Renovation project became a life lesson

Submitted photo by Bill Kennedy An interior view of the burned home at 214 Perrine St. in Dayton from 2004.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Submitted photo by Bill Kennedy An interior view of the burned home at 214 Perrine St. in Dayton from 2004.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Submitted photo by Bill Kennedy An interior view of the burned home at 214 Perrine St. in Dayton from 2004.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Couple turns rubble into holiday tour showcase

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An exterior view of the burned home at 214 Perrine St. in Dayton from 2004. The house was restored by Bill and Amy Kennedy. The Kennedys received a preservation award for their work.

Submitted photo by Bill Kennedy An exterior view of the burned home at 214 Perrine St. in Dayton from 2004. The house was restored by Bill and Amy Kennedy. The Kennedys received a preservation award for their work.

By Mary McCarty, Staff Writer Updated 8:19 PM Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Amy Kennedy put the word out on Facebook: She needed help decorating for the Historic South Park Holiday Home Tour.

Within minutes, it seemed, neighbors were knocking on her door with ornaments, decorations, and helping hands.

Within hours, the house had been transformed into a glittering Victorian Christmas showplace.

“That’s just the kind of neighborhood it is,” said Amy, a Stebbins High School biology teacher.

It’s the reason she and her husband Bill never want to leave South Park.

It’s the reason they devoted nearly three years of their lives to restoring the home that was all but destroyed in a fire that caused an estimated $76,000 in damages.

The couple wanted to have children and knew they would soon outgrow their two-bedroom cottage in South Park. It might have made more sense to buy a house that would need only minor updates. But the couple became intrigued with the notion of preserving the house at 214 Perrine St., built in 1893 as the home of the Heater family who owned a grocery store on Wayne Avenue. “This was not a rich person’s house but it was so well built,” Bill marveled.

The neighbors were thrilled but skeptical when the couple undertook such a daunting task. “They didn’t know my dad,” Bill said, referring to their secret weapon: Bill’s father, Roger Kennedy, a retired contractor, who worked tirelessly on the project along with Bill’s brothers, Steve and Dan. “It took the full family to make this happen,” Bill said. He estimates that he and his father put in 2,500 hours each, working 100 Saturdays in a row. It was time he would have liked to spend with the couple’s daughter Gabby, now 3, but it was time well spent.

“I thought Dad was teaching me how to renovate a house,” he said. “What he really was teaching me is what it means to be a dad.”

As curator of archaeology for the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery and SunWatch Indian Village, Bill found an interesting nexus between his professional and his personal life. “Working on this house has helped me to understand the reconstructions we do at SunWatch,” he said. “At SunWatch we’re making houses out of mud and grass and logs, instead of milled lumber, but the principles of construction are the same,” he said. He also found artifacts in the home that set his archaeologist’s imagination in motion. He found an 1863 German Bible and German clock hidden under the floorboards, for instance. “Maybe they were hidden there during World War I or World War II when having German artifacts wasn’t very popular,” he said.

The meticulously restored Victorian will be one of 11 homes on the Historic South Park Holiday Home Tour from noon to 7 p.m. Saturday.

The house at 214 Perrine St. is a beauty in its own right, but it also represents something bigger.

“The Kennedys could easily have moved elsewhere to accommodate their space needs,” said Karin Manovich, president of the South Park Neighborhood Association. “But they had a strong motivation to take on this presumed lost cause — a love of neighborhood.”

Neighborhood home tours

Historic South Park Holiday Home Tour

Carolers in Victorian garb will stroll among the 11 homes on tour and a dessert and hot beverage are included.

When: Noon to 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5
Where: Tour starts from Hope Lutheran Church, 500 Hickory St.
Cost: $10 advance/$15 day of tour.
For more: www.historicsouthpark.org or call (937) 603-4893. Shuttle to parking: 2 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

“A Dickens of a Christmas in St. Anne’s Hill” holiday historic home tour

When: Dec. 11-13, with guided tours every half hour from 4:30 to 8 p.m. on Friday; 1:30 to 8 p.m. Saturday; and 1:30 to 6 p.m. Sunday. The tours will conclude with an old-fashioned dessert and a visit to the gift shop.
Cost: $18, online ordering only at www.stanneshill.org

The Oregon District’s 2009 Holiday Tour of Homes

Dayton’s oldest historic district will host its annual Holiday Candlelight Tour

When: Dec. 7-9, with four tours each evening beginning at 6:30 p.m.
Cost: Tickets prices are $25 per person for the tour only and $50 per person for the dinner and tour.
For more: www.oregondistrict.org

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