If This House Could Talk -- Blog post #22 -- A Fine House

 Charles was 32 years old before he had his own house. After arriving in Marysville in 1860, he lived with his sister and brother-in-law, their children, and his parents. Two years later his parents built their own house, and he lived with them. It was only in 1873 that he built me--a two-room house--his first home. He added to me in anticipation of his marriage to Sylvia Broughten in 1876 and further enhanced me as his family and prosperity grew.

I know that Charles often took notice of fine homes and got ideas during his travels. When he was living in Atchison in 1859, he saw a residence with gas lights and a greenhouse. He later said, “I thought, and it was, an ideal home . . .” He would build his first greenhouse in my garden in 1881.

In 1876, just after Charles had made improvements to me, Sylvia and he were on their honeymoon trip, and they checked out fine residential areas in Philadelphia. While in Philadelphia, they toured the Horticulture Hall and surrounding landscaped grounds at the Centennial Exposition. It was there that he saw the kind of statuary that he would add to my grounds in 1881.

They also visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon and its grounds where he probably saw the formal pleasure garden and its flower beds, the kitchen garden, and the greenhouses with exotic plants. They also stopped at the conservatory of the Botanic Garden in Washington D.C.

Charles continued to make improvements to me. He added electric lights in 1888. In 1902, he contacted a St. Louis architect to remodel me. Mr. Chievers came to Marysville and met with Charles. Mr. Chievers estimated that remodeling me would cost nearly as much as a new house and it would not be a modern building. Charles asked him to submit sketches and estimates for remodeling and for a new home. Nothing came of that because Charles died two months later.

Charles reflected in his diary in 1902: "What I saw and admired so much in the beautiful little residence grounds in Philadelphia in 1876 is fully realized, much more than I ever believed I would achieve. And yet, so much progress around us that our own ideal often seems too little, though looking around so many have much less when even greater burdens."