House Tour_ 1892 Queen Anne Victorian Mansion SOLD

Welcome friends to a very special edition of Preservation Travels with Elaine and Kevin. Today's special edition is Won't You Be Our Neighbor. We are here in Helena, Arkansas. We're just two blocks away from where Helen stands and we are here to show you what is probably one of the most exuberant Queen Anne homes we've had the opportunity to tour and it's for sale. So we are going to give you the full tour and then we're going to tell you the super secret price and we hope that one of you will fall in love with this beauty and want to come be our neighbor here in Helena, Arkansas. This property really does give us the height of Queen Anne's style. You'll notice her asymmetric front. My favorite little detail of this beautiful property is her turret and half onion dome. Turrets are not that unusual in Queen Anne's style. It's one of the defining factors but that onion dome is incredibly special. You have your projected bracketed gables on all sides of the house. This three-quarter wraparound porch. You have your one over one original sash windows. The second story walk out front porch. There is just no better way to define Queen Anne than by looking at this home in Helena, Arkansas. I'm telling you this house is ready to go. You could move in tomorrow and live out your days here happily in your Victorian dream. One of my favorite things on the exterior of this property are the original brick roads that run this section of historic block. Then you have brick sidewalk and a brick entryway. So come on off these bricks with me and let's go inside and take a look. So come on in and visit this beautiful Queen Anne with me. Here we have again just the height of Queen Anne quixotic design. It's absolutely splendid and its original details are all here. I want to point out that they still use radiant heat. We don't see radiant heat much in the south anymore and this home still has its beautiful original radiators. This one with a poppy design. One on each side of this glorious front door that has its leaded glass in the front door with a doorbell, letter slot, and leaded glass side lights and transoms. Stunning. It looks like it was made yesterday. No damage. Then we have this exquisite hardwood mantle. The detail on this is unbelievable and the care that's been put into its restoration and preservation is top of the line. You rarely see historic woods that are this beautiful. This piece has obviously never been painted or if it was painted at some point the current owners of the property restored it to its original pristine condition. It has its original beveled mirrors. There are four of those. Griffins carved here. You have your, these look like possibly cherry blossoms in the spindle work and then all of your original acorn and acorn leaf tiles in this incredible front hall fireplace. Now the fireplaces were originally coal burning but the current owners have converted them so that you can use dura flame logs so you can have fires in all of the fireplaces in this house. Look at the exquisiteness that is this staircase. Again this wood is in such fine original condition. It honestly looks like it was made yesterday. I in all of my travels and all of my years of seeing historic homes have rarely seen woodwork that's in this condition. It has been cared for with the utmost attention and love and maintained in a way that I've not seen. I really don't know that I've seen woodwork in this condition in another property that we've had the opportunity to tour. I love how the current owners took the time to choose a wall covering that's pretty timeless in its design and its foliate design mimics the foliate design in the newel post here. These beautiful foliate designs. Every detail has been paid attention to. So let's go into the formal living room. Now this is my favorite color in the world. I call it bleen. It's not blue. It's not green. It's my favorite color and the fact that they've used this color for a monochromatic greenscape I happen to love. I love the fact that everything has been pulled all of these colors have been pulled from the original tiles that are in this yet again exuberant exquisite mantle with another original beveled mirror, ribbon work carving, all of these galleries, your barley twist spindles. They're almost a linen fold design here. Not quite but very similar dental carving here. Again this woodwork is so exquisite it looks like it could have been made yesterday. I'm in an absolute awe and I'm rarely in awe of things in good condition but this house is truly pristine. You'll see here we have a pocket door leading from the entryway. That one's a little bit stuck. It's that's oh it's off of its track. Not unusual. Very easy to fix. Not a problem but we do have a pocket door here. Then we have what appears to be a period gasoleer that was converted to electricity at some point. I would buy this house for this chandelier alone especially at the price at which it's being offered. You just wait until I tell you. Now we're going to go into what the last owners used as their dining room. It's also it's got library shelving in it which I don't believe is original and I would personally remove but I do want to point out this beautiful fretwork room divider, bullseye trim, and again another set of massive beautiful pocket doors. You know pocket doors are one of my favorite things in the world. And here we have an enormous dining space. This space is huge. You could entertain an enormous family here for the holidays. Again look at this fireplace. This time with dark almost burgundy tile work and beautiful original tiles with a foliate design. Another gallery mantle. A little cupboard in here and it's original glad bevel glass. For the first time one that shows a little age and I have to say in a house that's of this age and this pristine I kind of love that our mercury glass is starting to fade out a little bit there. Another beautiful original light fixture. You can see it is a gasoleer so it is gas it's made for gas here and electric here and that's how it always would have been. It is interesting to note that Helena Arkansas got electric lights in 1885. It was very very very early to receive electricity so that's why having a light fixture in Helena that has a gas appliance is really pretty rare. Beautiful cut glass. You know we love this wheel cut glass. So let's go on back through the entryway to what the family was using as their informal living space. So this is what the family was using as their living space. We have gorgeous fretwork detailing above the door and I want you to note how tall these doorways are. These doorways and ceilings. What would you say this ceiling is slightly lower in this room? This one's 10 so these would be 12. So that means our pocket doors going into the living room and dining room are 10 foot pocket door. This makes me happy. Another beautiful original mantle. Now this tile work obviously is not original but I think they've done a pretty good job carrying through the themes and they have this gorgeous kind of powdery blue gray on the walls. It's very livable. I'm telling you can move into this house today and do nothing to it. And then you have your enormous kitchen and living space. You don't get this a lot in Victorian homes but I think that this space has been added very sensitively to this property. It doesn't feel out of place. It doesn't feel crammed in here. Obviously some of the finishes you'd probably want to give a slight update to but the overall flow and use of space is absolutely spectacular. Look at this beveled leaded glass exit to your porch to the backyard. The backyard is landscaped extraordinarily. It is an escape unto itself and to get out there you get to go through this dream of a doorway. I don't know that it's original to this house but it certainly fits with the aesthetic beautifully. Behind you is another living space with a little wood burning stove. I find it wonderfully quixotic in this space to have this little space-age wood burner in the back of this Queen Anne home. So you could have a modern comfortable space in a historic home. Let's go through here and I'll show you the back porch. You do have a powder room off of this space here which is lovely but from our entryway which is here where we came in through here we have our summer porch. It also enters from your dining room so if you want to entertain if you want to have large parties large gatherings this is a superb space to open up these two doors and allow the flow to carry through to here. I would love I can see having your bar set up over here your drinks being served perhaps an hors d'oeuvre tray so people can come through the living room into the summer porch back into the main entry of the house and circle and flow beautifully. So let's go upstairs. Now I know that all of you have been dying to walk up this staircase so I'm gonna do it for you. Can you imagine your daughter on her wedding day coming down this set of stairs in her gown or earlier in her prom dress? This is every little girl's dream come true and every middle-aged woman's dream too. Here we are in the upstairs central hall this is a great common space if you have teenagers that want to have their own space their own living area you could have tv game room wonderful space up here there is carpet on the floor but I guarantee you underneath this carpet original heartwoods are just waiting to be shown so let's go into the first of three bedrooms up here huge enormous I wish you could get a sense of the scale of this space it is an enormous bedroom you have another original fireplace still with all of its original tiles these are really unusual in that they're one by six usually what we see are two by six in victorian homes but we have these one by six brown or umber colored tiles with foliately designer on the outside and in this room you have a bay projecting so you have a little inset here you have your original victorian corner guards beautiful and all of your transients over your doors entering into another enormous bedroom great spaces with another fireplace this time with these umber glaze tiles yes these are period appropriate I know somebody's gonna ask me and then matching umber glaze with blacks around and look I don't know how you feel about this this is one of my favorite things to do in the houses that we do you have to have a laundry room you have to have a laundry space I love to put it where the laundry is created in the bedrooms near the bathrooms I hate laundry rooms that are stuck like off the garage or in the kitchen some space where you have to take all the laundry from where you collect it to a laundry room I love this put it where the dirty clothes are actually created so there's your laundry space that's a built-in ironing board which I also love because you don't have to deal with that every time you open your ironing board so come through the master attic access here walk up to your attic we'll go up there in a minute but this is your master bedroom and of course you have your turret space in the master bedroom look at this what a dream for anyone with these beautiful windows that overlook this glorious home colonial revival across the street and the brick front walk and road I love it I love it I love it I love it put you a bustle chair here and enjoy the view of the backyard that is an absolute work of art but again another original fireplace with its stunning original tile work it's got the encaustic tile you guys know I love that and then a master bath which is very hard to find again you probably want to update some of the finishes but look at this incredible space walk-in shower double vanities walk-in closet lots of beautiful light in this room too which is something you struggle with in Victorian homes is find spaces that are light and bright because the look and feel was very dark in that time now you know that one of the things that makes Victorian homes so magnificent are their porches so come out here and take a look at this second story walk out porch featuring its glorious fretwork gingerbread details it's like living in a fairy tale cottage just on this porch incredible view of the beautiful yard and of course a close-up of your turret with your onion dome let's go in the attic and see if find any treasures come on well this is a treasure unto itself look at this space one of the nice things we can see up here is the central heat and air unit that is obviously quite new and will function beautifully for you in the hot summers in Arkansas this may win as the world's biggest attic fan that's what this is it's an attic fan uh which is a wonderful way here in the south that we use to draw air so that you don't have to use the air conditioner all that often but this is some incredible space and there's definitely some usable square footage up here if you wanted to expand if you didn't have enough room already there's more oh and look there's some fretwork hiding up here and shutters all kinds of exciting things so we hope you enjoyed your tour of the Alexander Tappan house yep you heard that right the last name Tappan which means that this house is related to our Helen right around the corner again we really would love for you to come be our neighbor if you'd like to get more information on this beautiful property called Bernadette Messina with Messina Real Estate at 870-817-1734 she can talk to you about purchasing this house which is currently listed are you ready want to guess for $179,000 won't you be our neighbor see you next time