Historic home a work in progress

Owners of Bolton-Kelly House receive Golden Hammer award

Located on Green Berry Road, the historic, 1830s-era Bolton-Kelly House is in the process of a full restoration. The owners recently won the Gold Hammer award.
Located on Green Berry Road, the historic, 1830s-era Bolton-Kelly House is in the process of a full restoration. The owners recently won the Gold Hammer award.

They thought they were going to an auction to find an antique piece. By the end of the day, Bo and Marlene Bohanan owned the historic Bolton-Kelly House on Jefferson City's Green Berry Road.

"We expected to see the rooms all chopped up but after we walked around and estimated the cost, an hour later we bought the house," Bo said. "We bid and nobody else did. It was on the verge that you couldn't recover it."

Two years ago, the couple moved into the pre-Civil War home after spending a year doing significant improvements to the infrastructure, including plumbing, electricity, central heat and air and replacing a load-bearing wall.

Doing most of the work themselves, the Bohanans are still working on smaller pieces to the restoration. Marlene is adding gold stencil to the red walls of the dining room and Bo has door frames to finish.

"It's still a work in progress," Marlene said.

But their efforts have been noticed by the Historic City of Jefferson, which awarded them the October Golden Hammer Award.

Dr. William Bolton built the brick home in about 1833, with the help of slaves he brought with him from Kentucky. His brother Lewis Bolton built a stone home with the same floor plan in Wardsville.

The home was built in three stages, with each of the rooms having a fireplace. Bo estimates the dining room and kitchen additions were both completed by 1850.

This is not their first historic renovation. The Bohanan's 4,700-square-feet home in Loose Creek was featured in the News Tribune's February 2012 Home Living.

"We've always lived in old houses," Marlene said.

Before they fixed up the stone house in Loose Creek, they bought and fixed up an historic home in Elston.

"It takes awhile to figure out the needs of the house; every house is different," Marlene said.

The Bohanans did make one change from the original design, adding a downstairs bathroom and mud room where part of the wrap-around porch had been. And they converted the parlor, once Dr. Kelly's exam room, into a downstairs bedroom.

Upstairs, they've added a library, complete with a rolling, ceiling-tall ladder.

When they couldn't find trim to match the original, Bo made it. Most of the labor has been done by the owners.

The fireplace in the downstairs bedroom has intricate wood carving, something they did not know until they started taking off the layers of paint. They then spent weeks with dental picks carefully revealing the original features.

They also invested many hours fixing damage, such as the front door that was butchered by multiple door knobs and hidden windows painted over.

"I feel we were meant to buy this house," Marlene said. "It will be a great day when we get it the way we want it."