Well-maintained Queen Anne home in Sioux City shows family's decades of care

During the 1960s and 1970s, the home's woodwork could have fallen victim to the paint-the-woodwork trend, a difficult-to-reverse attempt at slapping a new face on historic doors and mopboards; Peggy Reynolds, who "really loved the house," wouldn't allow it.

"We tried to talk our mom into letting us paint the woodwork so it wouldn't look so old," Mary Kaye recalled. "But she held steadfast and took very good care of everything." 

Mary Kaye is one of nine Reynolds children -- eight girls, one boy -- who grew up in the four-bedroom, 1 1/2 bathroom home after their father, Laurence Reynolds, purchased it in 1958. 

"It was always full of kids," Mary Kaye said. Four or five of the Reynolds siblings shared one of the spacious second-floor bedrooms -- a room which "we referred to as 'the dorm.'" 

It didn't seem so crowded in those days, during the post-war baby boom, Mary Kaye recalled. 

"It's what we knew," she said. "All of our friends were from big families, too, so having a lot of people around you I think was just kind of the norm for us. It's not like today, where kids want their own rooms and their own bathrooms. We all shared that one upstairs full bathroom." (If the family was going somewhere in the evening, Mary Kaye said, all the kids had to be done with the bathroom by the time Laurence came home from work so he'd have a chance to use it.) 

Few owners

The turreted house, which has much the same charm as the Smith family home in "Meet Me in St. Louis," has seldom been on the market since it was built. Laurence Reynolds was only the third owner when he purchased it 67 years ago.

The house was recently sold to new owners; Mary Kaye and husband Jeff Fossum are moving to Wisconsin to be near the grandchildren. 

Dr. William S. Tharp was the original owner of the house -- sources differ on whether it was built in 1890 or 1895. It was relatively new when, a few minutes before 2 a.m., April 21, 1897, lightning struck the house and destroyed one of its chimneys. Tharp and his wife were awakened by the noise. "The only evidence, besides the broken chimney, that there had been an accident was a small hole in the ceiling directly over the bed in which they were sleeping," The Journal wrote of the incident. 

Tharp's time there was the briefest to date. He sold the house in 1902 to Charles and Lillian Kneedler, who also had an unusual late-night incident a few years after they purchased it. Early in the morning of Aug. 24, 1904, a burglar broke into the house -- first attempting to pry open a pantry window, then trying to get in through a window in a servant's room. The frightened servant alerted Charles Kneedler, who chased the burglar out of the house with a revolver, according to a Journal clipping. 

Charles Kneedler, an insurance agent, died in 1924, and Lillian lived there until her death in 1955. 

Like her siblings, Mary Kaye left home as a young adult -- she went to Nevada and California for a while. She moved back to help out when Peggy's health started to decline. Peggy died in 2005, after 60 years of marriage to Laurence.

A too-big empty nest

Where once the house was crowded with children and parents, it was too sprawling for an 84-year-old man on his own. 

"His preference was to return to the family farm in Salix," Mary Kaye said. "So I bought the house from him." 

The daughter shared her late mother's love of the house, while Jeff took advantage of the house's double lot and created a lush flower garden. 

"He really transformed the side yard into several really beautiful gardens," Mary Kaye said. "I mean it looks so different than it did when I was growing up." 

The house has been thoughtfully maintained while Mary Kaye and Jeff have lived there -- the buckled plaster of Paris walls were replaced with sheetrock and covered with period-correct wallpaper, and the aging wiring and plumbing were updated. The exterior is freshly painted in pale yellow, gray, white and a stripe of red at the top for a pop of color. The house also has a new central air system. "Updating what had to be updated," is how Mary Kaye described their efforts. 

Windows onto the world

The upbeat spirit of the Gay Nineties greets you at the front door of the house, with its cheery stained glass window border in red, yellow, green and blue. Step inside and there are two more stained glass windows. All are believed to be original to the house. 

The whole house, in fact, is windows, windows and more windows. That's one of Mary Kaye's favorite characteristics in the place. 

"I think what I love about it is the big picture windows," she said. "I think that it's true in most Queen Anne homes, from what I've read, that it was about bringing the outside in." 

As was common with houses of its day, the main floor was set up for entertaining and living. The foyer opens up to three spacious rooms -- a dining room, a living room (or, depending on how attuned to the 1890s vibe you are, it might be considered a drawing room) and a parlor. There's also a sunroom and a kitchen with modern appliances. 

"There's just a lot of features here that have been preserved so well," said realtor Kathie Pfaffle, who added that it's rare to find such a pristine Queen Anne "that hasn't been converted to a rental property or been totally gutted." 

A picture of strength

To Mary Kaye, the architectural style of the house -- tall pocket doors encased in heavy doorframes, big burly Newell posts and stair railings, oak galore -- symbolizes strength. 

"This has always felt like such a solid, safe, sturdy place to be," she said. "To me, that's kind of what it evokes is -- just a really safe home." 

The wood floors on the first floor have elaborate parquet borders, a decorative and presumably labor-intensive flourish rarely encountered outside of homes built during the fin de siècle. Mary Kaye said the ornate floors revealed themselves when the carpet was pulled up. 

"At one point it was fashionable to carpet them with shag carpeting," she said.