Our Renaissance Foursquare
Leigh Petersen–Varner was happy to finally get the chance to restore this unique home.
I have subscribed to Old-House Journal and before that Old-House Interiors for years! Your magazines have been a constant inspiration as we restored three old houses. I’m sharing our current residence, a 1912 Foursquare in Nebraska. I found a newspaper article written in 1912, which explains that the house was built for a Wahoo attorney who became a county judge.
Unlike our previous Foursquare—a traditional “Cornbelt Cube”—this house has a formal vestibule at the entry, a dramatic staircase, a curved and colonnaded opening to the music room, a newel-post lamp, a butler’s pantry, and panelized mouldings in public rooms. I’ve heard these upgraded designs called American Renaissance Foursquares.
As I went through hundreds of photos to write to you, I realized just how much work we’ve done. It brought back so many memories. We looked at this house, the first time, in 1997, but it needed a lot of work and we felt it was out of our budget. We never forgot it, though.
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In 2011 the house was for sale again. By then we had four kids and wanted to move back to Wahoo. Over the years, I’d driven past the house and watched it fall into disrepair until finally it went to foreclosure. A gentleman bought it at auction and spent eight months fixing the house for a quick resale.
The house got new shingles and siding, fresh paint, and an updated kitchen and main bath. It was livable and calling our name. Since buying it, in 2012, we have worked nonstop on its restoration. It’s our third such project so we weren’t short on practical experience. We researched its history and focused on historic details.
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Here’s a bullet list of our interior projects:
- Kept the good-looking old radiators but added to the HVAC system so that now all four floors, basement to attic, are heated and cooled.
- Insulated the attic.
- Finished four of five basement rooms to include a safe, legal bedroom, full bath, and laundry.
- Removed woodwork (painted dark brown) from most of the first floor to strip, sand, stain, and finish before reinstalling it.
- Repaired original plaster.
- Restored original panelized mouldings in parlor and dining room.
- Painted in a palette of Colonial Revival colors.
- Refinished wood doors; found salvaged and new-old stock antique brass door plates.
- Restored and installed 15 vintage light fixtures, many of them Colonial Revival pan lights.
- Refinished pine and oak flooring found under later subfloors, tile, and linoleum.
- Removed a crumbling chimney at the roof and interior chimney from the attic through the second and first floors to make room for the refrigerator.
We completely gutted the remodeled kitchen but kept its original footprint, adding Shaker-style cabinets, subway tile, and stone counters, after rewiring and insulating. The auction-sale owner had taken out original smaller windows and replaced them with an oversized window but had left the framing in the walls so we were guided in restoring the original configuration.
Restoration continued in the pantry; we stripped the flooring layers, as in the kitchen, then stripped, sanded, painted, and finished doors, drawers, and shelving. A shop in Omaha replated the original hinges and cabinet hardware. We rebuilt the enclosed maid’s staircase, which had been turned into a closet. In the mudroom, we reinstalled two missing windows.
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Outdoor projects were just as substantial and ranged from restoring old windows and adding storms to building a compatible garage that resembles a carriage house. We added a privacy fence with five gates and an arbor. Reclaimed bricks from the town’s old sidewalks line our flower beds.
Well, I know there are 101 other things but you get the idea! Our son, Nathen, helped me and my husband, David Varner, tremendously. Nathen is now a building contractor. I guess living through three restorations rubbed off on him.
— Written by Leigh Petersen–Varner; Wahoo, Nebraska. All photos courtesy of the Varner family.
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The curved header at the colonnaded room divider is a unique feature; it opens to the former music room, which “our kids used to call The Oval Office.” From the formal foyer, doorways lead to the kitchen, dining room, parlor, and music room (now an office).
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A split colonnade with piers resting on bookcases is topped by an unusual curved header beam.
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Before, many doors and trim elements previously painted brown were removed for stripping and refinishing, then reinstalled.
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The staircase landing is lit by original stained glass. Finding evidence that a newel lamp had gone missing, the owner created a replacement from an antique lamp and vintage fixture parts.
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The parlor retains original pocket doors and large windows.
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A rolltop desk sits beneath the high “piano window” in what was originally the music room, off the parlor.
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A pantry separates the dining room from the kitchen.
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During restoration of the mudroom, a rear entry porch also was added.
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The kitchen before.
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Under 105 years of subfloor, linoleum, and tile in the kitchen, original pine floors were discovered.
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In the pantry, cabinetwork was stripped and painted. Original hardware was replated by a metal shop in Omaha.
