“A tenant grocer lived here after it was built in 1870,” said Milliff, who says the first year the store appears in the city directory is 1874. “It’s listed as Heider’s Grocery Store from the 1880s to 1913, and when he died, his wife’s brother took it over until 1923.”
“The last owner who used it as a grocery listed it as White Villa Grocery Store. He closed the store in 1945, but lived in it until 1973,” Milliff said.
Later, it became a storage space, and, by the time a relative of the Milliffs bought it in 1992, “it was in rock-bottom shape,” Milliff said. “More than a year was spent restoring it, using masons, carpenters and relatives — and the owner did a lot of work on it himself.”
The Milliffs bought the storefront house in 1998 and put the front display window to holiday use in 1999.
“I had made stained glass houses and then made an electric train out of stained glass,” Milliff said. “It didn’t work well, so I bought two electric trains and tracks, and now the buildings are accessories.
“After Thanksgiving, I take the plants out of the display window and put in the train sets. In addition to houses, there are ski slopes, gondolas, skiers, a skating pond — it’s a winter scene,” he said.
The store display window — 11 feet wide, four feet high and five feet deep — wraps around a corner of the house.
Since putting up the display, Milliff said his neighbors like it, “and everyone seems to know about it.”
During this weekend’s tour of the historic neighborhood, visitors also will get to see the inside of the house.
“The downstairs is 30 feet by 50 feet. One side that was the storefront is 15 feet by 50 feet,” Milliff said. “It started with the whole first floor as the store, with living space upstairs, but later, part of the downstairs was also converted to living space.”
There are old photos of the store taken at various times during its long history on display in the home, and Milliff wrote a history of the house for the penny paper that supplies information about each of the homes on the tour.
Started in 1983, “A Dickens of a Christmas in St. Anne’s Hill” is a biennial holiday tour of homes. The two- to three-hour tours begin every half hour at the High Street Gallery, 48 High St., from 4:30 to 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 11; from 1:30 to 8 p.m. Saturday; and 1:30 to 6 p.m. Sunday.
Tickets are $18 each and can be ordered online at www.stanneshill.org or by calling (937) 224-4455.
Contact this columnist at (937) 276-4441 or vburroughs@woh.rr.com.
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