All About The Historic Cohenour House
-1911-
”To her, Goethe's darling was still alive and still young, things that long since had become historic and legendary to us were still reality to her. I always felt a ghostlike atmosphere in her presence.”
Stefan Zweig on Mrs. Demelius' recollections of her childhood friend, Goethe's granddaughter. The World of Yesterday (Die Welt von Gestern)
Section I
A brief note before you begin: By today's standards the Historic Cohenour House is not a "big" house: it is of modest proportions. When we were still a territory in 1911 (and not yet a state and especially for the Kingman township) the Cohenour House was a period home of significance. Today, we believe it still is, particularly given its National Historic Registry status. In an age of McMansions, she is thankfully a world apart.
“Don't be put-off by the age…” was the beginning of a narrative of a home for sale on Zillow, not in Old Town Kingman, but some short distance away (less than a league or 3 miles). That home was built in 1972, and as a semi-autodidact in Asian, American and European history, and one who lives in a reasonably new home built in 1911, I thought that was a bit strange to say.
Our home was built by Mary Eleanor Cohenour and is now known eponymously as the Historic Cohenour House: it is constructed of Rusticated Concrete Block (RCB, which was cast on-site to look like quarried stone blocks and was popular from the late 19th Century onward. Even Sears kit homes offered this as an option) set on a poured concrete slip-formed perimeter (and basement) foundation.
The windows are fairly complex with multi-lite upper sashes, and to this day much of the original glass remains - seedy and wavy. (I broke two panes during the restoration over the years, and nearly came to tears after hearing the plaintive tinkle of old glass.) The interior and exterior doors are very close-grain Douglas fir and were “preserved” in many, many coats of early enamel, then latex paint, containing enough lead to build a life-sized replica of the Brooklyn Bridge and still have enough left over to drop the average IQ at the Princeton Institute by three points.
Each door took five or more days to strip and finish. Each window at least that amount of time to restore to pre-abandoned-maintenance condition, but not perfect. Each window is now covered with a storm window: frames for which we cut from cedar, beveled, glazed with double-strength panes, hung on period correct screen hangers, and painted the trim burgundy, of the three-color scheme we had landed on nine years ago, not to protect against storm surge in Arizona, but to keep the wood from deteriorating and undoing what we had done, with the added benefit of increased insulation. (Most of the back and side windows are covered in this way, too.)
Mary Eleanor Cohenour was a successful businesswoman, and had this house built after her husband, Jacob Neff Cohenour, left her for another “Mary” (soon to be Cohenour) in 1906. Will wonders never cease? Undaunted, “our” Mary acquired, subdivided, and developed the many smaller streets that sit behind our house, and in earlier times these were dubbed, the Cohenour Cottages: not a pejorative. Many of the cottages still exist within the walls of the homes still standing. In some cases, larger homes were built around the smaller homes, which served as a nucleus for plumbing and early electrical service provided by the power company, now a very popular museum two blocks away and visible from the front windows of the house.
She was very active in local theater often being cast as a matronly figure who held familial sway. A member of various lodges and committees, she was the epitome of the community as defined back then, mentioned frequently in the Mohave Miner, the predecessor to the Kingman Daily Miner.
She held many events here: soirees and parties for friends, neighbors (few of whom existed at that time), and officials. The house was frequently in the news, many times for her gardening prowess: corn, grapes, almonds. (Her grapes were particularly commented on in various articles in the Miner, because that was the nature of News, then.)
To give you an idea of how this house fits in the continuum of time, in 1911:
China's Qing dynasty had just fallen: the last of thousands of years of dynastic rule dating back more than 4,000 years.
A revolution that changed the balance of power in Mexico began, echoing throughout most of the Americas, as did the Italo-Turk war in Europe.
Less that one lifespan before, our Civil War ended and remained a contentious issue.
Jean Harlow, Lucille Ball (I Love Lucy), and Ronald Reagan, among many others were born.
Elsewhere in the world, in 1915 the Lusitania was sunk off the coast of Ireland by U20, a German submarine under the command of a strong-hearted patriot of the German navy. 105 years hence, and the cause of this tragedy is still pondered. “Rule Britannia” was, alas, no more, unless one counts the Falklands War, which to Argentines was just insulting.
It took far more than the Lusitania disaster to shake Wilson out of his torpor, while British, French, Russian (and numerous other Entente members) “lives lost” numbered into the millions - military and civilian. But eventually we joined in.
And probably from this house, and from the many houses across and up and down the then-gravel streets of what we now call Old Town, departed those who would wage war in a place so remotely different from Kingman, Arizona. Some of them would come back when it was “over, over there.” Some wouldn't, and like many towns in America we have a war memorial (in our Railroad Park), which used to be Kingman's professional Baseball field, across the avenue from the Power House museum referred to above. The Cubs, Pirates, and others used the field for off-season training and exhibition games…
…while this house looked on a few yards away.
Stefan Zweig (ibid) rightly discoursed furiously about the destruction of Beethoven's House in 1903 on Schwarzspanierstraße, Vienna. Here in Kingman, while never the official home of any noted composer, our City's leadership does not let history obstruct the advancement of new, cheap, architecturally-depraved homes and other buildings, either. That is the way of the world, and saving just a little of our history becomes far more important as the years accrue.
Between “Big” wars, this house changed hands twice and served, having reconfigured the old Carriage House on the opposite side of the block (behind the main house), as a commercial laundry facility for central Kingman. Streets were paved, covering over the old dirt roadways, and in the depth of our Great Depression, the WPA, our Works Progress Administration who “employed” millions of out-of-work, destitute Americans in Public Works projects, laid in sidewalks in the 1930s much of which remains today – intact, unbroken, level, and clearly stamped. They are as new – 90 years hence. Here, if you walk through Old Town you can walk on history, even as the City labors desperately to remove our past to make way for chain restaurants and stores and car dealerships and monolithic government building atrocities. (Sorry…)
So while the WPA was improving Kingman, Japan and China mixed it up in the vilest way possible, and in Germany there began the rise to prominence of an otherwise very unremarkable former German army corporal who really just wanted to paint for a living. In retrospect, any number of us would have supported his enrollment in the French Academy. We didn't, but he did manage to paint out the lives of more than 11 million people, many of whom were guilty only of practicing a different form of prayer.
Many more millions of dead later: this house still stood. Mae (eventually to be) McMullen felt the pain more than most:
In late 1930 this house was acquired by Mae and Ernest Emery. She tended her home and their child, Edward, and he busied himself with the local Texaco dealership (now Canada Mart) selling gasoline and servicing automobiles until he enlisted in the US Army during the second World War. Mae's husband, then Lt. Emery, was Killed in Action in January 1945 at either Luzon or Leyte, Philippines. (It is uncertain in which of the two provinces he received his fatal injury, but unless he languished, the date of death points to the Battle of Luzon.)
Mae was left with her one child, Edward, and their daughter, following her husband's death. Also residing in the house were her mother, Agnes; Ernest's uncle, Francis Fancher (a prominent Pioneer family, too); and his cousin, William. Mae was known by various surnames owing to changing life circumstances thereafter, marking the beginning of the thread of ownership that lasted for about 70 years, having bought the home with her husband when she was just 18 years of age.
By all accounts she was a remarkable woman: Chief Surgical Nurse at Mohave County Hospital, which stood until a little more than a decade ago not more than one Li away (1/2 kilometer), she worked with the famous and infamous in Kingman medicine, including one of our most recognizable doctors who from the 1930s onward practiced his surgical craft while regularly imbibing in alcohol: still, his patients were loyal and trusting. He was fairly short, kindly (probably owing to his condition), and while there were several other qualified physicians in Kingman, he was fondly recalled by some long-time residents. His name was Dr. Arnold.
Mae was tall, strong of character, intelligent and raised her children in this house. Thus, Mae's grandchildren occasionally find their way to us through email, phone or visit. We learn so much about the house that way.
In 1950, the year I came about, on the Korean peninsula the first of our Asian US proxy wars began, eventually drawing us into the Korean civil war that was supported on the opposing side by China and the Soviet Union. Our total war dead numbered about 36,000, with tens-of-thousands of walking dead bringing up the rearguard.
The US was booming, though, as only the US may from time-to-time, with only minor setbacks we called Recessions, mostly effecting smaller swaths of specialized industry, like in Defense, such as for my father. (But we lived in Highland Park just on the outskirts of Los Angeles in a neighborhood not unlike where this house abides in Kingman.)
During our second year of caretaking this house, because that's really all we are as the home passes onward in time, I finally got around to looking more closely at the concrete basement wall on the East side. I had already ripped out four iterations of plumbing going back to the original well pipes that supplied the house from the still-working well, although we draw our house water from City supply for clarity sake. (I replaced everything with Pex and SharkBite fittings: (I will never sweat copper again!) A main filter unit precedes the entry of water to the house to accumulate debris from the City's supply line, followed by a pressure reducer then a pressure gauge.)
In the concrete wall I noticed several deep scars from which some of the concrete was sloughing off. Fearing the worst, I welded up a bracing for that span of flooring above, treated and patched the concrete. It's worrisome to see patches of concrete drop away from a load-bearing wall, until…
“Dad (referring to Mae's teenage son, the woman's father with whom we were speaking) used to go into the basement with my uncle and the Voss boys (next door at 107, still occupied by a Voss successor) while grandma was at work and fire grandma's .45 caliber into the concrete wall…”
The next day, “Ooooooh! I get it.” I stuck my finger in the hole, “This is a bullet hole! And so is this…and this…and this…” I left the support in place anyway, but lose no sleep now over the wall's integrity.
Three other steel braces can be found in the basement: Center of main floor, used to support that beam which after 100 years decided to slowly drop by a 3/16th of an inch; two others on either side of the walkway, taking the stress off the support wall concrete.
(As an aside, the 1940 Census shows the home valued at $8,000. Comparable homes typically ranged from $700 to more than $3,000, so even back then the house was seen as something special: a tribute to Mary Cohenour, I suppose…)
During this chance to learn more about Mae, we were told that the “boys” often climbed into the attic and fired live rounds from the latticework hip roof opening on the front of the house covering the concrete porch. If that were to happen today…
Time in this house passed virtually undisturbed, and the “boys” have all Gone to Glory after having lived a normal lifespan. And, as of this writing, not even Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk can do anything about the finality of it all.
What's happened since the Korean War? Not much…
We've fought so many wars, and famine and disease have taken so many millions; the ebb and flood of economic collapse and resurgence has left a lasting and often overlooked legacy of what to expect from life; people have come into the world, and people have left; the universe is getting larger, and perhaps has multiplied; we know that this world is not of continuous matter but insist on viewing it as such, because in our restricted consciousness, it's the only game in town; we continue to view our fellow human beings as we did in the 1600s or before; and, most importantly, globally we've grown from about 2-1/2 to nearly 8 billion people during just my lifetime, most of whom own Smartphones, and in an effort to further humanity, post images and videos of themselves doing very private things, alone or otherwise, and random acts of deprivation: we are not advancing as a society. In fact, we are on the retrograde. So, from our perspective, this home is an important anchor to the past.
So, let me ask you something Realtor representing the 1972 home I first mentioned at the beginning of this: Why on earth would I be “put-off” by a home built so recently as 1972?
So many homes in America pre-date our little home by a few centuries and chronicle events beginning with the Spanish invasion of North America. Like you, probably, I've slept in homes abroad built in the time of Shakespeare and before.
Old Homes have essence, spirit, and are quantum vessels that I believe still hold the remainders of those who came before. Old homes can evoke love, peace, or a sense of belonging that cannot be realized in a new home, no matter how the builder may sloganize variations on “Come home to Larchmont” or wherever. You will not be home there: you will just inhabit space. Perhaps, fifty years hence one who lives there will be “home” if, and this is very important given the quality of construction, it remains standing.
If you're now thinking, I gotta buy an old house and get me some of that peace and tranquility stuff! Recall that there will likely be some work to be done, even on this home. But through that work the house becomes your home.
Here's Rule One: Don't Home-Depot an historic home. Doing so ought to be a Capital Offense. It's the same with classic cars: If one puts a 350 Chevy in a 1939 Plymouth, it's no longer a 1939 Plymouth. It's something else, and it is not preservation.
Rule Two: Go to any of the many sites available to help you understand what constitutes Restoration; Not House Flipping sites where the aim is to modernize or bastardize the home into something it was never meant to be, but those with a true eye on restoring the home to its original state, with modern concessions to efficiency and comfort.
What's rewarding for us is to know that the restoration efforts we've made on this house will remain for decades, even centuries to come. Perhaps subsequent owners will become curious and research the subject; maybe they will come to know us, and through, carry us forward in time. Kurt Gödel would be proud.
Section 2
(A note on construction: Although we spoke about RCB above, we did not mention that the subfloor and joists are constructed of very seasoned, actual dimension lumber. (You cannot easily drive a nail into it.) Thus a 2x8 stringer is really a “two inch by eight inch” piece of wood, and not 1.3 X 7.25 of new growth subject to splitting, warping, wowing and disintegrating. This home was built of materials that were destined to last hundreds of years, unlike most/all new homes today.)
As of this writing, we've owned the home for about ten years. So, what have we done both in restoration and modernization?
Let's start at the very top of the house and work our way down:
Although relatively simple, the brass and copper weather vane on the peak of the hip roof adds a bit of period-correct jewelry, but serves no useful purpose. In Old Town, the wind blows warm-hot from the south in summer and chilly-cold from the north in winter, with spring-fall variation. Given that the house faces south, it's pretty apparent.
A new high-end roof of long-lasting materials applied expertly by a local contractor, color-keyed to the house trim in a Hunter Green. Beige and grey are the predominant colors for roofs here, and thus, this had to be special ordered. (Extra shingles and caps are stored.)
The attic's old blow-in insulation was exceedingly dirty having lived above for probably 60 years or more. We had it removed baring the mostly vintage knob and tube (K&T) wiring in-place since the home was built and connected to the Power Company (museum) from under the eve in the back of the house. An additional connection was made back then to the well house at the west end of the what was the carriage house to power the old pump. (More below.)
Following, we vacuumed the attic, cleaned and resealed the HVAC duct work and cleaned up the cradle formerly holding the hot water tank in the attic fed from the stove in the kitchen. Wait. What?
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An aside: That big vertical tank you likely heat water in your house today, although invented a few decades before, didn't materialize popularly in the Southwest following its introduction in more rural settings owing to a lack of natural gas or fuel oil, until fairly late in our history. Until then, since one had to cook meals, one burned wood in a stove. Some of that heat was used to heat and store water. It moved up to the attic because that's what heated water does, due to some law related to thermodynamics, I imagine, and that water was stored in a large tank - in our case about 10 feet long held in a cradle and insulated, sometimes with wood shavings or wool.
Gravity brought it back into the house for use. Smoke from the stove was vented through a brick chimney, still in-place, but used only for venting gases from the basement through the roof stack. It exists behind the protrusion in the kitchen having been walled in.
On the roof of the well house, next to what is now the garage today, were braces set into the building on top of which was a large tank. The tank, placed above what is still today the well, fed water to the house for heating and unheated tap use. In vintage images of Kingman, then, several of these tanks are visible perched high atop to generate enough pressure to feed the water through the house's plumbing system. Very near it, sometimes, is a windmill used to lift the water, but by 1911 the Power Company replaced wind generation and turned the pump in this house. The well pump here, and the wiring system, was replaced not long ago during the prior owner's tenure.
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Resuming: After that, all the wiring was upgraded, and several diagrams are available to plot the course and purpose of each electrical line and breaker (#12-2 for 20 Amp breakers (most) and 14-2 for 15 Amp). All junctions were sealed in fireproof metallic boxes. New lines went to everything below the ceiling from above, and in from the basement to various distribution points.
After, the attic was nearly pumped full of blow-in insulation, which has done much to curb energy consumption, particularly combined with the tin ceilings installed throughout the house except bathroom, studio and kitchen.
There are two attic (and three other smoke detectors) installed: one in the roof-peak, hardwired into the new wiring, and one battery-operated just above the ladder access point. The main attic light switch was placed here also, so when accessing the attic through the pull-down stairs (we added nearly immediately) the light switch is convenient. There are two 120VAC supply outlets on the western extremity of the attic for whatever extra lights or tools may be needed.
The Kitchen: Has a lowered, secondary ceiling installed during Mae's renovation of the house in the 1940s. There is a large air passage between the original lath and plaster ceiling from 1911, visible through HVAC register fed by a flexible duct from the HVAC supply ducting. It is not an enclosed space, and thus does not present a fire hazard.
Mae had the original cabinets removed. They were probably Shaker cabinets most found in homes of the period. She replaced them with steel cabinets made by AVCO, new on the market in the 1940s. Post War, AVCO made many things in an effort to keep production at a profitable level, including cars (the Crosley, a cute little mousey car collected today), refrigerators (such as the 1938 model we use daily in the kitchen as our only refrigerator, with a newer compressor, cleaned and painted in white gloss automotive paint, including a shiny gold emblem), radios, televisions… really, anything to turn a profit and keep the payroll going during the Depression and following the War.
Over the decades the cabinets were painted with a variety of types - lacquer, enamel and really whatever was on hand, and applied by whatever means were at-hand: spray cans, brushes, paint rollers, scrap rags, stray dogs: one over the other. We disassembled them, stripped them to metal and sprayed them with primer, then the same white gloss automotive finish as the refrigerator. New period-appropriate knobs were added to all.
Although it would not have been our first choice, the prior owner replaced the countertop with a black marble. It still looked good so we retained it.
Mae had the floor redone (over the original, close-grained T&G Douglas Fir) with a tar paper undercoat, then linoleum, highly variegated, so much so that it looked pre-puked. We stripped it, removed the tar using steam strippers (for wallpaper), sanded, stained and sealed. It exposed quite a bit of wear from over the decades, and that originally there were French doors leading to the back porch. Must have been nice. No fences were needed back then and the home sat across the street from the old cemetery, relocated some years earlier, now serving as the football field for Lee Williams High School.
Overhead kitchen light fixtures installed in the late 1940s were cleaned and rewired. The chrome still shines as new. Recently changed, the 30 year-old Kohler sink with a concession to modernity: stainless steel and a kitchen-height faucet.
The stove/range (we moved with us) we continue to use: a restored 1936 Wedgewood which still functions as it should and without danger of imminent death. It looks appropriate albeit newer than the house.
In the corner next to the stove we placed a perfect little porcelain table, vintage 1920s with new chrome cafe chairs for two or more with a built-in extension. Overall, except for the floor, the kitchen is black, chrome, white & gray.
Dining, Living Room, and Studio:
All three abutting rooms run the full frontal length of the house, each advantaging from the large windows displayed along the front.
The dining room serves as our office, and is separated by the original open partition to the living room. It abuts the kitchen where a refinished door on double-swing hinges controls kitchen access. Four large windows provide daylight to this room: three in front and one to the east. It serves as our office because we don't really need a formal dining room… Mary Eleanor Cohenour used it to host dinner parties. Others may have as well. We don't host dinner parties, do don't ask to have dinner with us.
The living room advantages from the windows in the dining room and has two additional. The front door opens to the living room. It is the original three-light door of very heavy construction. I mean, Very Heavy and is not easily removed, as we did to refinish it. Fortunately, it, like all the doors in the house, retain their original heavy steel door hinges, and after all these years there is no sagging, snagging, or obstruction in their movement: As the saying goes, They don't make 'em like that anymore. (Every hinge throughout the house was stripped to bare steel, cleaned and clearcoated.)
Ventless fireplace: Behind the north wall of the living room, hidden from view, is a gas line from the basement. We used this stub for a ventless fireplace we de-installed two years ago in 2022. It was unnecessary since the central HVAC adequately heats (and cools) the house, and the added wall space was needed for bookcases and artwork. There is an opportunity to install a vented style vintage standalone stove if one desired.
The Studio is Greta's refuge, as it was Mrs. Cohenour's. It is served by three windows on the front and one to the west. There is a doorway to this room, which originally served as Mrs. Cohenour's real estate office, and later as Mae's library. As throughout, the door was refinished. This room does not have a tin ceiling, but does have the original chandelier we acquired from Mae's relatives a few years back.
The entire house is lath and plaster, but sometime during the decades of Mae's ownership she elected to upgrade the walls in the living and dining rooms with Beadboard. It is a centuries-old wall treatment, but we would have left the plaster walls as they were. Once Beadboard is affixed, it is a bell that cannot be unrung without considerable effort. (There are some things one chooses to do in a restoration, and others better left ignored.)
The Bathroom when this house was built in 1911 it was much different than now. In the 1940s Mae removed the roll-top tub, installed a shower, and tiled to the ceiling. The shower was installed by removing a section of flooring, plumbing in the drain, running supply pipes and pouring concrete above the floor level, tiling and finish. It was a masterful job, durable, but not easily revoked, not that anyone ever wanted to.
Upgraded plumbing: We re-plumbed the house completely removing four sets of pipes from the earliest days when the house was fed by well water onward. To access the shower controls, we opened a small panel area behind the door in the studio. Once open, access to the shower is easily had. As to the tub, replacing the controls and piping was through removing some of the tub rim tile and opening the area to access the valves. We re-tiled with 2X2 tiles over the panel covering after securing it with screws, visible in images taken of the job. (We found the original plaster walls behind the tile to have intricate embossing along the tub line. O, well…)
There are three Wet Areas to the house (places where water is supplied). Kitchen, Bath and a section of the back room used for laundry. Water enters the house through the basement access, east side and obvious in location. A 3/4 PEX line with a shutoff takes the water to a spin-on filter then to a pressure regulator (set at about 60PSI), followed by a pressure gauge. The 3/4 line continues to the water heater after splitting off to a manifold of my own bizarre design with shutoff valves and PEX in blue or red (cold or hot) to various points in the house. It is plumbed so that water may be isolated to the toilet so if, for example, one were working on the shower, the toilet will continue to work, if desired. (Not really too critical given that the old coach house in the back is fitted with kitchen, living space and a full bathroom.) Also, if one is showering, any random smart-ass cannot flush the toilet to deliver a jolt to the one in the shower, although this is not something Greta and I would knowingly do. Hot water is generated by a 40 gallon Rheem. The supply side has a combination pressure and temperature gauge to evaluate both.
The Sewer Line runs under the house to the west side, accessed through crawl space either over the top shelf of the “2-by” storage rack or from the west side exterior access panel, which we rarely used after sealing it from outside disturbances - bugs, dirt, etc.. The cast iron DWV stack is clearly visible and runs inside the wall of the shower stall. In the attic the cast iron stack was cutoff and PVC was coupled to lighten the burden. The basement sewer line was brought up to a correct pitch having become nearly horizontal over the decades, and blocked. The attic penetration was replaced with ABS and a new cap was added. A new, low use Kohler toilet (1.26 GPF) works correctly and the waste moves rapidly out.
The Second Bedroom we use as a media room. This room was the back of the house before being extended by the addition of the closed space behind it in 1925, construction was done by Tarr, McComb and Ware. They were early contractors in Kingman, and may have built the original house, but we are unsure. The bedroom speaks for itself, except for why there is a built-in bookcase in the north wall:
The roof was not extended but existed as it is serving as a veranda at the rear of the home. French doors from the kitchen opened onto it, but were eliminated in 1925. Three windows along the back of the house were removed and used in the extension, evident by the null additions in closet areas and the built-in bookcase.
When we bought the house there was a white vinyl window where the bookcase is. That became annoying in short order, given that the window gave only a view of the washing machine in the room on the other side in the extension. Why would someone want to lie in bed and look at a washing machine through a window? I suppose it was the easiest fix for the prior owner. Thus, we built the bookcase.
Main Bedroom shares a characteristic with the one above: When we bought the home, there were two windows side-by-side on the north wall. Neither of these windows closed properly using spray foam instead to seal the top sashes(!), and were not original to the house, not having the same upper sash treatment. We removed them and used one, after refinishing it so it matched the woodwork and closed as it should, placing narrower bookcases to either side. There is evidence of a small radiator heater having been originally in this room, but it was long withdrawn from service (remembering the attic tank).
The Extension was used as a bedroom, per Mae's relatives. The clothes washing machine was located on the back porch, the drain pipe of which remains, along with electrical (upgraded when we re-wired). Later the washing machine was moved into the extension using a grey water drain (legal in Mohave County), and the dryer was added abandoning the more energy efficient clothesline method.
This old washer location was next to the stairway to the basement which originally had a storm door (slightly inclined) that served more as a ramp-way to the bedroom window for anyone who chose to view the bedroom (our dog, more often than not, peering idly in at us, since intruders are far and few). This was removed and a custom built door was installed at the end of the stairs for access to the basement, along with railing at the upper landing as a reminder. As an aside, apparently no thought as to hydrology was given by anyone who owned this house over more than a century as they poured more and more concrete, added paving stones and made changes to the grade, resulting in several water issues that have since been resolved.
The HVAC unit located in the basement is an older Goodman, yet remains an effective heating and cooling appliance. Why? Because it is regularly maintained and serviced by Air Quality Kingman, a long-time company not far away and very responsive, combined with owner-performed maintenance. It was probably installed sometime in the 1970s using a return system comprised of a wood and fiberboard network of ducting and drew from floor registers throughout the house. On re-wiring we began to investigate the efficacy of the system and noticed that it was disgustingly filthy with an accumulation of detritus ranging from dustballs, dead mice, to junk dropped into the system, 80-year-old toy whistles, along with fifty years of dirt. Sounds nice, doesn't it?
It was completely removed and all of the floor returns were sealed off permanently closing the openings off from the basement. A new OSB return duct was built into the floor of the living room of correct sizing.
The air handler and supply ducting was cleaned and sealed, as above, in the attic with all joints resealed and checked for leakage.
The air handler motor was changed about 2022 with a new motor and capacitor. The burner in the furnace was checked and cleaned. All gas supply lines were verified. A new PC board for the logic circuit was acquired but remains in inventory as a standby.
This older Goodman remains a very effective system, although probably not as energy efficient as a newer model, but the cost delta at this time has not warranted its replacement. Newer Goodman's meeting SEER2 and AFUE are available in the exact cabinet dimensions if replacement were to occur, allowing the use of the existing ductwork and minimum installation difficulties.
Section 3: Exterior Characteristics
In 1911 the front yard of this house “tumbled down” to the unpaved street, as all homes did then here in Kingman, population about 1500. Sidewalks, curbs and other functional embellishments did not come until much later and largely due to the New Deal. Occasionally a home owner, such as in our case, probably by Mae, would add a shoring wall around the front elevation and fill the area to serve as a front/side yard(s). This substantially altered the elevation and appearance of the home.
Various trees have inhabited the front yard since. The street was known for an abundance of fruitless mulberry owing to their brisk and thriving nature. Both this house and the Voss house, to our east at 107 E. Spring Street, and probably on downward further to the east, had two trees of this variety in their front yards, each. The Voss home retains one to this day, while the second, sadly, toppled over a few years ago. Ours are only root remnants not visible above ground. Instead, a prior owner, Dana Barber, planted four Mondell pine trees visible in the front and sides. This is a remarkably hearty tree capable of surviving near-extinction events. They have a tap root that easily reaches the aquifer several feet down and keep the trees nourished, so no watering is needed.
The sculpted concrete front porch was poured over a fill that in a very few areas has compacted over the decades and has left a less-than-firm base, about the size of a basketball about midway down the west side. This was owing mostly to a lack of proper maintenance until the home fell under our care. Areas of the porch were visibly cracked and unpainted: neglected as with the windows and some other aspects of the building. The Freeze-Melt characteristics of winters here made correcting this critical.
To remedy this, cracks were ground out, opened up and sealed with a concrete resin compound closing off moisture and insuring a tight bond and increased integrity. Annually, the porch is scraped where necessary and painted with a single part epoxy paint in Slate Gray, with the outer trim area in Dove Gray. Following simple process, annually, will keep the porch intact.
Tin Ceiling on front porch. In 2022 we removed the Beadboard on the porch ceiling to complete the re-wire of the house. More than 100 years of dirt came from it (mostly on me). After inspection we noted that two trusses had fractured following the toppling of the fruitless mulberry previously in front: probably from a single, large branch. There was no damage other than the two fractures, and the roof sheathing remained very well intact, thick and seasoned. We repaired the trusses, replaced the stringers supporting the ceiling panels (eliminating the Beadboard), and after completing the rewiring to provide two GFI protected receptacles, added embossed tin.
The exterior of the house was painted last, completely, in 2018 using a very high end Oatmeal color. The trim was done in a forrest green, while smaller, highlight trim is in burgundy. Of course, since then parts of the exterior have been repainted several times as a scrape or blemish would appear due to whatever reason. Same holds true for the trim.
The Front Gate, is likely 19th Century and must have come from a different house in some other region. It was in the backyard when we bought the house, unused and serving no purpose. One of the gate posts is original in cast iron; the other was a recent steel fabrication to match the other with new post hinges. We salvaged the gate and welded plates on the bottoms of both large enough to provide stability; drilled the plates; poured concrete pads; drilled and installed anchors; painted the gate and posts in an industrial grade black gloss; then began the laborious process of bringing it to the front and placing it. We added the bell and a latch system. The gate is very, very heavy. The hinges are greased by the zerk fittings.
The Arbor we built to custom fit the expanse between the stairs. Painted and anchored the same as the gate posts, the sign was added to clarify the house's provenance and “private” status.
The light just to the west of the arbor is a solar power Gama Sonic, same maker as that on the driveway behind the carriage house. They are higher end and have a significant lifespan as well as available parts through the maker.
On our acquisition, the shoring wall had a three-foot cyclone-style chain link fence across the front with a correspondingly ugly gate all in miserable condition. We removed this and cut the posts flush to the wall; made repairs to the concrete surface and have regularly painted it the same green as used on the house trim. The fence was probably installed to contain the family dog(s) but dogs and decorative rocks do not mix well and we made several repairs and added substantial rock of the same size and color to fill.
Having some time on our hands six or seven years ago, we installed a pond in front of the house. The pond is formed from 2X8 treated wood with a heavy pool liner. The piano and the wind instrument cluster is made from steel square tubing and remnant tin from the ceilings, more of which remains unused in the basement should in-house replacement become necessary. The instruments are fed by a 600GPM submersible pump through an obvious network of plumbing and is an attraction for those passing by the house (and frequently seen on Social Media sites), and, most importantly, the many House Sparrows who daily - regardless of the weather - bathe and entertain. But, it could be easily removed, filled and excess rocks raked to level.
The flagpole is set in about three feet of concrete. Galvanized, jointed pipe serves as the upright.
At this writing, the shrubs in the front in the bedding that runs the length of the house are sage. They are hearty and trim well and easily, and matching replacements are readily available at Star Nursery.
Well water is used for all watering of vegetation and does not enter the home for use. Only city water is used in the home and in the carriage house. All vegetation is watered through the well, via a functional network of hoses and secondary systems, and drip irrigation.
Two visible water stubs and a hose bib on the east side of the house could be used for watering with city water.
The Backyard:
On our acquisition there was a cover over the four pillars just outside back porch. The cover was made from corrugated steel braced on the columns by many lengths of DF 2X4s screwed together without crowning consideration and therefore, still sagged.
After removing this, we ran the length of the pillars with 2X8 on side and braced it from sagging by adding steel L-beam bolted through; we added C-cut trusses, and embedded one end of the roof in to the carriage house and sealed the valleys on both sides. The trusses were sheathed over and roofed. The south end of the roof stops short of being secured to the house roof owing to elevation differences. On very rainy days, a quick skip will clear the gap.
Block fencing was in-place when we acquired the home. We have no idea why, on the west side, it stops short of the lot and leaves about a two foot walkway on the outside. There were old, miserable trees planted there with no lifespan remaining, so we removed them.
The very back yard and driveway is now concreted. It was formerly covered with rocks of various sizes, strewn about making walking across it very difficult. After several thousand dollars, one may now park and walk easily to the garage or the east side gate.
The immediate Backyard is also of particular interest since it was the source of occasional flooding of the basement - two to three inches during heavy rains. It took some time to understand the source of the flooding, mostly because of its unbelievable nature.
As the back yard was built-up and filled-in over the decades, and planters were installed, the ability of the yard to percolate was nullified. Drainage was all but eliminated. Cleverly, someone attempted to solve the problem by plumbing in a take-off drain in a concrete surface just off the back enclosed porch doorway. They used 1-1/2 pipe feeding the water off through the buried pipe to the west side of the house where it drained away. Subsequently, the prior owner decided that he wanted to catch rainwater with a 500 gallon tank and positioned it atop a large, concrete base which he poured over the drainpipe shutting off the flow. So, water would backup near the door and in short order washed down the stairs into the basement.
We poured a curb to curtail the passage of water over the door threshold. We trenched a secondary drainpipe of four inch diameter. We re-routed the remnant 1-1/2 inch pipe making it functional again. Shielded the screen door with metal. Hung an outdoor roller shade across the door to prevent rain from being blown through the screen. And in this way eliminated something like 99% of flooding.
The other 1% was halted when we sealed the joint areas between the house and the concrete walkway poured by the prior owner on the east side without consideration of water leaking between the house and the new pour. When we bought the home I recall the agent, who was coincidentally the last short-term owner prior to us, saying, “No one knows why it floods in here…” I wonder why?
Section 4: Carriage House
Actually a Carriage House: A place to keep the household carriage and stable a horse. When this house was built, it was a time of change in Kingman, and while it's true that the larger metropolitan areas of our country had to some extent made the transition to petroleum vehicles, Kingman had not. The Mohave Museum (just two blocks off) has many images from this period showing most homes with a small paddock area for keeping the family horse along with the necessary water storage/pressure tanks and well houses, as we did.
Floor drains can be found poured into the concrete of what is now the garage floor and one additional in what is today the kitchen.
Until 2005 the (garage) door was a massive pipe-sliding barn door, now a 15' double garage door on an electric opener. Sometime during Mae's 70-year ownership the building was changed completely into a fairly basic living quarters mostly for son, Eddie (Ned, as he was called). In 2005, under Dana Barber's ownership it was revised with new appointments of a modest variety: kitchen, bathroom with walk-in shower, etc. Electrical and plumbing were updated as well. Just outside on the east wall is a main shut off for both gas and water. It is serviced by its own electric panel and meter, but shares gas and water service. It has a 20 gallon 240VAC water heater (2008) and a ventless gas fireplace. Cooling is by evaporative cooler.
Dana also had the main sewer line replaced about that time as well at a “…cost of more than $10,000” as she was wont to tell us. (Dana's a friend…) Sometime later she sold the home, and the next in line defaulted. The property became REO. The agent we bought it from was the REO buyer and we acquired the house through his company always admiring it and feeling that some day it would become available.
We've owned a few homes in Old Town which we've restored rather than renovated over the years: an important distinction. Here's how we acquired this one:
It was not yet for sale. We owned a ranch 40 miles east in the Willow Creek ranch area. It was lovely there. Sitting on a little more than 70 acres we were secluded in the little house and other buildings we had constructed 3-1/2 miles from the highway amongst timber, mountains and wildlife.
A small historic home we had restored and used as a rental became vacant due to a tenant move. Winters were getting tough up at the ranch: lots of snow; lots of cold. (The home was off-grid and heating fuel was propane.) In 2013 we decided to start spending the winters in town, obviating the need to cut and split five, six or more cords of wood every fall. Lessened opportunities to slide on snow-covered roads, and closer proximity to health care, given my advancing age, made it all the more appealing an idea.
Staying at the in-town house we went for a drive one day re-familiarizing ourselves with the neighborhood. Driving by (our house today) we noticed a “for sale” sign on the porch but not in place. The sign (and effectively the home) belonged to the realtor. Talk-talk-talk: we bought it. As people apparently without brains say, It was a no-brainer.
And so it came to pass that at this writing, ten years later, we are here. People who knew how we exchanged homes frequently would ask, “When are you going to sell this one?”
My response then, as now is, “I'll go out the door feet or head first, depending on how the Coroner wheels the cart.”