Major Funding for A House With A History has been provided by the Department of Cultural Affairs, Nevada State Historic Preservation Office, through a Department of Interior grant.

Major funding was provided by Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.

Wells Fargo is proud to be part of the northern Nevada community for over 150 years.

Wells Fargo, The Next Stage.

Additional funding has been granted by the City of Reno Arts and Culture Commission.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Hi.

I'm Marla Carr.

Welcome to House with a History.

Greystone Castle.

The name conjures up images of massive stone walls, miles of parapets, murky moats and knights in shining armor.

But in order to give this home its due, all of those preconceptions must be set aside.

Greystone is more cottage than castle.

Quaint as opposed to stately.

This property and its neighbor to the east were built about 1930 as small homes of distinction.

The exterior can be described as quaint, charming, picturesque, something out of a fairytale.

But the details, and the architectural integrity of the interior have managed to survive 75 years and that's what makes these properties, homes of distinction today.

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Joaquin Miller Drive is a brief street, running a mere two blocks or so.

It's a part of the old Southwest area of Reno - an area enriched by a variety of architectural styles, all beautifully maintained.

Nine fifty and 970 Joaquin Miller Drive are examples of the revival periods that flourished in Reno between 1910 and the early 1930's.

Specifically Tudor Revival and English Country Cottage Revival.

Tudor Style is more of the type the English manor houses and then the Country Cottage style is more developed from kind of a peasant sort of a house.

So, you see a blending of those, in a way.

But, what they have in common is the quite steep roof and a style of a wall building on the outside that could actually be constructed of whatever natural materials are most available.

Brick and stone is what we have in this case.

The curb appeal of Greystone Castle and its neighbor is mirrored in many of the surrounding homes.

The Newlands Addition contains the greatest diversity of architectural styles in Reno.

English and French influences sit side-by-side with Craftsman, Mediterranean, Prairie, and Colonial Revival.

Hello Marla.

Hi Penny, it's so good to see you.

Good to see you too.

I'm really looking forward to this.

And I'm looking forward to showing you the house.

Come on in.

I would've purchased the home even had I not seen the interior, I think.

Street presence is so important, um, that is charm is far more important to me than functionality, although this house actually has both.

Well welcome to Greystone Castle.

Oh, it's lovely.

That should have been Greystone Cottage I think since the house is only about 1200 square feet.

But we love it just as it is.

I think that the favorite element for me in this room has to be the fireplace.

There is extensive stonework on the exterior of the house as well as the fireplace.

Which is probably where they got the name Greystone Castle.

I also love the shape of the ceiling in this room.

All of the heavy stucco work; the deep windowsills with the original tile on them.

And we've got the original pegged hardwood floors, which is a nice feature.

Oh those are lovely.

Yes and they're different size boards.

Kind of a random-plank flooring, which is terrific.

Yeah very nice.

And not to forget the window here which is quite a wonderful cathedral window.

It has that gothic touch which perhaps is another reason they named it Greystone Castle.

It is quite a special window with all the little panes.

The panes are very nice.

They are.

It gives it a different look and a different feel.

Yes.

I'm saddened that the original windows are not still on either side of the fireplace.

They too would have been small panes.

But you know, time does things to old wooden sash windows and at some point back in the 40's, I believe, when they did a little bit of work on this house, those windows were replaced as well as the majority of the windows in the rest of the home.

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And this opens right up into the dinning room.

Yes it does.

Quite spacious with the opening originally was quite smaller.

I believe it was just a doorway and back in the '40's the area there was widened and made it quite a nice space.

It let's a lot of light in.

The dining room is not particularly large but there is a feeling of spaciousness about the 2 rooms.

And again in that room we have got the interesting ceiling, we've got the heavy stucco work and the deep windowsills.

The dining room has the original terracotta tile floors.

This room, because we don't have an eat-in kitchen, the kitchen is quite small, is where we eat all of our meals.

So it's perhaps not as elegant as some dining rooms might be, but it works well for us.

Prior to Penny and Rod purchasing the house, this property and the neighboring one, were renovated by Reno realtor, Lou Melton.

In the Fall of 1998 I was walking past the houses.

I lived in the neighborhood.

And, it's the first time that I'd seen activity in the whole entire 10 years that I lived in the neighborhood.

And, I was so excited to see something happening that I'd stopped by and spoke to the 3 sisters in the backyard.

And, they had just put their mother in a rest home and was deciding that they were going to have to, uh, sell, this house, 970.

And, as it turned out they had owned both houses.

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In the 1900s Mansions were built on the rise above the Truckee River.

But gradully suburbia began feeling its way south.

Homes became smaller, but no less distinctive.

Architects of note, like Frederick Delongchamps and Paul Revere Williams lent their vision and their expertise.

Ad the affluent were willing to pay the price.

It was developer, William Everett Barnard who laid out the Newlands Manor bdivision and built the two homes on Joaquin Miller Drive.

Barnard is one of those little-known figures whose life was never chronicled.

Born in Oakland, California, he attended the University of California, Berkeley and worked in the grain business before turning up in Reno in 1925.

By 1927 he was immersed in the real estate business.

His timing was perfect.

Reno's building boom had begun in 1925 and peaked in 1929 - and Barnard rode the wave of prosperity.

♪♪ We might question the viability of building one and two bedroom homes in a traditionally upscale area.

But we mustn't forget Reno's divorce trade.

All of those marrieds required temporary housing while they sought single status.

Well, in 1930 Reno was really a growing city and the population was just over 27,000 at that time.

And, it already had become really nationally known for, for a couple of different things.

Um, for prize fighting, but also for divorce and really since before 1910 people from all over the country had come here for divorces.

You can get them quicker than in other places.

So, by 1927 you only had to be here for three months, establish residency for three months in order to get a divorce.

In 1931, that was going to be reduced to six weeks and be even a shorter period of time, the same year that gambling was legalized in Reno.

So, these things are all in the air around 1930 when these two houses were constructed.

Unlike the rest of depression era United States, Reno in the 1920s and 30s thrived.

The city had an unbeatable corporate strategy - a profitable mix of the divorce trade, gaming, brothels, and prizefights.

The result was that one's neighbors - even in a upscale area like this - might well have been shady characters.

As the largest city in the state, Reno was redefining itself.

No longer was it part of the "Wild West."

Reno wanted to be redefined as "cosmopolitan. "

From very early on Reno was trying to fight the reputation of being this 'frontier town'.

And, so they would really make an attempt from a very early point to sell themselves as being a little metropolis.

Corresponding with that would be that the type of architecture that they would utilize, both in their civic buildings downtown and also in residential neighborhoods, would be trying to aspire to that level of being very cosmopolitan, being very metropolitan.

Penny, I love this kitchen.

Yes, it's rather unusual.

Do I detect a little bit of hesitation there?

Uh, it's growing on me.

I have to say it's a fun kitchen.

The tile is, well as you see, yellow and almost a turquoise green.

But, it, it there's something about it that just seems fitting for this little cottage.

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I've been told that this cabinetry was put in, in the '40's.

It's been toned down by putting a finish on the knotty pine, which a prior occupant did, thankfully.

But in the late '40's they did a remodel.

They enlarged the kitchen.

The back area used to be a porch that led outside and they opened that up.

It still didn't make it quite big enough to have a table to this room but it's very functional.

We've got the, still, the original wall oven from the early remodel.

The Thermador?

The Thermador oven, yes.

Wow, it's amazing it still works.

It does still work.

The flooring in this room is a fir floor.

I imagine at one time it would have been linoleum on the top of the flooring.

This may have been the sub-floor underneath the linoleum.

It's warm and very country feeling, I think, to have it like this.

I think it's just downright fun.

And very colorful.

It is extremely colorful.

I may add a little bit of red actually to jazz it up even more.

Whoa!

I'm toying with that idea.

But I do like this kitchen.

Well Marla, this is the notorious pink bathroom.

We've heard it called pink, we've heard peach, we've heard pale coral, we've heard flesh, we've even heard it called shrimp.

Whatever you choose you may go with that, but whether it's any of those colors, it is floor to ceiling.

Including the fixtures.

I imagine at the time that this was done, again in the late '40's, it must have been a very popular color.

Originally the bathroom was completely black and dark.

And the youngest sister was three, and the older sisters shut her in the bathroom and she just was terrified.

And, so she, her mother was, uh, very anxious to restore that bathroom.

And, when she did, she changed it to what it is today.

I think it's a very neutral pink, peach, salmon, shrimp, you know, flesh.

Okay.

So it works.

I really hadn't thought of it as particularly neutral.

It's a color I think a lot of other colors would work well with.

I really haven't tried out a lot yet.

I'm just dealing with this color day to day.

On down this way we have the master bedroom and again we'll talk color.

Okay.

Whoa!

So Penny, now what color is this?

Well if we want to stay on the food theme, we can go with watermelon, which is what I was told this color was called.

I think watermelon is perfect.

It's not a color I would have chosen.

But actually the deep color is rather soothing.

And I think that the wood tones from the furniture work well with it as well.

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The bedroom is furnished with a mix of antiques and collectibles.

Penny has used the distinctive wall color well, accessorizing with white and the richness and texture of the wooden and rot-iron furniture.

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We've tried to keep decorative things to a minimum and reduce the clutter, because the house, of course, is only 1200 square feet and although it feels quite spacious with the high ceilings I don't think we need to add too much.

The house is a gem by itself.

Yes.

I love this little window you've got over here.

Isn't that a wonderful little piece?

I've had that for years and years and never knew what to do with it.

When we purchased this house, we said, well voila, this is the same exact shape as the cathedral window that's in the living room so it rather mimics that, which is a fun thing.

I have never lived in a new house.

The first home I lived in was built shortly after World War II.

That was the home my parents brought me to.

And, every house since then has been increasing older than that one.

So, this is relatively modern for me.

I don't think of it as an old house.

It's not the type of house that one would think would be on the Historical Register.

I'm certainly glad that it is.

I think it's so important to maintain these older homes, uh, as closely to how they were originally built as possible.

Newer homes are, are quite nice and easy to live with, but I don't think that they have the charm of older homes.

Though architects of distinction practiced their art in Southwest Reno, 950 and 970 Joaquin Miller Drive may be the product of a pattern book.

Um, pattern books were really popular, especially in the 1920's, as ways to get actual designs and floor plans and different elements out to the public so people could actually kind of construct, put together their own houses.

And, so they'd have floor plans and they'd have ideas about materials you could use and they were a way that many prominent architects could actually demonstrate their designs and that other people could sort of pick and choose, you know, follow what they wanted.

Designs or patterns for homes were readily available in books like "The Book of Little Houses," "Small Homes of Architectural Distinction," and "Smaller American House. "

Having toured Greystone Castle, we're now ready to take a look at the house next door.

The windows are smaller and, and asymmetrical, so they're really kind of corresponding with that style quite a bit.

And, uh, there's a... arch, sort of a stoned, uh, stoned arched entrance above the front door which was also a very common feature of this style.

And the chimney is really remarkable on that.

I mean, the stonework and the combination of brick and stone really corresponds to the exterior of that whole house.

The exterior of 950 has similar curb appeal, that same abundance of charm as Greystone Castle.

But if you expect the interior to be similar - think again.

Um, inside is what I find most dramatic about, about that house and especially in the living room.

Just the combination of the exposed beams and the tile floor, which when you look at it has just such a lovely kind of mosaic quality although it's just, it's all one color.

But, the way that it was, um, created and broken up to create these kind of random, um, little patterns throughout is just lovely.

It's just delightful to look at the craft that went into that.

Um, the dark nature of the interior is also very dramatic.

And, of course, the most striking feature in that living room is the fireplace with that stone, that just, you know goes all the way up so high.

So, it's, it's very striking and although it's sort of a darker sense in there I, I love the drama of it.

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Part of the drama that moves Alicia is inspired by the darkness she refers to.

The floors, the ceiling, and the very unusual doors that were hand made, all are stained in a rich dark oak.

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An armoire that resides in the living room s built for the house.

The piece is signed by a Virginia City craftsman.

It's suggested he copied the design of an armoire dating from the 1800s.

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Lou Melton's renovation of this house was a bit more extensive.

The bathroom needed to be gutted.

It was in dire need of renovation.

And so I spent a tremendous amount of time in finding the appropriate fixtures to take it back to the '30's.

I found the claw foot tub in Loyalton, and the sink in the dump at Loyalton, and the, uh, toilet I got in Berkeley.

And, then I put in stone floors and a custom tile.

I wanted to save the windowsills so I worked around that in order to keep some part of the original structure of the bathroom.

Lou also tackled the kitchen.

It had been remodeled by renters in the 70s or 80s, but that renovation needed to be reconsidered.

The tenants that had lived there for 23 years, had the kitchen renovated to have a stainless steel commercial type counter top and sink, and it had maple cabinets and wallpaper that, entire walls including the ceiling and, the only thing that I was able to keep was the stainless steel, um, counter top and the cabinets below that.

Finding the lines of the cabinets appealing, Lou removed their trim, and painted them a startling red.

I like the kitchen a lot.

I love the fact that that style of the counters and the cabinets is actually something that is still popular today but, as I recall, the counter itself was put in decades ago.

That, that look of, you know, now we think of this, you know, chrome and, and people love that, that sense of a, uh, a sort of galvanized steel, you know, or aluminum look.

Um, but I think that's a lovely part of it, too, is that you have really a balance of the old and new.

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The bedroom at the back of the house, which was the original one, still has the built in vanity and the period light fixtures above it.

Lou decorated the space with furnishings from her trip to the East.

The style is in keeping with the concept of the "revival" period.

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The mother-of-pearl inlayed chest was an antique even though I purchased it from a designer in Indonesia.

And, um...I had the elephant bed made, the day bed.

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Lou has obviously spent considerable time, energy and money on these two homes.

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In all of my years in being a, realtor, and all the houses that I have looked at, these two houses are the most charming that I've ever been in.

I just have, feel very proud and honored that I was able to acquire them and renovate them.

After considerable deliberati Lou admitted her favorite of the two houses is Greystone.

Its charm, the gothic window, the openness - all appeal to her.

Alicia on the other hand prefers the Tudor Revival.

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That house is my favorite, I think, because for me the, the charm of going into a period revival home is to really feel a sense of being transported, um, into that, that earlier period.

And, to me I'll walk in the door of that home and I feel that I am.

I feel that there is such a, a strong feeling of an English-ness, um, of, of going back into a moment in time that is very removed from where we are now.

Which is, of course, what a great appeal was of these kinds of houses at the time would be a retreat from the modern world, you know, to be sort of an escape from, you know, a mechanized sort of increasingly standardized, uh, society of mass production.

What you have with these homes is the idea that they really feel like they were built by an individual craftsman who was making all of these decisions based on just personal taste and what available materials are around and that they're also distinctly different from each other is just part of the great joy of these houses to me.

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The second owners of Greystone Castle held the property for 64 years prior to Lou Melton purchasing it.

The tale is told that the original owner was a gangster.

Apparently not a very successful one - or perhaps one that fell on hard times.

At any rate, the story goes that he lost a legal battle, something to do with non-payment of taxes, and Greystone Castle was sold on the steps of the courthouse.

The woman and her daughters who owned the house for 64 years, were there, on the steps, to make their purchase.

Or so the story goes.

If you would like to know more about these houses, or any of the houses in our series, go to our website.. knpb.org.

Until next time, preserve the architecture and enjoy the heritage of your community.

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Principal production funding for House with a History has been provided by the Department of Cultural Affairs, Nevada State Historic Preservation Office, through a Department of Interior grant.

Major funding was provided by Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.

Wells Fargo is proud to be part of the northern Nevada community for over 150 years.

Wells Fargo, The Next Stage.

Additional funding has been granted by the City of Reno Arts and Culture Commission.