Arched pocket doors and original fireplaces made the rehabilitation of 615 Capitol Ave. more authentic for John and Shelly Pervinich, who received the Historic City of Jefferson's September Golden Hammer award.
The Capitol Avenue historic neighborhood drew the couple to want to preserve one of its grand homes. And they hope to have the chance to restore another in the future.
"We want to make sure we're part of keeping this neighborhood alive," he said.
When they bought the home last year, the same person had owned and lived on the main floor for decades prior to it sitting vacant more than two years. But little had been done toward maintenance, so both the roof and the foundation needed to be addressed. And it had termites.
A concrete worker by trade, John Pervinich did much of the painting and clean-up work himself, learning along the way, especially about city codes, he said. Below layers of linoleum, they discovered the original, narrow oak hardwood floors.
Outside, they replaced the back decks. And Pervinich enjoyed digging up buried old pavers and relaying them as an entry walk.
"We're novices," he said. "We followed the model to buy the crummiest house on the block and fix it up. Several neighbors have thanked us for saving it."
In a cabinet, he keeps several souvenirs from the demolition, such as a 1933 D penny, a 1935 stamp and a large stone tool.
The wooden front doors match and feature a swiveling viewport.
Pervinich also salvaged the ornate lead features from the front, which he hopes to learn how to restore and return to the facade.
By the end of the year, they hope to fill the main floor with an office renter, and the upstairs already has a residential tenant.
The Dallmeyer name was attached to this home from 1891, when Rudolph Dallmeyer bought it from Ella and John Bateman, until 2012, researcher Deborah Goldammer discovered.
The Cole County assessor's office estimated the home was built about 1882. At that time, Fred Rowe owned the lot, which had originally been purchased by Gustavus Parsons prior to 1867, when he sold to Horace Swift of prison fame.
Rudolph Dallmeyer was the son of William and Louisa Dallmeyer, growing up at 602 E. Main St. He married Lottie Otto in 1890, and they had two children, Martha and Phillip, who started the Dallmeyer Jewelry store.
In 1900, the Dallmeyer family lived at the home with a house servant and a carriage driver, while Rudolph was a bank bookkeeper. Rudolph later was secretary for the Edwin Hogg Lumber Company.
Before 1910, Lottie's mother Martha Otto lived with them, as well as Thomas Meador, a livery clerk, and Cornelius Jones, a state stenographer. Goldammer suspects this may be about the time the home was divided as a duplex.
Martha and her husband Paul Schmidt, a bank cashier, lived with her parents by 1915 at 615 Capitol Ave. They stayed with her widowed mother after 1920.
Lottie Dallmeyer becomes the lodger instead of the owner in the 1930 census, where widow Rose Hudson, a radio owner, is listed as the head of the household. However, Goldammer suggested the census taker may have been confused.
By 1935, Lottie Dallmeyer's sister Minnie Rose, also widowed, lived at the home with her and Stacy Douglas, a state accountant, and his wife Ethel rented the second apartment with two other lodgers - Marjorie Jones, a state stenographer, and Genevieve Ferguson, a state comptometer operator.
Lottie Dallmeyer lived in the home until her death in 1954, nearly 70 years. She saw other renters come and go, including those who worked for the telephone company, Missouri Pacific Railroad, the House of Representatives and the News Tribune.
Daughter Martha and her husband returned to the home about 1951 and she stayed after his death until about 1978. Her cousin Robert Dallmeyer Jr., a self-employed real estate agent and member of the school board, also was living in the home by 1978.
Robert Dallmeyer Jr. then acquired the property. He sold in 1983 to RDD Properties with Billie Dawson and M.C. and Barbara Rippeto. But by 2010, RDD Properties had sold the home back to him, and he owned it until he died in 2012.
Although the Capitol Avenue area receiving an official "blight" designation from the city may affect the Pervinich's property value now, they see it as a tool to stir revitalization that will help in the long term.
"We hope that will help people come in and buy other properties," he said. "We're excited to be part of this. We feel like we're on the front end of the curve and hope a lot of them will be behind us."
2016 Golden Hammer winners:
August: 304 Marshall St., City of Jefferson
July: 220 E. High St., Jefferson City Museum of Modern Art