|
-
A bat signed by Mickey Mantle sits in a case at the Willdens' home.
A collection of 17th- and 18th-century American and English dinner ware is on display in the dining room.
-
-
-
-
This elaborate turn-of-the-century weathervane is one of several the Willdens have in their collection.
A glass case containing boxer Rocky Marciano's 1952 championship belt and other memorabilia sits in the family room of the Willden home. |
NEARLY THREE YEARS ago, James,
Fredericksburg natives affectionately refer to the Willdens' century-old home, located a stone's throw from Kenmore Plantation at 1206 Washington Ave., as "the castle."
With its cupolas, spires and corner tower, the Edwardian Victorian structure does look an awful lot like a castle. It has an imposing presence, with thick stone walls that give it a Gothic, darkish feel.
"We moved in on Halloween night, which seemed really appropriate," James Willden says.
James, 35, is vice president of engineering for Avalon Bay, a real estate investment trust. The family transferred to the Fredericksburg area five years ago from San Jose, Calif., when James' company merged to become Avalon Bay. Lori, 37, teaches first grade at Rocky Run Elementary School in Stafford. Their son, Matthew, is 13 years old and attends Walker-Grant Middle School.
The "castle" is the first vintage home the Willdens have owned. The family lived in a contemporary subdivision in Stafford County before moving to downtown Fredericksburg.
Despite a somewhat foreboding exterior, the house has been transformed into a place of warmth and light. The Willdens spent three months and $500,000 refurbishing it and installing a state-of-the-art security system. They also paid close attention to historical detail. They love their home, which is on state and national historic registers, and want to share it with others.
When Fredericksburg's trolley tour rolls by, they often open their doors to tourists.
"Someone's got to see the house," says James. "They may think its dark and scary from the outside, but it's not."
The "castle" turned 100 years old in 2005. E.J. Cartright and J.H. Davis, who owned a quarry in Spotsylvania County, hoped to drum up business for their wares through projects like 1206 Washington. In 1905, they contracted renowned local builder H.C. "Peck" Heflin to build the Victorian as a "spec" house. Heflin used Virginia blue granite from the quarry.
James points out the four kinds of balusters that support the curving banister of the home's grand staircase. Potential buyers could choose one of the four baluster styles for their built-to-specifications stone home, he notes.
Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Bode, who owned Bode's Cafe, a popular restaurant downtown, were the first residents at 1206, according to historical documents. They bought the house in 1907.
In 1959, the house passed to Mrs. Bode's daughter, Freda Bode Turner, who owned it until her death in 1972. In 1973, Dr. and Mrs. Donald Stoker bought the house and moved in with their eight children.
When not referring to it as "the castle," many Fredericksburg residents still call it the Stoker House.
"Lord, it's a big, substantial place," says Dr. Donald Stoker, who is now retired from his obstetrics-gynecology practice. "The walls are so thick, we'd sleep in there at night and a storm would come and we wouldn't know it until we got up in the morning."
Stoker, like James, recognizes the Gothic feel of the house.
"It lends itself to Halloween like nothing else," he says.
His family would often host a haunted house in the late '70s.
"One of my sons would rise out of a big trunk with a knife through his head and bloody clothes I borrowed a real skeleton from one of my medical colleagues It was very well-received by the public."
For Stoker, 73, the home holds a whole host of memories. His son married there. In 1989, his beloved wife, Betty, died there.
"I had such feelings for the place that it was some nine years after I moved before I could go down Washington Avenue," he says.
He recently drove past 1206 Washington, however, and noticed the weeping willow tree he planted in the backyard when his wife fell ill.
"I passed by the other day and noticed it's really grown. It made me feel good The place will be there long after you and I are gone."
In 1991, Stoker sold the home to Daniel and Geri-Anne Zaluzec, who refurbished it in high-Victorian style. They put it up for sale in 2003.
The Willdens revel in the house's familial history and have prominently displayed pictures of past residents in their parlor.
James says a woman knocked on the door a couple of months ago and said she had lived in the house as a child. He asked her last name and suggested she had the wrong house.
"She said to me, 'Young man, I do not have the wrong house!'" he says, laughing.
She promptly asked if the big tub was still here, he says. And she cried as she walked through the house. She was 13 years old when she had last lived here, and must be 70 by now, he adds. James enjoyed being able to see the home through her eyes.
"We would love to see more old pictures of the interior of the house--to replicate what was originally in here," he says.
They are up for the job. The couple goes antiquing five or six days a week. They've been doing so for more than a decade, and have built a collection of sought-after Americana and folk art over the last five years. As James says, they have an affinity for "the aura of the old stuff."
They have given much thought to every room, what objects should reside there, how to display them, even what colors the walls should be painted--oxblood red, seafoam green, Colonial blues and yellows. A visitor would need hours to absorb all the details, but what could be museumlike actually feels very loved and lived in.
"We buy things that we like and we love. There's not a thing in here we don't love," James says.
Coppery-green weather vanes and trade signs are motifs throughout the house. In the foyer, a striking centaur weather vane overlooks the staircase. A nearly 7-foot tavern sign, which bears the date 1835 and the name "ASA TAFT," hangs from the wall. An eagle holds a banner that reads "E Pluribus Unum " in its mouth.
In the parlor, portraits of children with dewy eyes and rosy cheeks look down upon guests. The room is dominated by Robert Street's large portrait of the Klapp family of Philadelphia, circa 1840s.
Lori Willden's favorite room is the dining room, she says. One of the room's loveliest pieces is a 1740s-era hutch, laden with pewter bowls and plates. An 18th-century apothecary cabinet still retains its original blue color; a Virginia pie safe, with a decorative, perforated-metal front to keep pies fresh while they cooled, sits catty-cornered to the cabinet. Everything in the room is set off by the deep corn-colored paint.
Lori pulls out a Bible from a low bookcase. "All the people who have lived here have left Bibles here," she says. She gingerly opens a tiny Bible with a girl's name, Sophia Lane, and the date, Christmas 1890, penciled on the inside cover.
"It's traditionally good luck to leave a Bible and salt," says James as he climbs the stairs to the second floor.
Did you find salt, too, a reporter asks.
Yes, James says with a laugh.
He often spends three or four hours a night enjoying his favorite room, the "gallery" at the top of the stairs. The gallery has "some of the best folk art around," he says. "When it comes to collecting antiques, it's really about collecting the best."
A deep-red chest of drawers with ivory knobs sits on one side of the room. Made in Soap Hollow, Pa., in 1868, James notes that the "Soap Hollow" chest is extremely rare. The Willdens' antiques broker, Austin Miller, sent literature calling it "one of the great Soap Hollow chests in existence."
On either side of the chest are tiny leather Virginia key baskets, which are "highly collectible."
"A servant would have handed out the keys to the sugar chest, to outside buildings, to herbs and spice boxes all the valuable things that were locked up," he says.
Primitive portraits executed in a typically flat folk-art style are another house motif. Opposite the chest hangs a painting by renowned New England folk artist Ammi Phillips. The 1830s portrait is of a young man with exaggerated hands--a Phillips trademark.
The gallery also showcases a giant grasshopper weather vane. James says the farmer who commissioned it must have had a sense of humor, as locusts and grasshoppers are the last thing you want to visit your farm.
The guest bedroom has another prominent folk portrait, one that James humorously refers to as "the toothless old man." The picture of the older gentleman with receding hairline and collapsed mouth hangs on the wall facing the high bed. His piercing green eyes follow the visitor around the room.
Off to the side, a well-loved rocking horse sits atop a bureau. James points out the paint on the "floorboard" has been worn away by little feet and that the horse's reins are similarly ragged. "There would have been no video games for this child," he says.
Even with such a storied and rare antiques collection, what Lori and James most enjoy about their "castle" is surprisingly simple.
Besides the deep windows that ring the house, Lori loves being able to sit out on the front porch.
For James, "it's the stone itself, the 12-inch thick walls."
"If we won the lottery, we wouldn't move. I don't think you can beat the house or the neighborhood," James says.
"The house has been good to us. It's literally a rock."
MELISSA NIX is a staff writer with The Free Lance-Star. Contact her at 540/374-5418, or mnix@freelance
