Homes for the Holidays

Photos by Evan Brandt

The second floor front room of the Elks Club on High Street was decorated for this year's house tour.

Once again, Pottstown's holiday house tour showcased some of the borough's most historic and most gracious homes.

It's probably my favorite holiday tradition here in town.

I have been on the tour many times over my 17 years in Pottstown and always marvel not only at the

Many of you have driven (or walked) past
this home hundreds of times. Haven't you
always wondered what it looks like inside?
The house tour is your chance to find out.

imagination and skill of homeowners in how they renovate and decorate their historic homes, but also their willingness to let complete strangers come in and look around.

I of course, just love to do that and, seeing as I am particularly fond of the historic homes along North Hanover Street between King and Beech streets, I always look to see if one I have not yet been inside is on the tour.

This year is was the home of Jim and Susan Kane whose 1883 Victorian is both beautiful and extremely homey and comfortable feeling.

But although I have a personal preference for that period, I was on the clock for The Mercury and so, in the interests of fairness, I made sure to visit every home on the east end of town for the tour.

I was once again wowed by how graceful and elegant some of the town's twin homes can be, sucyh as the Queen Street home of Sandros and Rosemary Roseo; as well as grateful for a chance to get a look inside some of the Rosedale homes of some of Pottstown's former business leaders -- in this case homes built by the Schulz family, who owned a bakery, and the Prince family, who founded Bally Case and Cooler.

Inside Trinity Reformed Church.

And I was also able to cross another of Pottstown's classic churches off my list. This year, it was Trinity Reformed Church. I am somewhat embarrassed t confess that despite working across the street from this church for 17 years, I had never been inside ... until now.

I was not disappointed.

The woodwork and stained glass windows were wonderful to behold, as has been the case inside Invictus Ministries, Inc., Emmanuel Lutheran, Zions UCC and First Presbyterian.

So before you get to my Tweeted photos below, I experimented today with a new way to make a Tout video. Although I could not figure out how to make the voice overlay work, I did manage to make a kind of slide show and put some text over it.

So have a look and tell me what you think.



And without further ado, here are the Tweets!