Residents Pay Top Prices to Preserve Old Castles

Bright new homes pop up in Northwest Arkansas like daffodils in April. With constant two-county population growth — highlighted by Benton County’s vendor explosion — clusters of high-dollar homes filled with modern conveniences continue to sprout.

But some newcomers want the charm and character of an old house, and they often pay heavily for the sentimental value.

David Lewis, a Fayetteville investment banker, said he paid 20-30 percent more for his thoroughly renovated home than it would have cost him to build a new home of similar size.

He paid for a town landmark.

From his rooftop office on the Fayetteville square, Lewis can see the four white columns of his house on Mount Nord. Known as the Pritchard House, Lewis’ 5,000-SF antebellum-style home features round verandas, high ceilings and wooden trim. It is Southern, right down to the mature magnolia tree posed in the large front yard.

Lewis and his wife Ellen occasionally make money for charities by opening their residence for tours. However, the polished house — which last year appraised at $489,000, according to Washington County Courthouse records — wasn’t always a neighborhood gem.

“It was a white elephant,” Lewis said. It looked beautiful from far away, he said, but the closer you got, the uglier it was.

When the couple bought the house in 1993, the roof leaked, the walls were stripped bare, and the property’s retaining wall had given way in several places. Parts of the house had started to crumble from neglect, and the utilities included rotted wiring and ancient plumbing.

The Lewises bought the Pritchard House, which was built in 1907 and sits at 1 Mount Nord St., for $176,000, according to county records.

Lewis said his wife, an artist, saw the house’s potential first. She picked the home out of the selection in Fayetteville, and they embarked on a year of renovation.

The first task was to find a suitable architect.

An ‘Innovative’ Solution

There are a few designers in Northwest Arkansas who dabble in historical preservation and renovation. Perry Butcher and Associates renovated the William Wilson House in Prairie Grove and the Peal Mansion in Bentonville, and Mikel Lolly is a director of the board for the Washington County Historic Preservation Association.

However, preservationists found it difficult to name any particular firm or person in Northwest Arkansas who regularly seeks to renovate homes registered on the National Historic Register.

Paula Marinoni, a member of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas who actively fought to save Carnall Hall at the University of Arkansas, said there is a definite shortage of designers familiar with national registry requirements.

“No one really has a reputation here for restoring historical homes,” Marinoni said.

In Benton County, there are 135 locations listed on the National Historic Register. Eight of those are districts that include more than one home, and 72 of those are identified as individual residences.

Washington County had 98 locations on the register, including seven districts and 34 individual houses. Nine of the 98 are part of the UA campus.

Although the Pritchard House is in a historic district, it is not listed individually on the historic register. Lewis said the process and restrictions of registration seemed confusing, and he didn’t see the financial benefit.

The Lewises chose Jess Eoff, an architect and general contractor from Garfield, to reconstruct the Pritchard House. Originally from Rogers, Eoff has restored a handful of houses like the Pritchard House through his one-man business, Innovative Design & Construction.

As for his smaller projects, Eoff renovated part of the house at 2 Mount Nord St. and finished projects in several homes in the Fayetteville Washington-Willow Historic District.

Although Eoff enjoys renovations more than new construction, he has never worked on a home that was individually listed on the national historic register. The Pritchard House was his dream job.

Eoff charges a 15 percent commission for the project cost and a by-the-hour fee. Two years is the longest a customer might wait to get Eoff’s work, but that isn’t always the case.

People in the throes of renovating old houses often refer to the movie “The Money Pit,” which stars Tom Hanks, Eoff said. “It can be just like that.”

For instance, Eoff said, a few of the old houses in the area are built on stacked rocks rather than flat foundations.

The Pritchard House was vacant for the renovation, and the Lewises paid the extra cost of renting a house during the reconstruction.

“A person just has to love the old house,” Eoff said. “Economically, it’s just not logical. You buy a kitchen, then you throw it away and build a new one.”

In the end, the Lewises added about 1,500 SF to the house. The project required new electrical wiring, plumbing and roofing. They put in a heat and air system, three more bathrooms and closets for every bedroom. Eoff also replaced the natural stone retaining wall around the property.

The Lewises used the rocks from the original wall in their fireplace mantel and backyard steps.

In the past, Eoff has found messages from tradesmen who previously worked on the house. A board signed and dated by a work crew from a preceding decade is not uncommon, he said.

Eoff follows the tradition.

When a family recently moved into their reconstructed house, he made a sort of time capsule in one of the doors by boarding up a picture of the family and signatures of his crew.