'Within This House:' Restoration brings historic McGregor home back to life

By Audrey Posten | Times-Register

“I left within this house where once I lived a part of me; Within its walls, forever shall there beat the heart of me; Upon these stairs, a ghost of me shall tread.

“Upon these floors my feet will dance, my eager hands will touch remembered doors, and though I find contentment bound by other roofs and walls - More strong, more kind within this house where I have lived and loved and laughed and cried - I left a tiny portion of my soul walled up inside.

“So if you hear a whispering or a sigh - A rustling as if someone on the stair, be not dismayed - It will be I hoping to find a mislaid dream somewhere.”

Mabel Kennedy Bliss, who lived from 1868 to 1951, penned this poem entitled “Within This House” about the residence at 127 Center St., when she left McGregor for California. It was a tribute to the home built in the 1870s and later added onto by her father, McGregor druggist Marshall T. Kennedy.

Over a century later, the doors, walls and stairs Mabel Kennedy Bliss so lovingly described have a new lease on life thanks to a nearly decade-long restoration effort by Duane Boelman and Ellis Seavey.

When first approached about purchasing the property in 2017, the two were unsurprisingly hesitant. The 2,500- to 3,000-square-foot home had been sparsely lived in and kept up in recent years. 

“We got an opportunity to look at the house. It was a tear down. It was so bad,” Boelman recalled. 

Still, he called the banker and made an offer. It was accepted. 

Later, as the two began to examine the home’s features, they realized it had better bones than they first believed. 

“We can’t tear this down,” Boelman said. 

Instead, they tore into it.

The first order of business was to keep the moisture out, wisdom Boelman learned through his historic preservation background. He’s currently chair of McGregor’s Historic Preservation Commission. 

He and Seavey also have restoration experience. Seavey worked construction during summers in college and, together, they renovated their home next door, the historic T.J. Sullivan home.

“That was really bad too,” Boelman quipped.

Early work at the Kennedy house included replacing the roof and gutters as well as the foundation. 

“The rear part of the house, sitting really close to the hillside, it doesn’t dry out well. There was a lot of decay because of that and poor maintenance,” Boelman said.

And that was just the start. The two removed what Seavey described as “an awful porch on the front.” 

Dumpsters and dumpsters of clutter went out the door as well. “They just left it,” Seavey said. “The attic was stuffed, including a pool table.” 

Cast iron tubs in the bathrooms, along with an old piano in what’s now the dining room, were dismantled because they were too large to move.

While some windows were restored, others were replaced, swapping out small, short ones with taller versions more like those original to the home.

Plumbing and electrical were replaced, creating functional bathrooms and, within the last year, a functional kitchen.

Although the ceilings are new, the plaster on most walls was largely in good condition. Boelman skim coated it to create a smooth, even surface.

“I’ve gotten to be better at skim coating as I’ve gone along,” he said. “I just love these old plaster walls. They’re so solid.”

Refinishing the pine floors were another major undertaking.

“The floors were bad,” Seavey detailed. “They had lots of openings.”

He recalled how Boelman spent hours on his hands and knees cleaning them. In one room in particular, the boards were covered in tar from old linoleum and had to be hand sanded. The upstairs bedroom floors were covered in carpet glue.

“I complained the whole time. By the time I finished the floors in there, I thought, ‘Never again, never again,’” Boelman said.

Determining the layout and flow of the rooms—especially in what was originally a single-family home, then a duplex, and back to single family—was another challenge.

“When we started working on the house, we presumed that was the dining room,” Boelman said while walking through the downstairs. “But since then, we’ve discovered this was probably the dining room. That would have been the living room.”

At the time, Boelman and Seavey didn’t have much for reference. The North Iowa Times archives frequently referenced Kennedy, including an article about remodeling of the home.

“Like most people in the day, and now, as their fortunes grew, they tended to remodel the house and make it a little bit grander. At one point, they say he was building a room onto what was already a palatial house,” Boelman shared. “That’s all I really had to go on. I didn’t have any pictures.” 

Several years later, though, a message came in to the McGregor Historic Preservation Commission Facebook page Boelman manages. In response to a current photo of  the home, a woman said, “I’ve got a picture of that house. It was my grandfather’s house.” 

Through their correspondence, Boelman received photos as well as the “Within This House” poem.

“She said, ‘I want it hanging in that house,’” he remarked. “I was really thrilled to get it. Mabel would have been this lady’s grandmother, and Marshall T. Kennedy would have been her great-grandfather.”

The poem now hangs on the dining room wall.

It’s not the only special feature within the Kennedy house. Boelman and Seavey are fascinated by the little things: the original window locks, old doors and door knobs. “Stuff that can’t be, and shouldn’t be, replaced,” according to Boelman.

The original woodworking, what Boelman assumes is probably from old growth forest in northern Wisconsin, is treasured. As are the quirks created by adding and removing walls and doors.

Then there’s the staircase.

“It’s what really sold me on the house. It’s so amazing,” said Boelman.

The staircase was in relatively good shape when the two started. Boelman took steel wool to it, then coated it with varnish, “and it cleaned up pretty well.”

“It’s solid,” Seavey noted. “There’s no give to it at all.”

The home is now lovingly furnished in period pieces, and although Boelman and Seavey haven’t stayed overnight in the home—Seavey joked they’re afraid Mabel might come by—they spend quite a bit of time there. The back garden area is perfect for meditation, according to Seavey, and the porch for gin and tonics. Boelman visits to play piano.

Outside some finishing touches in other spaces, just one upstairs bedroom awaits restoration. 

“We’ll start on it one of these days,” Boelman said. But, for now, it’s a reminder of how far the two have come.

“The thousands of hours of work,” as Seavey said—and many YouTube tutorials.

If others are considering tackling a similar project, they said it’s important to know what you’re getting into. Take your time and conduct research about the space and to know what’s historically appropriate. 

“Don’t throw away anything as far as parts of the house. Keep those things if you’ve got a place to store them. You might figure out what they were for,” Boelman said. “Not everyone will have the same ideas, and it’s not always possible, but you’re preserving the old. We’re really trying to do that here.”

Relish in the progress and your place in a grand home’s history. 

You might find a mislaid dream somewhere.

“These old houses, I like to think we’re caretakers of them, hopefully,” reflected Boelman.