Du Quoin Family Recipients of Historic Preservation Award

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[When John and April VanVoorhis bought the Evelyn Jones home (circa 1896) at 341 East Park Street in July of 1996 it was not only "the ugliest house on the block," smiles VanVoorhis, "it was the ugliest house in Du Quoin."

April smiled in agreement, "Caleb (one of the VanVoorhis children) said he wouldn't live here. He was going to nana's." Yet, he and sister Hannah survived the seven-year extreme makeover, and the end result is stunning.

Today, it becomes a complete privilege to tour this beautiful and historically correct Queen Ann residence on the re-populated and restored Park Street "hill."

VanVoorhis, a Du Quoin firefighter, plans to finish the restoration by matching the the wooden trim in the gable ends. He has picked out the roof section where his weather vane is going. It will be a certain complement to the Dutch Lap siding and porch railing system that were perfectly crafted to match the original.

John says by the time they bought the home, paid for the updated title work and other costs related to homebuying, it wasn't even a bargain despite its condition. Today, it is not only saleable, it is enviable.

When they moved in, there were lights and no switches in some rooms, and switches and no lights in others. "We washed dishes in the bathtub, and the washer and dryer weren't hooked up."

Those things seemed to pale by having to take walls out, move other walls, level floors and restore the structural integrity of the house.

"I took out a piece of window frame that had a drawing of the gable trim on it," he remembers.

"We have never known who built the house or who the first owner was," he said. "We know that it was a boarding house," he said. Upstairs rooms were connected to a common hallway and the house had an upstairs kitchen.

Turn-of-the-century boarding houses were common throughout the community because of the railroad and mining business.

Except for the roof, the sheet rock and taping, the VanVoorhises can sign their names to all of the work.

Both brought a critical eye and great attention to detail to the project.

Every cut in in the interior oaken trim is perfect. In some places, the couple picked out pieces of oak because of the grain pattern.

For the outside, John made over 2,000 board feet of siding. Some 28 windows were replaced with high efficiency window units, then new trim was cut or repaired to frame them.

The kitchen is now a designer kitchen; the living room and dining room borrow from both the historic and the modern. Furnishings and accessories are perfect.

But, if you were given one place to see, it would be the upstairs master bath--once a common kitchen--with its oval tub, stone accents and gable end window which beautifully filters the summer sun coming in from the south.

He sees an attached garage in his mind's eye at some point in the future. Both admit that at times they think about what life would be like living in the country, but what they have would be hard to beat.

On Wednesday, the couple was presented with the Du Quoin Historic Preservation's prestigious Historic Homes Award--only the third in the commission's program to honor local preservation and restoration.

Commission member Aaron Atkins has this to say about the home:

The charming residence now known as the home of Mr. & Mrs. John VanVoorhis has undergone quite a metamorphosis in recent years to become the beautiful home we now admire. For too many years, the home was shrouded in a cocoon of dingy rolled brick siding. The residence was built in the then fashionable Victorian Queen Ann mode. This style is characterized by asymmetrical massing of the body of the building, spindled and sawn wood ornament, turrets, leaded glass windows, and a generally fanciful and picturesque appearance.

The VanVoorhis residence is a simpler version of the same style in which the Searby funeral home, the now demolished Forrester home, the former Grace Lehn home at the end of Mulberry St., and the former Gussie Hall home across the street were all constructed. The most notable common feature of all of them is the turret. In the case of the VanVoorhis residence, the turret houses the front stairway. In the case of the latter two, the turrets only appear as a portion of the porches.

"Another notable feature of the VanVoorhis residence is the presence of real Dutch Lap siding. Unlike so much of the Dutch Lap siding seen on homes today which is really a vinyl imitation of the genuine article, the VanVoorhis home was originally constructed with the Dutch Lap you see today. Mr. VanVoorhis re-finished the original wood to restore the original appearance of the home.

"This particular restoration is a text book example of just what can be achieved by peeling away the accretions of several decades to reveal hidden beauty."

Many homeowners in Du Quoin would be shocked and surprised to find the often beautiful siding treatments with which the Victorian architects adorned their masterpieces, only to have them covered over by later generations with rolled brick or aluminum siding in the name of economy of maintenance. The VanVoorhis family has given a wonderful gift to the people of the City of Du Quoin by restoring this once proud home to its former loveliness, and by virtue thereof, giving all of us back a part of our common architectural heritage.