House Tour_ 1897 Victorian Mansion

Welcome to Preservation Travels with Lane and Kevin here at Our Restoration Nation. Do we have a treat for you today, and yes, I know we say that every tour, but this time you're going to be absolutely blown away by what we're going to be showing you. I'm standing on the porch of the Pillow Thompson house. It is an exquisite example of the Queen Anne style of architecture that we know you love best. This is a George Barber home. The floor plan was ordered from a catalog and this home was built by lumber from right here in Helena, Arkansas. Some of the notable elements in front of this house are not the turret, not the tower, but the oriole. What makes this an oriole? It would be a bay window were it not for the fact that it's on the second floor and it has supports underneath. You see exquisite details like the glass mosaic above the door entry and on several other parts of the house that will sparkle in the sun, the original wrought iron fence that runs the perimeter of the house, and the gorgeous colors that have been returned to their original. So let's go inside and take a tour not guided by me today, but by award-winning tour guide Raymond Willey. Come on in to the Pillow Thompson house. Hello everyone. My name is Raymond Willey, and I'm a full-time employee of Phillips Community College and the Pillow Thompson house is owned, operated, and maintained by Phillips Community College, but it was donated to the college in 1992 by Josephine Thompson and her son George. So Josephine was put in a retirement home in 1992, and the son George, being the only child, got everything he wanted out of the house and gave everything else to the college. So the majority of the furnishings and pieces that we have in the house are original family pieces. The house was originally built in 1896 for $6,500, and it remained in the same family up until the time it was donated to the college. So there were five generations to live here and Josephine was the last. So the restoration process started in 1993 and the house opened in June of 1997. So now we're a rental facility for special events, such as parties, weddings, receptions, lunches, and dinners. Now all of the colors that you'll find throughout the house, you know, wallpaper and the draperies, now they were coordinated from the colors in the stained-glass windows. Now all of the stained-glass windows are original to the house. And here, this is the fret work. It was a trademark of the architect, but on the outside it would be called gingerbread, inside it's called fret work. So Helena was a very unique place at one time. It was way ahead of its time. At one time, it was actually considered the jewel of the state because this is where the vast majority of the wealth was in the state at one time. So here in the house, the light fixtures that we have here downstairs are not original. All original light fixtures were moved upstairs because there wasn't any lighting upstairs. So Helena was pretty much way ahead of its time. Electricity was here in Helena around 1886 to 1888. So that's pretty early. Okay, now this was the foyer. We're in the parlor now. And during the Victorian time, the men and women would meet in separate rooms for doing gatherings. For instance, the men may be in this room and the women would be over here. And the men would probably be smoking their big stogie cigars or maybe their pipes. And here, now this is the wife of the original builder and her name is Jane Folk Hargraves Pillow. So there's still a host of Hargraves here in town. And also there are a host of pillows. The piano we have is an 1890s Steinway. It's been tuned up and people may use it from time to time during functions such as weddings and other different type parties that we have. Okay, here in the sitting room, we have the original builder of the house. This is Jerome Bonaparte Pillow. Now, originally he was a part of the Huguenot clan in France. So he was a direct descendant of Napoleon. But he was one of the largest landowners here in this area. And he also owned lumber mills. During one time, Helena was considered as one of the largest hardwood markets in America. And this gentleman owned several lumber mills. For the house, originally it was a mail-order house out of a scissor robot catalog. So during that time, you can either get a floor kit or a kit or the floor plan. But there's a good possibility being that he owned his own lumber mills. He may have just gotten those plans out of the scissor robot catalog and lumber right out of his own mills to build the house. And what they would do during that time, they would send work crews out to the work sites to complete the house. And here we have, this is another picture of the wife, Jane. Now here, she's a little older here than she is above the piano. Over here, we have Josephine and her son, George. Now, they're the ones who donated the house to the college. And this is pretty much, this is the couch that she's sitting on in this picture. This episode is brought to you by CuriosityStream, which is literally my favorite streaming service. You guys are going to be so happy when we tell you this. So CuriosityStream, you know how you're always turning on your TV and there's nothing to watch, even if you have all the services in the world? We've got all of the services and there's still nothing to watch. CuriosityStream, there is always something to watch. 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For you who are spending $7.50 every morning for a coffee, okay? Learning for $1.25 a month. You are welcome, CuriosityStream. New in your life. You're going to love it. You're going to thank us for it. Goodbye. We're in the dining room, and this is one of my favorite pieces in the entire house. I call it the original microwave. So really, there's nothing new under the sun. So this piece was pretty much, it was considered a luxury item during that time. It was a pretty versatile piece. You can warm up things or maybe heat up your bread. And I've even heard of people putting their dinner napkins in here and warming up their dinner napkins. And here we have, this is Josephine. This is the last occupant of the house. Now, she has several different breeds of dogs, but the Papillons here were her show dogs, and she was known for taking her dogs to Westminster in New York. So she was pretty much, she was a real character. She gave dinners and partied on a regular basis. And I've heard stories about some of the dinners she would give. Whenever she would give a dinner, she would tell all of her guests to leave a little food on the plates for the dogs. So they would actually take the plates off the table and set them on the floor and open the doors and just let the dogs come in. Now, the piece we have here, this particular piece was donated to the house. The piece was donated, but now all of the glassware and all of the plates, they're all original pieces to the house. Now, back here, this is the breezeway. This is all original. This is, excuse me, this is all the construction. With the exception of this, this was original tile. So here's where the porch stopped off. But now the original kitchen, it was a two-story structure, which was located back in this area. From my understanding, it had a classroom. So there was probably kids from here in the neighborhood and in this area would come over here for schooling. And I think it went anywhere from the first to second grade. But that particular structure, it burned sometimes in the 40s. And there was an open breezeway here. So pretty much the house and the kitchen was always separate for heat purposes and fire hazards. But this particular kitchen didn't catch fire back during the 40s. And it was moved over to the next room. So here on the platform we have, these are people and businesses in the community. Now, they all donated money during restoration. And it was anywhere from $700,000 to $800,000 raised just right here in the community. And the total cost was $1.3 million. But originally it cost $6,500 to build the house. So I would think that that $6,500 would pretty much be like what that $1.2 million that they used to restore the house. Now, this particular room, it was a spare bedroom at one time. When the original kitchen burned during the 40s, it was moved into this room. But before then, it was used as a spare bedroom. And the family were Episcopalian. And the Episcopalian church is just a block or so down the street. So whenever the bishops or clergymen were in town, they would stay with the pillows in this room. So this room became known as the Bishop's Room. And this is one of the bishops that would stay in this room whenever he was in town, R. Grant Mitchell. This was pretty much considered the guest stairway or the service stairway, which led to the guest or the servant quarters. Now, this particular room, we call it the Archie Classroom. But actually, this was the family's den or the family's library. So this is where the family spent the majority of their time in this room. And here we have original family pieces, all of these are original family books and other items that we have. Josephine actually spent a lot of time in this room, along with her dogs. So they spent a tremendous amount of time in this room. Now, this mirror is an original piece to the house. But what's so interesting about the mirror is the way that it was notched out to fit up against the baseboards. So I often think about the skills that the craftsmen had during that time. They didn't have any power tools. And pretty much their work is still here today. And that work was done with precision. Okay, now we're in the room. This was George's room at one time. He was in this room up until around the age of 15 or so. And over here we have a picture of George when he was on a Harvard fencing team. Now these windows were said to be stained glass windows at one time. His second husband, Francis, he was a banker and he turned this room into an office and the lighting was bad. So we had the stained glass windows taken out. And over here we have Josephine and her husband on her wedding day in 1935 with her first husband. Now the first husband was a Dutch banker from the Netherlands but he was assigned to the Far East and he later became an ambassador to China. And this is Josephine on her wedding day in 1935. Now this is the master's bedroom and this is one of the original light features from downstairs. And here this particular bed was donated to the house but people were shorter during that period. And but actually it can be considered a full-size bed and we have two closets here in this room. And at one time it was actually a property tax on closets. A closet was considered a whole room but only wealthy people had closets in their homes. And over here in the turret we have, there were up to five Jerome pillows in this family and this is a Jerome pillow. Now this particular Jerome pillow was said to be friends with Mussolini. He was assigned to Rome at one time. He was assigned to Rome, Italy at one time. So he was probably an attaché during that period. Okay, this particular bed is an original piece to the house and this bed is known as a Mallard. Now Mallard was a French furniture maker from New Orleans and this was Mallard's trademark. But from some research I found out that Mallard, they couldn't find any evidence of a workshop in New Orleans. So now they're thinking that Mallard was just ordering these beds from France. But Josephine, one of her grandparents, originally purchased this bed from Jefferson Davis's widow. So there's a good chance that Jefferson Davis may have slept in this bed. And this porch that we have has been taken back to its original form. But during the 20s this porch was converted into a bathroom. Okay, now this was Josephine's room. I call this the Queen's room. And as you can see, she pretty much looked like a queen. Now this section of the room was added around 1915 and you can pretty much see where the boards meet right here. And now this particular piece was donated to the house and we still have some of Josephine's items. Some of her hats, some of her shoes. So you can say pretty much she was offered the hats and dogs. And these are original family pieces. And this particular light fixture that we have here was in the dining room at one time. So none of the light fixtures that are upstairs, all the light fixtures upstairs came from downstairs. There was no light fixtures here upstairs. This is a closet. And there are still some of Josephine's items in here. Well, there you go. That's our tour of the Pillow Thompson house. We hope you've enjoyed spending time with us today. This home is open for in-person tours Wednesday through Saturday from 10 to 4. So come to Helena, meet Raymond, and stop by Hillen and say hi to us while you're in town. We'll be working hard. See you soon.