THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504140369
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 326 lines
Ever ride by old, interesting homes and wish you could take a peek inside? Well, Saturday's your chance - and you may never get a better one.
The theme of this year's Historic Garden Week tour is ``Stained Glass'' and there will be plenty of beautifully bejeweled windows on this inside look at Olde Towne.
But there are so many reasons to take this tour, one wonders how the Elizabeth River Garden Club of Portsmouth settled on a title.
There's the opportunity to look at the unique collections of diehard antique-lovers - everything from old canes and handsome mantel clocks to delicate Victorian invalid cups and Oriental snuff bottles.
For garden lovers, the outdoor reception at the home of Dr. Robert and Jean Knapp is a chance to see what a modern-day flower enthusiast has added to the old-fashioned trees and bulbs left by her turn-of-the-century predecessors.
And if you think the large three-story Victorian on the corner of Washington and North streets is gorgeous on the outside, don't pass up this chance to walk through the beautifully restored home.
There's absolutely no attic feel to this old home. Thomas and Sharon Knowles don't just collect antiques; they bring them back to life and put them in rooms that are newly-created visions of the past.
And just when you've had enough of another time zone, slip over to the home of artist Barbara Vincent and see a more contemporary approach to urban living.
BARBARA VINCENT'S HOME
461 Dinwiddie St.
Barbara Vincent calls the home she's carved out of an old downtown doctor's office one of the larger pieces of art she's ever designed.
The federal revival building, which sits on Dinwiddie Street behind the Prison Square shops, was built in 1935 for Dr. Thomas Oast, the town pediatrician.
Vincent thinks it was used in more recent years as office space for other businesses.
``Then it was sitting empty for, I think, about two years,'' she said. ``When Maury and Audrey (Cooke) started renovating Prison Square, I just looked around and there it was. It just seemed perfect.''
Vincent liked the potential for mixed-use occupancy and felt that buying into the concept was a way to support the city.
``I just really felt like I wanted to be a part of downtown and the renovation of it,'' she said.
Vincent, former owner of the Olde Towne Gallery, and Audrey Cooke had initially opened their Fields of Dreams shop in Prison Square.
There, along with the work of other craftsmen, they sold their own work which runs the gamut from decorative clay pieces and custom tile work to Vincent's painted furniture.
They decided they were spending too much time selling other people's work and not enough producing their own. So they left the Prison Square store and what used to be the doctor's reception area now serves as a working studio for the two women.
Behind that business space is Vincent's private oasis.
Walls between the doctor's office and two examining rooms came down forming a large space for a combination kitchen and living room.
``I like spontaneous dinners and I, like every other woman . . . hate to be in the kitchen when company is in the other room.''
When Vincent got ready to run more electrical into the kitchen walls for counter outlets she discovered a bonus to her vision.
``We kept hitting fire stops and hitting the brick,'' she said. ``It didn't seem to be enough room to pull the electric up.
``One night I came in and took a hammer and big screw driver and made a hole in the wall to try and figure out what we could do and hit this beautiful red brick,'' she said. ``That hole got real big real fast.''
After one wall of plaster came down, Vincent and a friend took one look and decided the whole room needed to be brick. Even the window framing has been painted the same brick color so that it doesn't take away from the brick or the large collection of art that fills Vincent's house.
Two months after Vincent started renovating the original 600-square-foot building, she started the work on the new portion of the house she built onto the back.
``I knew I was going to add on 728 square feet,'' she said.
She had drawn sketches of what she envisioned and got input from a friend, Portsmouth architect Glenn Yates.
The addition includes a loft studio, an 8-foot wide walk-in closet, a large bathroom and a large room Vincent refers to as a multi-purpose room.
``It's the room where I sleep. It's the room where I eat. It's the room where I read.''
And like the old portion of the house, it is a natural gallery for Vincent's lifetime collection of paintings and pottery.
A sweeping view of the new area can be seen from the old bricked portion of the house and it provides an interesting contrast.
The back of the house is filled with the light pouring in from two skylights that can be opened. Long white-on-white stripe curtains hang at the white pine beam next to the bed, giving an almost canopy look to it.
Vincent hung the curtains there so that she could pull them across the bedroom portion of the room when she had company.
The windows on the other side of the bed look out on a garden bricked in by adjoining offices and stores. Eight white decorative panels from the windows of The Famous have been used on two of the brick walls.
``Fresh air is important to me,'' she said. ``Light is important to me and a feeling of openness. That's why it's all painted white too. Because of my art and because of the openness.''
Even the artwork in that room has been framed in all white so that nothing takes away from the art or that feeling of openness.
A friend who stopped by recently summed it up this way: ``It feels like you're in a mountain cabin in the kitchen and you walk back to Nags Head.''
MR. AND MRS. C. FRED RICE
404 Court St.
Besides Trinity Episcopal Church, which also happens to be on this walking tour, visitors will have the opportunity to see plenty of stained glass at the home of Fred and Sarah Rice.
The Rices lived in England for 15 years and collected about 20 stained glass panels, many that came from churches, pubs and conservatories.
The couple were Portsmouth educators when they took a year's leave of absence to teach on an Air Force base in Japan. That year turned into 25.
After Japan, they and their children moved to Germany, then finally England, where they lived in a 17th century stone house between Oxford and Stratford.
They followed their children back to the states upon retirement, settling in the Olde Towne home they had purchased four years before returning.
But the international influence is obvious in their new home, which is filled with unusual collections from Asian snuff bottles and Victorian candle nightlights to 17th century coffers and Bible boxes.
The Rices lend their unique background in antique hunting to locals as part owners of Prison Square Antiques a few blocks away in the Olde Towne shopping district.
But the best display of antiques is probably the one in their home.
In the dining room are Windsor chairs with crinoline stretchers, in an upstairs bedroom a French Empire fainting couch.
Throughout the downstairs are the Victorian invalid cups that Sarah Rice collected while in England. The delicate tea cups with spouts on the side allowed patients to sip while reclining.
Sarah Rice's favorite is an old walnut high chair that folds down into either a potty chair or a rocking seat.
``That design hasn't improved in 150 years,'' she said.
The oldest piece is a 1610 map of Wales by well-known English map maker John Speed.
The couple were drawn to their new Victorian home by it's high ceilings, wooden shutters and its beautiful woodwork from the old stair railings to the mantel pieces.
But their favorite part of the house is also the newest - a wrap around porch added to the back.
``We live on the porch,'' said Sarah Rice.
And who wouldn't? It looks out on another bit of England the Rices managed to bring back: a bricked garden, complete with English stadle stones and a chimney pot.
Dr. and Mrs. Robert W. Knapp
Garden only, 322 Court St.
While you're looking at gardens, don't leave out the home of Dr. and Mrs. Robert W. Knapp, where garden club members will be serving refreshments.
The Knapp's English Basement style home is not open on the tour, but they have invited tour-goers to take a look at the best of Virginia gardening, past and present.
Jean Knapp has been an avid gardener since she and her husband were stationed in Japan years ago. There she learned the art of Japanese flower arranging, something that influences many of her decisions about what to plant in her garden now.
When the Knapps bought their home in Olde Towne in 1979, the large yard was one of the selling features.
The home had been in the same family for 115 years until it was sold in the 1960s. The last occupants from that family were two sisters who had spent years adding to the garden.
But that wasn't immediately obvious to the Knapps.
``It was very badly overgrown,'' she said. ``There was ivy everywhere and wisteria everywhere up the trees. The pyracantha bushes were so big they were scratching the second floor windows.
``It wasn't until the following spring when we had done some clearing that we realized there was so much here already.''
Knapp knew she had some wonderful blooming trees and shrubs, including an old-fashioned pearl bush and a chaste tree. In addition to the traditional creamy white magnolia tree there is a magnolia which produces the purple tulip like blooms.
But she didn't know about the hundreds of bulbs that had been planted.
The bulbs include blue scilla, white star-of-Bethlehem, old varieties of camellias and old-fashioned varieties of daffodils. Red spider lilies bloom in September.
``The bulbs were just a hidden bonus,'' she said.
The Knapps have added a Japanese maple tree, two varieties of jasmine and many of the plants that she likes to use in her flower arranging.
Jean Knapp likes the idea that she has carried on the work of her gardening predecessors.
That and living in the ``same house where so many generations have been born and lived is one of the charms of an old house and property.''
MR. AND MRS. R. SCOTT MORGAN 316 Court St.
Like the Rices, Scott and Linda Morgan have shared a love of antique collecting.
And since the late 1960s, Scott Morgan had seen 316 Court St. as the perfect home for those treasures.
``For years, he had said `I want that house one day,' '' said Linda Morgan. ``It was Victorian and it was stone. He loves stone.''
The Morgans finally bought the house six years ago, but not without a glitch in their plans.
Ten days before they were to move in lightening apparently struck the house causing a fire.
``The only thing we lost wasn't really ours,'' Linda Morgan said.
The fire uncovered a hidden room on the third floor filled with furniture, she said.
And although most of the furniture was destroyed, the Morgans did recover two antique plant stands and a large oak wardrobe, now in their dining room. The fire also revealed a stained glass window in the dining room that had been covered up.
Another original stained glass window pours colored light into the foyer, which also is set off by the gingerbread woodwork of the staircase and a wall sponge-painted a cherry red.
Despite the fire, the Morgans have brought the turn-of-the-century home back to life with beautiful colors and furnishings. And just as they expected, the home has provided them with wonderful nooks and crannies for their treasures.
Like Linda Morgan's yellow and white Beleeck collection, her varied sizes and shapes of brass candlesticks and her growing army of German nutcrackers.
Her husband's collections started with interesting family pieces. The old cane President Andrew Jackson gave his great grandfather, a doctor, is still his favorite. It is one of about two dozen he has collected, including sword canes and a whimsy glass cane.
A handsome clock from the USS Virginia Steamship was a retirement gift for a great grandfather who worked on the Berkley.
``We just found a picture of him with the crew on the day of his retirement,'' Linda Morgan said.
Little did that retiree know that gift would spur a house full of chiming antique clocks for his great grandson.
For the most part, the ticking and chiming just fades into the background of house noise. But, she said, ``every time we get a new one, we're kept awake.''
And when the Morgans asked a friend to stay at the house when they went out of town recently, they had to go around stopping all the clocks in order to allow their sleep.
New touches to the house include the work of Portsmouth sculptor Sue Landerman.
Landerman sculpted marble for a fireplace so that it would complement the one in the adjoining parlor. Her well-known sculpted brickwork forms a large arched hearth that surrounds the stove. The original hood that kept heat down when the first homeowners cooked in a fireplace is another touch of warmth to the renovated kitchen.
Mr. and Mrs. W. Thomas Knowles
532 North St.
Sharon Knowles has lovingly restored and decorated each room of the rambling corner Victorian like a set designer intent on winning the award for best period design.
In fact, the house has already been used for a CBS School Break Special and for two local promotions.
Knowles has always focused on the Victorian era, a preference influenced by her great grandfather's house with all of its staircases and nooks and crannies.
The house she and her husband purchased in Olde Towne six years ago has all of that in bundles.
The large front staircase fills just half of a grand foyer, sunlight pouring from windows dressed up in fringed velvet drapes.
Behind the railing at the top of the stairs is a channel-back chair covered in a lush floral pattern next to a window shaded by the leaves of a giant magnolia tree - a perfect reading corner.
The back of the house has a staircase and a working elevator with accordion doors.
Knowles has painted the downstairs foyer and rooms in semi-glossy burgundies and hunter greens, covering Victorian furnishings in rich florals with fringe.
Both colors are brought together in the dining room wallpaper, a reproduction of wallpaper used in the home of Winston Churchill.
The colors which would darken some houses are made for this house with its tall ceilings and many windows. The house is one of the sunniest in Olde Towne, located on a corner with the adjoining lot.
Her son's garden wedding a few years ago had given the Knowles a deadline to landscape the yard into a formal Victorian setting with fanned brick walkways visible from the street. With the wedding in mind, Knowles used ony white varieties of azaleas and other flowers.
An ornate white privacy fence hides a patio and a flower garden landscaped with colorful cutting flowers.
The garden tour provided Knowles with a deadline for the last stage of her renovations - the second floor of the house.
Knowles' ideas for decorating the master bedroom upstairs grew out of some Egyptian prints she had at her office.
Painted a glossy walnut brown, it looks like the bedroom of a British aristocrat returned from a colony plantation.
A bamboo canopy bed, just one of a large collection of bamboo furniture, is draped with panels of raw-looking frayed cotton. Two English pub tables are on each side of the bed. A black lacquered Oriental chest sits near the foot of the bed.
The room, one of her favorites, has continually evolved.
``Just recently I found the two funky Art Deco Egyptian motif mirrors,'' she said.
The room next to the bedroom has been turned into a dressing room, a room that evolved from a desk she used as her vanity.
The desk was not a dark wood, so she decided to rag paint the room in wide stripes of beige. She added an ornate leaded glass Tiffany-style light fixture to the room. It hung down almost three feet from the ceiling, so she decided to pull a chaise lounge into the center of the room under that light fixture.
The lounge has been covered in a cream satin chenille. There was plenty of room left for the three large wardrobes and an antique turn rack for more clothes. ILLUSTRATION: ON THE COVER
Barbara Vincent enjoys spending time in the kitchen. Her home at 461
Dinwiddie St. is featured on the Elizabeth River Garden Club Tour.
Cover and inside photos by Mark Mitchell.
High ceilings, wooden shutters and beautiful woodwork were features
that convinced Fred and Sarah Rice to buy their Court Street home,
which they've filled with antiques such as these in the living
room.
Scilla blooms in Jean Knapp's flower garden, above. At left, Knapp
gets some help with the gardening from her dog Taffy.
An original stained-glass window, left, pours colored light into the
foyer of Scott and Linda Morgan's Victorian home on Court Street.
Staff photo by MOTOYA NAKAMURA
A bamboo canopy bed is draped with panels of raw-looking frayed
cotton in the master bedroom of Sharon and Thomas Knowles' North
Street home. Colors that would darken some houses are made for this
house with its tall ceilings and many windows.
B\W photos
Linda Morgan looks at an old family Bible in her dining room
Even the bathroom shows a Victorian influence in the Knowles' home.
by CNB