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Sleeping Beauty: Behind a Veil of Ivy, a Charmer Was Waiting to Be Revived

Posted on: Saturday, 1 April 2006, 15:00 CST

By Rachel Leibrock, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Apr. 1--Love is blind.

That's the lesson Judy Dolan and husband, Brad Sidwell, learned shortly after purchasing their 1927 Spanish Revival house.

The couple knew the Curtis Park house needed work, but just how much effort they'd eventually put into restoration was still a secret hidden deep within the home's ivy-choked exterior.

That was July 2004. In the time since, Dolan and Sidwell have invested a considerable chunk of time and money, sweated over details and personally tackled much of the labor.

And, they estimate, they're still only at the halfway mark. The finishing point? Far, far away.

"Looking back at the home-inspection notes and photos - I'm amazed that I could justify buying this house," Dolan says.

From renovating the outside (removing ivy, putting on a new roof, repairing stucco walls) to the inside (dry rot, restoring windows, replacing plumbing), Dolan and Sidwell have been forced to rethink nearly every inch of the 2,750-square-foot structure.

A daunting prospect to be sure; still, it's not difficult to figure out the potential Dolan, 45, and Sidwell, 39, saw in the home. With its sweeping floor plan, cunning features, abundant windows and high ceilings, the sunny, four-bedroom, two-bath house is grandiose, yet inviting.

Dolan fell in love with it on her first visit; she was especially smitten by features such as the master bedroom's spacious adjoining sunroom and a guest room's "Juliet"-style balcony.

Dolan wanted Sidwell to see the house, but her husband was out of town and said he trusted her judgment. She could put in an offer if she liked it that much.

Not so fast. Dolan insisted that he look at it in person.

"There was no way I was spending that kind of money otherwise," she says.

Sidwell obliged and immediately recognized its potential. (They declined to say how much the house cost.)

"It was this big beautiful house - the architect had a great vision," Sidwell says. "I could see this (would be) an easy house to bring back to how it was originally meant to be."

Easy, of course, is a relative term.

It wasn't the couple's first home-improvement project - they'd restored their last home, an 1,100-square-foot Oak Park Craftsman bungalow. This house, however, was considerably larger - and in a much worse state of disrepair.

The challenges started immediately. There was trouble insuring the new home - which for 20 years had been a rental and was purchased "as is" - thanks to the overgrown foliage.

"No one could even see what was underneath all that ivy," Dolan says.

Removing the plants revealed bigger problems, including an aging tube-and-knob electrical panel and damaged stucco walls.

Other discoveries included extensive dry rot and an upstairs shower that leaked - right into the dining room.

Dolan and Sidwell set to work right away. Relatively flexible work schedules (he's an air ambulance flight nurse; she's a nurse anesthetist) provided the chance to work on some projects together. Others were tackled independently.

The two don't claim to be restoration wonder kids.

"We put together a great team of people," Sidwell says.

Still, working through every consideration - from tile choices to permit issues - has proven true the adage that the devil is in the details.

"Sometimes," Dolan says, "I think about this project - and I think I'm insane."

The Dolan-Sidwell house currently exists in a precarious, dueling state of polish and chaos. The living room with its overstuffed easy chairs, piano and Pia the curious cat is cozy and familiar. The adjacent dining room, meanwhile, is unnervingly scattered with chipped walls and a delicate stained-glass chandelier that hangs from a raw ceiling - competing with exposed bathroom plumbing for its role as the room's focal point.

Upstairs, the bathroom is largely unusable, although a bucket is stored in the tub for the occasional "manual flush."

Now, as the couple enjoy a self-imposed nine-month hiatus ("We needed to spend time on our relationship," Sidwell says), there's plenty upon which to reflect. Each room, they say, has been a learning process, each ostensibly tiny task a lesson in patience and craft.

Dolan enjoyed figuring out some of the tricks of the trade. In addition to sanding floors and stripping paint, she learned how to replace the home's antiquated pipes with copper plumbing - "It's really easy, like a craft project."

Right now, self-imposed hiatus notwithstanding, she's busy restoring and retrofitting many of the structure's original windows.

"I couldn't find anybody that would build me new windows with old glass," Dolan says. "I think it's important for these houses to maintain that old look. And a big part of that is the glass."

Educated by a skilled restorer, Dolan has spent the better part of a year painstakingly attending to the ins and outs of weatherstripping, wood and glass. She even built a special work table for the task.

"I needed something that was big enough to hold the windows and at the right height so it wouldn't kill my back," she says. "It was a lot more work that I thought."

The whole house, she adds, has taken more energy and resources than expected.

"You know what they say," she says. "You always need twice as much money and twice as much time than originally thought."

Much of the effort, the couple say, has come in trying to remain as true as possible to the home's original character. Dolan and Sidwell don't know much about the home's history except that it originally was owned by a banker - and apparently was sold after the 1929 stock market crash. They do know, however, that their area is rich in Sacramento history. Neighboring homes once were owned by members of the William Curtis family and other notable Sacramentans. The nearby Carly House, so named for real estate developer James Carly, recently was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Dan Murphy, president of the Sierra Curtis Neighborhood Association, says the home was part of a 1920s-era "architectural rage" that produced revival-style houses meant to emulate old Spanish, Greek and Colonial homes.

Curtis Park, he says, was envisioned as a "cream of the crop" subdivision - and one of the first locally built to accommodate automobiles.

"James Carly wanted to make sure that houses preserved the interest of the people - that Curtis Park was the flagship division of its time."

Judging by the style and details, the house may have been built by the esteemed Dean and Dean architectural firm, the same team responsible for the Memorial Auditorium.

Murphy is pleased with what he's seen so far.

"I remember the ivy - it was like Sleeping Beauty's house," Murphy says. "It was such a dramatic (change) when they went in there and chopped down all the wood that had grown up around the house."

The house has brought the couple plenty of attention and positive feedback, Dolan says.

"When we took down that ivy we practically had the whole neighborhood over - people kept stopping by to check it out."

Dolan and Sidwell are looking forward to a little rest and relaxation; there's a trip to Mexico in the works and another to Ohio for a family wedding.

But, they admit, even during this so-called down time there are plenty of small projects to keep them busy: more weatherstripping, designing the bathroom remodel, picking out fixtures ...

It's just a matter of prioritizing all the major and minor details so that everything (eventually) falls into place.

If there's anything they learned from restoring their first house, Dolan says, it's that it's easiest to look at the house as a series of jobs instead of one giant undertaking.

"We try to look at the house as being a puzzle," Dolan says. "You can take it apart and put it back together in pieces. With that in mind, it's not as overwhelming as it was when we restored the first house."

And, despite the stress that comes with living amid the rubble, both find the process rewarding.

Sidwell especially enjoyed the period right after they moved in. It was a chilly October, the house was without heat, and nights were spent sleeping on an air mattress in front of the living room fireplace.

"It was so much fun; it was like camping out," he says.

The end point is still, at the very least, another two years off. The couple swear that when they're finally done, they'll be done done - no more projects.

Maybe.

"Well, probably," Dolan says, laughing. "You can't completely rule out more changes."

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

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Source: The Sacramento Bee

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