A restored Italianate Victorian comes full circle

This blog entry is to show readers how the Captain John O'Rourke House looked at the very beginning and how it has evolved over the years. This will be done through the use of several photographs/images and a review of each.

Image #1 shows the Italianate Victorian home as it first appeared upon completion. This image comes from a book called Andrea's History of Nebraska. It was published in 1882. If you look closely you will see the Captain in the front yard looking at the home and his daughter looking back at him from the front porch. Notice that the home has a large overhang, corbels under the roof line, a porch railing on both the upper and lower levels of the house. Since the Captain died in May of 1882 and we know the home construction began in June of 1881 the photo from which the image must have been made had to have been taken in either late 1881 or early 1882.

Truly Italianate Victorian in style and design the home matched time wise the buildings of the same design on mainstreet Plattsmouth located four blocks away.

Image #2 shows the home as it stood in the period of World War I. This is known by the service star in the front window designating that someone living here was in the military service. The picture is significant as it shows in clear detail the remaining railings on the front porch. In addition the photo shows the upper porch posts still connected to the house at this point in time. When I moved into the home five years ago these posts were discovered underneath the front porch of the home. Unfortunately the photo does not show the underside of the eves to show if the corbels still exist at this point or not.

Image #3 shows the home as it looked when I purchased it five years ago. Note that the corbels are missing from the front of the home. Also note that the balusters on the porch are of a completely different design than what was originally used. No railing or evidence of a railing exists at his point on the upper level of the porch. This image would date to roughly 2003/2004.

Image #4 shows the home as it exited for its 125th anniversary. At this point I have recreated the balusters to as close a resemblance as those in the WWI photo. The lower half of the porch posts have been rebuilt so that they once again have an Italianate look and feel to them. The upper porch railing was created completely from scratch based on the 1882 image shown above. At this point the majority of the painting still needs to be undertaken to properly colorize this Victorian lady. This image dates to late summer 2006.

Image #5 This image shows the home as it now looks. In addition to the porch work I also undertook the task of recreating the missing corbels. This was done by closely examining one of the corbels on the side of the home, taking detailed measurements and then simply spending enough time to create the pieces and put everything together.

As an interesting note when we removed some of the trim on the front of the home to make repairs we found that the current body color for the home is virtually the same as that originally used on the home. The colors we chose are based on a Sherwin Williams Victorian color palate and fit our home perfectly.

So, what you see in image #5 is the home, with the exception of shutters and storm windows, the way the O'Rourke's would have seen their new home when they moved into it in early 1882. The home is currently listed in the National Register of Historic places for both its building type and because a person of historic significance (Captain John O'Rourke) lived here.

Hope you like it - it was a great deal of work to hand recreate and install everything but we here feel it was very, very worth it.

Thanks for looking!