Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on May 24, 1991.
PRESERVING HISTORIC PORTER COUNTY
Home still being ‘discovered’
by Beverly Overmyer
The Vidette-Messenger
VALPARAISO ー “I wish houses could talk,” said Shirley Reiner, who with her husband, Van, still puzzles over the history of their 130-year-old house in the early residential section of Valparaiso.
The Reiners have discovered many facts about their home since they moved here seven years ago from Buffalo, N.Y. Much of the history of their home they still hope to discover.
But some things will probably remain a mystery, Shirley said.
The large frame house at Institute and Lafayette streets was built in the early 1860s in Powell’s addition, which had been platted Aug. 3, 1860.
Searching the tax records, Shirley discovered the house was owned by Obediah Dunham in 1875. In 1877, original records show a lease on the house for one year at $12.50 per month.
“One builder who looked at the house told us it must have been built before 1870 since the hand-hewn beams in the basement were not used after the 1860s,” she said.
When the Reiners replaced the roof of the two-story home and carriage house, they found four layers of shingles over wood shakes.
“There were three different colors of shingles on different sections of the roof,” Shirley said, “green, brown, and black.
“When we re-sided the house in blue we had an old picture to guide us. There had been plain wood trim on the corners of the house and under the eaves. We replaced it to make the house look more like it had before previous renovations.”
The house had a two-story addition facing Lafayette Street. The front porch also was changed. When Shirley stripped the paint from the baseboards in the dining room, she discovered two layers of hardwood flooring.
“Maybe they added the second layer when the addition was added 60 years ago to make the floor all look the same.”
The couple had discovered many things about the previous owners of their house. Miles McNiece owned the property in 1906 and had a store on Lincolnway a few blocks from his home. The house remained in the family until 1961.
McNiece’s daughter, Geraldine, married Dr. Blount. The couple had no children, leaving the house to their nieces and nephews.
In the basement, the Reiners found three dusty metal file boxes containing many of Dr. Blout’s patient records. One shows a 1926 record of a $4 visit by Agnes Murphy.
The Reiners got some first hand information from one of the nephews, James McNiece of Valparaiso, who told them he remembered his grandfather being laid out in his coffin in the parlor before the funeral.
In the 1930s, the house was renovated into a two-family house. Doorways, windows, closets, hallways and stairways were changed to make a large apartment with a kitchen at the rear next to the back stairway.
“The mother of one of our kid’s friends told me that as late as the 1970s there was a dumbwaiter back here and a door in the wall that had been used by the ice man for deliveries. I wish the dumbwaiter was still there,” she said.
Another reminder of earlier years that Shirley regrets losing is a claw-foot bathtub.
James Brocke bought the house and returned it to a single-family residence. The Reiners and their three children, Tim, Rebecca and David, made the modernized house their home in 1984.
The family found the location as convenient as the earlier families did. Shirley said she was looking for a house near downtown so the family could walk to the stores, library and the YMCA.
Some of the other best features of the house were built in long ago.
“The upstairs porch faces south and that always gives you a wonderful light,” Shirley said. “And the house has a good air flow so that a good breeze always blows through the house. Lots of new houses we see now don’t have these features.”
Other discoveries show the changes made over the years. Many windows were bricked up or moved on the same wall. Walls were apparently moved. The Reiners are also puzzled about the two brick chimneys in the basement on the opposite side of the house from the fireplaces added to the first- and second- floor additions.
The woodwork may be original or it may be from the renovations of the ‘20s, Shirley said. Shirley plans research trips to the Old Jail Museum and the genealogy department of the Valparaiso library to try to discover more about the short-term owners as well as people who may have rented the upstairs during the three decades it was apartments.
The Reiners found a child’s school essay from the 1920s, but don’t know if the child or his teacher lived in the house.
The Reiners’ home is at Institute and Lafayette streets.
