entire house i call it the original microwave so really there's nothing new under the sun so this piece was pretty much it was considered a luxury item during that time it was a pretty versatile piece you can warm up things or maybe heat up your bread and i've even heard of people putting their dinner napkins in here and warming up their dinner napkins and here we have this is josephine this is the last occupant of the house now she has several different breeds of dogs but the papillons here were her showdogs and she was known for taking her dogs to westminster in new york so she was pretty much she was a real character she would gave dinners and parties on a regular basis and i've heard stories about some of the dinners she would give whenever she would give a dinner she would tell all her guests to leave a little food on the plates for the dogs so they would actually take the plates off the table and set them on the floor and open the doors and just let the dogs come in now the piece we have here this particular piece was donated to the house the piece was donated but now all the glassware and all the plates they're all original pieces to the house [Music] now back here this is the breezeway this is all original this is excuse me this is all the construction with the exception of this this was original tile so here's where the porch stopped off but now the original kitchen it was a two-story structure which was located back in this area but from my understanding it had a classroom so there was probably kids from here in the neighborhood and in this area would come over here for school and i think it went anywhere from the first to second grade but that particular structure had burned sometimes on the 40s and there was an open breezeway here so pretty much the house and the kitchen was always separate for heat purposes and fire habits but this particular kitchen did catch fire back during the 40's and it was moved over to the next room so here on the platform we have these are people and businesses in the community now they all donated money during restoration and there was anywhere from seven to eight hundred thousand dollars raised just right here in the community and the total cost was one point three million and but originally it cost sixty five hundred dollars to build the house so i would think that that sixty five hundred dollars would pretty much be like with that 1.2 million that they used to restore the house [Music] now this particular room it was a spare bedroom at one time when the original kitchen burned during the 40 they would move into this room but before then it was used of the square bedroom and the family wore piss get paid and the episcopalian churches just a block or so down the street so whenever the bishops or clergymen were in town they would stay with the pillows in this room so this room became known as the bishop's room and this is one of the bishops that would stay in this room whenever he was in town our grand mitchell [Music] this was pretty much considered the guest stairway or the service stairway which led to the guest or the server quarters [Music] now this particular room we call it the arch and classroom but actually this was the famous dean or the family's library so this is where the family spent the majority of their time in this room and here we have original family pieces all these are original family books and other items that we have so josephine actually spent a lot of time in this room along with her dogs so they spent a tremendous amount of time in this room [Music] now this mirror is an original piece to the house but what's so interesting about the mirror is the way that it was notched out to fit up against the baseboards so i often think about the skills that the craftsmen had during that time they didn't have any power tools and pretty much their work is still here today and that work was done with precision [Music] okay now we're in the room this was george's room at one time and he was in this room up until around the age of 15 or so and over here we have a picture of george and he was on the harvard fencing team now these windows were said to be stained glass windows at one time but the second husband francis he was a baker and he turned his room into an office and the lighting was bad so we had the stained glass when it was taken out and over here we have josephine and her husband and on her wedding day in 1935 with her first husband now the first husband was a dutch banker from the netherlands but he was assigned to the far east and he later became an ambassador to china and this is josephine on a wedding day in 1935 [Music] now this is the master's bedroom and this is one of the original life pictures from downstairs and here this particular bed was donated to the house but uh people were shorter during that period and but actually it can be considered a full-size bed and we have two clothings here in this room and at one time it was actually a property tax on cloth it's a car that was considered a whole room for only wealthy people had clothes in their homes and over here in the turret we have there were up to five jerome pillows in this family and this is a jerome pillow now this particular jerome pool was said to be friends with mussolini he was assigned to rome at one time he was assigned a wrong internet one time so he was probably and had that during that period so [Music] okay this particular bed is an original piece for the house and this bed is known as a millard now mallard was a french furniture maker from new orleans and this was my large trademark but from some research i found out that milar they couldn't find any evidence of a workshop in new orleans so now they're thinking that millard was just ordering these beds from french but uh josephine one of her grandparents uh and originally purchased this bed from jefferson davis as well so there's a good chance that jefferson davis may have slept in this bed and this porch that we have has been taken back to its original form but during the 20s this sports was converted into a back [Music] okay now this was josephine's room i call this the queen's room and as you can see she pretty much look like a queen now this section of the room was added around 1915 and you can pretty much see what the boards where the boards meet right here and now this particular piece was donated to the house and we still have some of josephine's items some of her hats some of her shoes so you could say pretty much she was off with the hats and dogs and these are original family pieces and this particular life fixture that we have here was in the so dining room the light fixtures that are upstairs they're all all the light fixtures upstairs came from downstairs there was no light fixtures here upstairs this is a closet and there are still some adjustment finished items in here [Music] well there you go that's our tour of the pillow thompson house we hope you've enjoyed spending time with us today this home is open for in-person tours wednesday through saturday from 10 to 4. so come to helena meet raymond and stop by helen and say hi to us while you're in town we'll be working hard see you soon [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Our Restoration Nation

Views: 579,129

Keywords: Before/After, Time Lapse, Remodel, Home Restoration, Renovation, Preservation, Historic Home, Victorian Home, This Old House, Magnolia, HGTV, DIY, How To, Laine Berry, Kevin Berry, FOR SALE, HOME FOR SALE, VICTORIAN HOME FOR SALE, REAL ESTATE, REAL ESTATE FOR SALE

Id: EP3Y7KYeIqo

Length: 23min 38sec (1418 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 13 2022