House 'Facts'

653 Burton S.E. was originally known as 'Six Oaks' because of six magnificiant oak trees along the Burton Street frontage. When we purchased the house only one of the mighty oaks remained. It was hit by lightning around 1995 and we had the damaged top trimmed off.

Ken Spencer claimed the house was built in 1901  by a 'builder' named 'Paige' as a wedding gift for his son. In various remodeling projects I have come across various boards signed 'Paige' on their 'backside'; none had dates.

City records researched by my 'Pitsch' neighbor (across Linden, on the corner) show the house "officially" appeared in 1921. BTW, his house (and garage) were a plumbing business, with the back of the house (and garage) being the business. The double driveway curb by the side porch on Linden used to be the carriage drive to the side porch. The sideways house up the block on Linden used to be the 'Molesta' homestead for their farm to the north.

The house is on a double (corner) lot. There is half an abondoned alley appended to the north edge of the property (which the original garage faced). All the experts we have had thru the house have supported the 1901 date.

We bought the house in a three-way closing from Ken Spencer, owner, and the Land Contract holder, Howard Huntley. We got to know Ken later as he leased our garage (for 4 1/2 + years) to refurbish a 22" mahogony Chris Craft boat for the Steketee brothers. We had a neighborhood party the day Ken pulled the boat out of the garage. I still miss Ken. He taught me a lot, talking as he worked.

The (very) large steel 'I' beam in the garage was added by Ken so that he could pull school bus engines and transmissions for service. He told me he flagged down a military crane on Burton on 4 July 1943, heading to the annual City Parade, and paid him $5.00 to come back after the Parade to lift the beam into place in the almost finished garage. I never did get a clear story on where the beam came from, but think it was a reject (weld in middle) from a construction project he was involved in.

Ken built most of what we consider to be the garage, adding the main portion (and side workroom) so that he could work on school bus engines and transmissions. Ken's workroom in the basement featured a 1936 South Bend Tool Works Universal Machine Tool and a Drill Press, both anchored to the house foundation. I have a concrete workbench that is part of the foundation from when Ken was responsible for converting the 'Michigan basement' into a real basement (prior to 1938, when he converted the house to gas heat {from oil}). There is evidence in the pipes and fittings that the house was originally steam heated and converted to hot water. The heating system was originally coal according to Ken.

When we reroofed the house in the late 90's (also refoofed it about a year after moving in in '76). we removed the (unused) chimney over the kitchen. There is some evidence it used to be at the midpoint on the east side of the house. There are floor burn marks on the west edge of the arch (we added) into the kitchen suggesting that is where the original stove was placed. We also removed a drain standpipe (cut off) that was in the wall where the arch was cut. The original kitchen sink may have been on the southeast corner wall of the kitchen, next to the stove (in the middle of the south wall). The kitchen cabinets I removed during this project were all made from 1 x 22 white pine boards (#1's, edges/rings suggest they were 1x24's originally). I've reused one to make a display case for rock shows.

When we reroofed in the late 90's, we had the roofer (via their associated contrator) add a dormer w/ window to the west attic room at the head of the stairs on the second floor. I converted the attic into a room, and moved the walls to put the hallway radiator into the new bedroom. I'm kinda proud of my crawlspace/attic doors, the built in desk and chest of drawers, and the complex wall/ceiling angles. I also moved the unusual vent on the upstairs toilet from the removed chimney to a roof vent.

Ken was also a 'business broker', and was responsible for the sale of Nutrilite Products to Amway. BTW, around the time the house was probably built the City Boundary was Eastern and Burton.

Ken built the original upstairs bathroom, openable, skylight (I think he refinished the whole upstairs). I completely rebuilt it in 1986 (and it again needed help late in 2002). In 2004 we found a commercial skylight twice the size of the original that opened and replaced it; I'm quite happy with my plastering job.

Ken was responsible for adding our fireplace, and for the addition of the 'sunroom' wing to the house. He also turned the kitchen 'icebox' into the northern 'breakfast nook'. Ken also remodeled the living room and removed the basement access from near the front door (moving it to the back door). Ken appears to have remodeled to make the large bedroom at the front of the house on the second floor at the same time.

When Ken added the sunroom wing he threw it up over an existing dormer, which became the entry hallway to the room on the second floor. The dormer still had the original tin gutters and cedar shingle roof, and was painted a light, but hazy, blue. I had quite a tear off job when I converted the space that had been enclosed for more than 50 years into a walk-in closet. It also covered a basement window (and I think a side door) that gives access to the crawl space under the addition, where I found most of the woodwork removed during Ken's remodeling (the rest was in the loft of the garage).

I built a second dresser into the wall, and moved the doors from the end of the dormer to its start in the hallway. The back bookcase in the closet is a hidden/secret door that opens into the attic room at the top of the stairs, giving a second fire escape route to this room. I am quite pleased with how this came out.

The northern main floor bedroom room used to be a 'sewing' room only accessable by the kitchen stairs, that went over the 'landing', or to 'upstairs'. It was probably a servant's room originally. Ken converted the stairway and back door, when he did the basement. He made the main floor bathroom around this time too. Part of the bathroom was the old "servant's" waiting room (now a closet) per Ken. We converted the lockable 'fur' closet and adjacent closet into a walk-thru closet.

Howard Huntly had paneled, built in bookcases, and installed a drop ceiling in the front corner room to make an office/library. We finally went back to the plaster in 2004-5, replacing over half of it, and moved the office/library to the basement, eliminating the basement bar that Huntly had built. The office is now a den/sitting room.

The basement was originally a 'Michigan' basement with a dirt floor. Ken lined the walls with a block ledge to preserve the original foundations, and cemented the floor. BTW, the floor in the basement 'workroom' includes a concrete workbench that was the mounting for Ken's 1936 South Bend Tool Works Universal Machine Tool. The coalbin was original, and Ken walled off the boiler room around the time he removed the basement stairs near the front door.

Ken's wife was 'short' and the kitchen counters were about an inch lower than usual for her convenience (and why the dishwasher Howard added {and we replaced, twice} sits on the subfloor). Ken had built the cabinets from 1 x 22 white pine (I've recycled one of the salvaged boards into a rock display cabinet and kept the rest). 

When we moved in the east and southeast sides of the kitchen were counters/cabinets, with refridgerator and radiator going to the west, to the door. We cut the arch into the dining room in the mid-80's and remodeled the kitchen, removing half the cabinets (and adding one). We also replaced the built-in stovetop (but left the built-in oven). At the end of 2004 we replaced both oven and stovetop (removing the fan over the oven).

The icebox melt, and some roof gutter drain, used to flow into a cistern under the cement slab where the back door is now. This fed into the laundry room sinks, and the overflow went to the curb. When the City banned the overflow Ken converted the laundry room to using 'city' water, and remodeled the back door area (eliminating the cistern in the process -- however, we have some evidence it is still there, just filled in). We think he converted the 'Michigan Basement' at the same time as some of the plumbing is under the basement floor.

Ken told us that there used to be a black walnut in the backyard, but it was struck by lighting in 1935 or 1936 and he had to cut it down. He said he laid a (buffalo) nickel on the top of the cut down stump before covering over the hole he had made to cut it off below ground level. In the early '90's we had an above ground pool. While clearing/leveling space for it we found a 1936 buffalo nickel about 6 inches underground very close to where Ken said the tree was (12' in from the west property line, almost exactly even with the bathroom window/skylight midpoint.

My former next door neighbor, Howard Maring, and I allowed an elm to grow on the property line about 12 feet back from the Burton sidewalk. It was about 2 ft in diameter when we cut it down in 2006 after it died of dutch elm disease. We had it chipped, and used the mulch to turn the yard under the big blue spruce into a garden and patio area. We replaced the elm in 2007 with a kalopanax pictus (per label, probably kalopanax septemlobus from my research) planted a bit east and closer to the sidewalk. It didn't survive the first winter; I replaced it in 2008 and it is thriving.

Ken's wife was a gardener. They took an annual vacation. She brought back plants from every place they visited. After more than 25 years we are still finding strange things coming up around the house. We have a Jack in the Pulpit that comes up every spring under the kitchen window. We moved it to the backyard in 2009 as part of an effort to make a native plant garden (that also includes wild blueberry, wintergreen, brachen fern, solomons seal, and a few other ferns from rescue operations ahead of development of wildlands).

There was also a maple tree about 3 ft in from the west property line, about even with the back door, that was knocked down in a tornado touchdown in 1996. It also took off the top of the large blue spruce by the driveway (and a tree across Linden), and leaned the spruce. BTW, Ken planted both the blue spruce (back/side yard) and the 'black fir' (front/side yard) the same day in 1943.

The 1963 (64, 65?) tornado that went thru the Garfield Park Neighborhood 'twisted' the tulip tree near the southwest corner of the house about halfway up the trunk. We have also seen an 'aloft' tornado pass over the house about once per decade that we have lived here.

We had a flagpole in the front yard that Ken put up. The brass ball on the top of the flagpole was a float from a toilet. We replaced the rope with the pole standing after the original rotted out and fell to the ground. The pole base rotted out for the third and final time in late 2006 when the cement base failed. We still hope to restore it, but at a different location. We plan to put the preserved Smoke Bush tree that was at the east end of the front porch (until it cracked the foundation) in that location.

When we moved in, the gas fed boiler in the basement was a monster American Standard with a Janitrol System. It had been converted from oil in 1938 (and probably from steam to hot water at the same time). The day we brought our just born oldest daughter home from the hospital, a Friday evening, with record 9 below zero temp, it died. We replaced it with a Weil-McLain that has performed well for over twenty years now. At the same time the overflow tank in the attic was disconnected and the system was closed by the addition of bladder tanks. A rapid fill system was added about 20 years later when the bladders had to be replaced after failure.

After an energy audit, including thermal imaging, we removed all the attic insulation, replaced the ball and socket wiring on the second floor and attic with modern wiring, and reinsulated with sprayed foam in 2007. We hooked the lawn vac to 100 ft of 4 inch (solid) plastic drain hose and blew all the old insulation into the garage. Once the dust settled on everything we were able to bag the old celluose insulation and recycle it to a needy home via our Church. We also removed the fiberglass insulation, that was also installed in the 1980s, and replaced it with the foam. Foam was also sprayed into the ceiling of the front porch after the original celluose was removed. As part of this insulation project, I built a shoe rack into the closet wall of the front upstairs bedroom in 2007.