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Cincinnati Couple Honor Their 1897 Home’s History

Homeowners preserve treasured original features while adding their own fun touches

Julie Sheer
Julie SheerOctober 12, 2019
Houzz Contributor; journalist with more than two decades of experience as a graphics editor and writer at the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune; outdoor guidebook author; lover of all things outdoors, nature and wildlife. Follow me at https://westcentric.wordpress.com/
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This 1897 American Foursquare-style home in the historic Westwood neighborhood of Cincinnati has had numerous owners over the years, including someone who did a lot of structural work in the early 2000s. The current owners are Barrett Evans and Kevin DiNarda. They both love old homes, so finding this house was a dream come true. “We looked at about a dozen homes built since the 1980s and knew that was not for us, so it struck a chord when we started looking at older houses,” DiNarda says.
Parisi Images
Photos by Sarah Parisi Dowlin

House at a Glance
Who lives here: Kevin DiNarda (left) and Barrett Evans and dogs Jack, a Jack Russell terrier, and Ted, a Bulldane (mix of American bulldog and Great Dane)
Location: Westwood neighborhood of Cincinnati
Size: 2,800 square feet (260 square meters); five bedrooms, 2½ bathrooms
Parisi Images
The American Foursquare home features Colonial Georgian exterior details such as columns and dentil molding around the eaves. The wide porch and off-center entrance and entry door sidelights were common elements of the era in which the home was built.

The house was part of a local home tour in 2016, which Evans says kicked off “painting season,” when the couple took on three months of plaster repair and painting. The slate roof is original but the couple are slowly replacing shingles with Buckingham slate from Virginia to make it more period-appropriate.

The couple think the home’s ownership has changed about five times, and they know little about the previous owners except for John Marckworth, the civic-minded attorney who built the house and founded the neighborhood’s improvement association.

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Parisi Images
Original leaded glass in the front door, sidelights and transom immediately conveys a sense of the home’s historic past. There are pops of blue in the rug, chair and a door leaning against the wall behind a small antique desk, an heirloom from DiNarda’s family. “The old door with a crystal handle we found in the basement. It needed a blue accent on that wall,” he says.

“A lot of the pieces in the house are from my family, Kevin’s family or friends’ families,” Evans says. “We like having stories behind things. We’ve always felt that way, but finally are able to express it when we moved into this house.”

The decorative wishbone on the wall is from Cincinnati pottery company Rookwood. The couple like to collect art made locally. Evans points out that the blue rug is similar to others in the home. “We liked that it looks preworn and vibrant at the same time. It looks like it belongs here,” he says.

DiNarda is particularly fond of the entry area. “I absolutely love the staircase and leaded windows. I’m a big fan of Grey Gardens,” he says, referring to the 1975 documentary about Jacqueline Kennedy’s relatives who lived in a decaying mansion in the Hamptons.

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Parisi Images
Both men have worked in retail (Evans is currently in human resources for Macy’s) and DiNarda has a degree in architecture and environmental design. They’ve added their unique style to the home while preserving its vintage features.

“We read lots of Houzz posts on color choices as we were designing the palette for the house,” Evans says. “Especially when we decided to go as dark as we did in the bedroom.”

The foyer includes a number of nautical-inspired pieces. “It’s like a sea captain went abroad and collected items,” DiNarda says. Two of the decorative balls on the floor are actual buoys and the others are oversize Christmas ornaments.

The wood secretary came from a friend’s grandparents in Canton, Ohio. “We were happy to take it off their hands. It fits perfectly,” Evans says.

Wall paint: Blue Stream, Behr

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The ivory button featuring a drawing of a ship on the staircase newel is a “mortgage button” and is original to the house. “When you paid off your mortgage, you’d put the deed in the newel post and cap it with a button,” DiNarda says.
Parisi Images
Everything in the living room except the couch is vintage, including the octopus bowl on the pedestal. Evans purchased the 1939 Kimball piano this year. “A local real estate agent was selling it on behalf of her client, who was moving,” Evans says. “So I drove Kevin to the residence, without telling him why, until we were walking in the front door.” They both liked the aesthetics of it, and Evans is the one who plays it.

“I’m looking forward to this year’s Christmas party, and I recently started learning pop songs,” Evans says. The pendant above the piano is from Turkish goods store Karavan in the Short North district of Columbus.

Wall paint: Sparrow, Behr

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Parisi Images
The handsome living room fireplace has original tile and a mantel that DiNarda thinks was built in the early 1920s or ’30s by a craftsman who built one of the neighborhood Tudor homes. The couple used Vine Leaf by Behr for the wall paint to coordinate with the tile surround.

The orange bowl in the fireplace was the start of the couple’s vintage Bauer pottery collection and came from an auction of set pieces from their favorite TV show, The New Normal. Its flame-like color fit the fireplace perfectly. “It felt like it was almost like its own fire,” DiNarda says.

Though not particularly religious, they bought the painting from an auction held at the Catholic school across the street. They took it out of its frame and discovered a signature and date from the 1800s on the back.
Parisi Images
The 1920s dining table and chairs were purchased at auction. The black-and-white framed photos are of parties held by the couple — they like to hire a photographer so guests don’t have to always have their cellphones out. “It’s family and friends having a good time in our house. It’s kind of an Italian-restaurant wall,” Evans says.

According to neighbors, the home has always been popular for parties, Evans says, which is perfect for the couple, who love to entertain. They throw several parties a year, including one last June to celebrate their wedding anniversary.
Parisi Images
The dining room’s dominant purple tones started with the velvet curtains and reflect Evans’ preferred color scheme. “I was allowed to paint one room purple, my favorite color, for the accent walls,” he says. DiNarda re-covered the chairs in complementary jewel-toned teal velvet. “I love mixing colors in that room, having the Paparazzi purple and the rug that’s berry-colored. I was excited to mix in teal velvet,” DiNarda says.

Wall paint: Paparazzi, Behr

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Parisi Images
The kitchen was remodeled by previous owners sometime in the early 2000s. A wall to the adjacent family room, visible in this photo, was removed, opening up the space, which was also modernized with custom cabinets, black quartz countertops and new appliances. The most recent owners didn’t do a lot of the maintenance required with a 120-year-old house, DiNarda says, but the kitchen was in good shape, so what the couple tackled were easy fixes. They painted and switched out old farmhouse pendant lights for new matte black ones with a gold finish inside.

Opposite this photo is a brick wall that in the early days of the home had a cast-iron stove and stovepipe chimney that vented up through the second floor; it was eventually plastered over.

Evans is particularly happy with the space. “My favorite feature is the kitchen. I love the appliances, but the space itself too because I like connecting to friends through feeding them. We cook everything. It’s one of the special ways to connect to people,” says Evans, whose father was a chef.

Larson pendant lights: Safavieh
Parisi Images
A butler’s bell box sits above a doorway in the kitchen, a nod to the home’s early days. The bell is original, and the couple purchased the black box online from a French estate and had an artist highlight its edges in gold leaf.

The call system was a surprise to the couple, who found out about it only when neighbors mentioned they had one. They discovered buzzers on the floor that were used to call servants, and DiNarda rewired them and the front and back doorbells into the call box. They serve different purposes in today’s world. “The Jack Russell has figured out how to ring the bell, then looks at you for a cookie,” Evans says.
Before Photo
Before: Here’s the buzzer bell the couple discovered in the dining room. The original owners would press it to call servants.
Parisi Images
Upstairs, the couple share this dressing room, whose walls are the color of a gray flannel suit. They modeled the space after their favorite menswear stores, with vintage items that include sewing machines, a typewriter, shoe racks and a cash register. “It has things we felt a men’s store would have from the late 1800s or early 1900s,” DiNarda says. The fireplace runs off the same chimney as the living room fireplace.

Wall paint: Broadway, Behr
Parisi Images
The 1900s-era cash register, which the couple bought at a flea market, has its roots in nearby Dayton, where the National Cash Register Co. was based. “It’s brass and weighs 100 pounds,” DiNarda says. “Barrett and I had to carry it out together.” They use it to store cufflinks, lapel pins, loose buttons and other items. “It’s fun to open in the morning and is great for storage,” Evans says.
Parisi Images
The couple collect signed and numbered prints from local artist James Billiter, whose work is on display throughout the house. Shown here on a wall in the dressing room are two of his prints depicting Cincinnati landmarks.
Parisi Images
The master bedroom features walls in the same gray as the dressing room, which connects via a pocket door. The architectural line drawing over the bed was meticulously created by DiNarda when he was in school. It sat in a flat file for years, he says, just waiting for the perfect spot to display it.
Parisi Images
A guest bedroom upstairs features walls painted a custom blue from Behr. DiNarda says they purposely chose soothing dark tones for the sleeping rooms. “We wanted to do a clean, almost B&B feel,” he says. “It’s large with a walk-in closet, a pub table, and it has great light in the morning.”

The striped wall art is actually wrapping paper the couple framed. “We had gold frames and we didn’t know what to put in them, so decided to see how blue wrapping paper would look,” DiNarda says. The bump-out between the windows contains the old chimney coming up from the kitchen.
Parisi Images
The bed in this guest room came from DiNarda’s great-great-grandparents, who emigrated to the U.S. from Austria in the early 1800s. Having worked in the furniture industry, DiNarda says he appreciates the solid quality of the piece. He remembers napping on it when he was a child. “Nobody in my family wanted it, so it sat in my parents’ basement for a couple years before we brought it home.”

Wall paint: Vine Leaf, Behr
Parisi Images
The antiques and fun finds in the guest room include a Nespresso item from a marketing campaign. “Working in retail, you find one-of-a-kind pieces,” DiNarda says. The big flat file has belonged to him since his dad gave it to him when he was 10. Now it’s used to store his architectural drawings and other art.
Parisi Images
The couple found several pieces of framed art at a local thrift store and spray-painted the frames gold. “We wanted something on the wall that wasn’t disjointed. We made a statement of the gold frames,” Evans says.
Parisi Images
One of the small bedrooms is used as an office and library space. It’s become a catchall for some of the couple’s funkiest items, as well as a shrine to artist Andy Warhol. An old map of Cincinnati hangs on the wall above Warhol memorabilia and other collectibles.
Parisi Images
One wall of the first-floor powder room is covered with vintage Cincinnati newspaper that the couple put up using a waterproof decoupage treatment. “They’re old Cincinnati papers we bought on eBay from the 1870s and early 1900s,” Evans says. “It’s something fun and different. It’s fun to see what was considered news at that point in time.” The room has the original pull-chain toilet, made of wood. “It’s challenging finding a plumber who can service it,” DiNarda says.
Parisi Images
For the front door, the couple had Behr paint custom blended to match the yellow orange of a Veuve Clicquot Champagne bottle. “We wanted something that popped but also went with the exterior color,” Evans says. They hired Quality Counts Painting to paint the porch.

The mermaid statue introduces the sea captain theme. It was a highly sought-after flea market find. “It probably inspired the closest to a flea market fight,” Evans says. “We had to grab it and run. She comes inside in winter and goes on the stairs or upstairs. Otherwise she’s on the front porch welcoming everyone.” The Irish greeting over the door translates to roughly “A million welcomes.”

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Parisi Images
The house is set far back from the street, and the porch in particular feels private and secluded, DiNarda says. A swing and a black-and-white tile-like rug anchor one cozy corner of the space.

Evans says he likes being a member of a neighborhood, taking care of a house that people recognize. “We have this beautiful line of daffodils that bloom along the side of the driveway and have had people say they’ve driven by them their entire lives. We’re now the caretakers and take that seriously,” he says.

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My Houzz is a series in which we visit and photograph creative, personality-filled homes and the people who inhabit them. Share your home with us and see more projects.

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Comments (63)
See 60 more comments
  • beverlynn
    10 months ago

    Beautiful!,,

  • kkaccordion
    8 months ago

    Wow! Love all the color choices especially the purple in the dining room

  • gitsamoo
    3 months ago

    Beautiful and rich in personality!

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