Friday, December 27, 2019

Holiday House Tour No. 3, A Work in Progress

Photos by Evan Brandt
This restored living room is at 541 N. Charlotte St., owned for a year by Sarah Pinard.


541 N. Charlotte St.
Welcome back.

This house won't have as many photos because owner Sarah Pinard has only been in it for a year.

The fact that she opened her house to the public after such a short time, shows remarkable forbearance.

(My wife and I have been in our home for 20 years and still don't consider it "ready." Did you hear that Amy squared?)

This house was built in 1864 and is across the street and a block north from 478 N. Charlotte and 482 N. Charlotte, which I profiled over the last two days. (Links provided in case you missed them.)

I was please to see this house on the tour because I have been curious about it for some time.

Several years ago, when I was experimenting with social media, I concocted this idea of an Instagram series on Pottstown homes and buildings as a way to promote the borough's well-preserved architecture.

Owner Sarah Pinard with a photo of what her kitchen looked 
like before it was renovated.
I walked through many Pottstown neighborhoods taking photos, but never put the whole thing
together.

Anyway, this was one of the homes I photographed and have been curious about ever since.

Much of the house tour every year is concentrated on the older part of town, mostly along North Hanover Street, where Pottstown's first elite first settled. And I love those homes, and will return to them again no doubt in later years.

Pinard in her new, larger kitchen, after knocking
out a wall.
But having those cluster of homes along North Charlotte on the tour gave us all a chance to look inside some different homes from a later period of Pottstown's development.

During the trolley tour, local historian Mike Snyder explained that this part of North Charlotte Street, in the 1830s and 1840s, was mostly undeveloped.

As a result, people used to race horses up and down the street, which would have been a sight to behold.

Also a sight to behold was the effort Pinard is willing to go to improve her home.

She showed tour-goers the wall she knocked out to double the size of her kitchen, as well as her father's efforts to move a stairway to the basement.

This require the construction of a new access door under the stairs, pictured here.

We can only hope 541 N. Charlotte will be on the tour in future years so we can see the progress.

A new, custom-built door to the basement, courtesy of Pinard's dad.
One of the more innovative things Pinard did was to preserve some of the truly remarkable wallpaper she found when she moved in and frame it as a reminder. I can't imagine installing something like this except in a child's room, but this was in the downstairs hall.


That's all for today. Come back tomorrow for photos of 259 N. Hanover St., another first-timer on the tour.

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