Historic home gets a makeover

Two side wings make the 177-year-old home unique in town.
KINSMAN -- Since 1973, Richard and Susan Webb have made Kinsman's historic Hickory Tree Inn their home.
They've also made it their labor of love.
"There hasn't been a time when we haven't been restoring something or working on something," Richard Webb said of the handsome old house, located on State Street and completed in 1828 for Olive Kinsman Swift, a daughter of town founder John Kinsman.
The Webbs' latest project is tearing off the home's sprawling, enclosed front porch, which was added in 1905.
By removing the front porch, the Webbs hope to make the home look more historically accurate.
"This has been something we've wanted to do since we bought the home. The porch hides the late federal architecture on the front of the house," Webb explained.
With the porch mostly gone and workers nearly finished with the job, the 177-year-old house is already looking much more as it did when it was first constructed.
Graceful federal features once hidden from view, such as a grand front door with sidelights and fan window and two side wings on the north and south ends of the home, are now visible.
Webb called the home's side wings its most unusual architectural feature.
"Kinsman has several other historical homes from this time period, but none of them have the two side wings like this house does," he said.
Previous owners
Like many other notable early homes in Kinsman, architect Willis Smith built the Hickory Tree Inn.
When Olive Kinsman and her attorney husband, George Swift, moved into the home in 1828, they had been married for seven years and had a family of small children.
After Olive's death in 1835 and George's death in 1845, the home passed to George Bishop and then to George Brakin.
Around 1900, Thomas Kinsman, a relative of Olive, bought the house and did extensive remodeling, much to the chagrin of the Webbs, who have undone much of Kinsman's turn-of-the-century modernizing to bring the home back to its federal roots.
"Thomas Kinsman changed the position of the staircase; we changed it back. He was also the one who added the front porch. The porch was originally two stories high, but we got rid of the second story several years ago," Webb said.
Of course, not all of Kinsman's updates were displeasing to the Webbs.
It was Kinsman who added indoor plumbing to the home. He also added several charming outbuildings to the 25-acre property including a poultry house, a tile block icehouse and a small barn.
Around 1920, Kinsman sold the house to Caroline Cookston, and it then became known as the Hickory Tree Inn.
"We assume there was a large hickory tree on the property at that time," Webb said.
Cookston converted part of the home into a restaurant and rented various rooms in other parts of the house to boarders.
During her ownership, the home endured a variety of unsavory updates.
Among other things, Cookston partitioned off the attic and replaced the original fan-shaped, federal-style attic window with four, small horizontal windows to allow for more light and air circulation.
"She needed more light and ventilation because she rented rooms in the attic to men working for Ohio Edison," Webb explained. "After we bought the house, we removed the four windows and replaced them with another fan-shaped window."
Times were tight, and despite the money Cookston collected from diners and boarders, she had to be creative to keep supper on the table. To rake in some extra pocket cash, she even set up slot machines in the home's pantry.
"It was the Great Depression, and she pulled out all the stops to stay afloat financially," Webb said with a wry smile.
Around 1950, Cookston sold the property to Cy Perkins, another restaurant owner, and even more distasteful remodeling took place.
The home's elegant front bedroom became a kitchen covered with gaudy rooster wallpaper and 1950s ceiling tiles, and a staircase was constructed through the second level of the home's front porch so separate access could be gained to the home's second story, which had been converted to an apartment for Perkins' daughter.
Returning to the original
When the Webbs acquired the home in 1973, they did away with all of the above.
They also spent hours scraping a ghastly green film commonly used to tint automobile windshields from several of the home's westward facing windows, and they removed layers of plastic stained glass and spray-on Christmas snow from some of the home's other windows.
(Today the home retains several of its original, 12-over-12, wavy-glassed windows as well as its original wood siding.)
Before moving to Kinsman, the Webbs had lived in Greenville, Pa., where Richard taught biology and ecology at Thiel College.
"We had a historical home in Greenville as well, but we were living in town and wanted more space," Webb said.
The Hickory Tree Inn's country setting and rich history piqued the Webbs' interest.
They admired the home's federal woodwork, particularly the detailed mantle in the home's front parlor.
Soon after moving to Kinsman, Webb quit teaching and became an antiques dealer. Susan teaches French in the Mathews School system.
Present state
Today, after 32 years of tender loving care and meticulous attention to detail, the Webbs have made the Hickory Tree Inn into an early American showplace right down to the brass chandeliers, stenciled walls and gleaming hardwood floors.
Fine antiques fill the spacious rooms and noble portraits of stately Yankee folks from days of yore look down from the walls.
Three fireplaces exude warmth and character (the home originally had six), and an elegant sunroom added to the back of the house in 1995 brightens the rustic kitchen on dreary winter days.
With the demise of the front porch, several other interior rooms are also much brighter now since generous amounts of natural light can filter freely in.
"This is the first time we've enjoyed this much light in this room," Webb said while standing in the home's elegant front parlor, now softly illuminated by the white glow of the wintry outdoors.
"The porch blocked the light and made all of the westward facing rooms much darker."
Once the weather breaks, the Webbs plan to add a small, historically accurate open porch over the front door of the home. They are using an old photograph of the original Kinsman homestead (which once stood on the square where Kinsman's Sky Bank now stands and was torn down many years ago) as their blueprint.
After that project is finished, who knows what will be next.
Restoring an old house "is an ongoing endeavor," Webb said.