The Alabama Experience; How Rare a Possession

How rare a possession was funded in part by a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. There's something unique about entering someone's home and seeing the way it's decorated, seeing the way they live, seeing their tastes and their various pieces of

their life that you witness when you go through the home. The building itself obviously invites you to kind of step back in time, but once you're here, do you get any feelings of people who've come before you? That was a lot of good in the paper in 1944, with four glasses of the house, interior of the house, exterior of the house, and that's the first time I got into that. The town of Yufala was founded by people looking for better farming land, and they ended up growing cotton, in fact both sides of the Chattahoochee River were cotton growers, and the town prospered because it ended up being a port of trade.

James Turner Kendall was a merchant who then was involved with plantations. When he arrived in town, apparently he did have some money, and he set himself up as a merchant, and people locally, as I said, were the cotton farmers, and they would come to his store and ask if they could purchase things, mortgaging the cotton crop against the purchases. And since that was a fairly common practice, he said that would be fine, but then of course when the cotton didn't come in, he ended up being paid with their land rather than their money, and became a plantation owner as well as a merchant. The town's growth is kind of interesting because in a lot of places people with that money would spend it for a big house out on the plantation, but here in Yufala, the people with the money ended up spending it for a showhouse in town. Not only did he build a two-story structure, then having living accommodations, but then he built the Belvedere or the tower on the top, so at the top I believe we're about 75 or 80 feet in the air when you're up there, so obviously he did build himself a monument to his prosperity.

We've mentioned Belvedere several times, and the Belvedere is an Italian word, it means beautiful view, and its purpose was ventilation primarily, and they would open the windows in the Belvedere and open the windows on the first floor of the building, and the air would just be pulled through the house like a natural draft chimney, so it really was a very functional purpose to have the Belvedere, and then the second purpose was observation. Mr. Kendall being a merchant could climb the staircase and look out at the river which we can still see and see whether ships were earning things for his store. Okay there, two reasons why people come up to the Belvedere. One obviously is to see the view that you can see of Yufala and across the way to the hills of Georgia, you can also, in the winter time, see the lake in three different locations, directly across from the downtown into the north and to the south. The second use for the Belvedere happens to be now to be riding on the walls, and most of our entries have quite a bit of interest to them, a lot of times it's just names and

dates, but in this instance from one right here there's a little poem, and it says love is sweet, but also bitter, love a girl and can't get her, and another entry that seems to be a favorite of peoples has to do with a grandson of the builder, his name was Joe Kendall, and he wrote something that is quite fun, right here between the two windows. He wrote, I Joe Kendall came up here on Sunday, January 15th, 1905, to keep from going to church with my mother, so obviously he used this for a hideout. Some of the materials were sourced locally, the framing timber for example, was cut from some of the original growth pine forests that were in this area in the mid-1800s. The brick for the building reportedly was fired here on site from locally available clad. However some of the other materials in the house such as the mantles in all of the rooms are Italian marble, and they were all carved to the design specified by the master

builder, and then they were created and shipped over from Italy. The Ruby Glass for example in the door sets in the main hallway was made in Bohemia, which is now part of Czechoslovakia, and then it also was shipped across the ocean by sailing ship. I guess another thing that he did was highly unusual with the architecture was to put in a basement, there's often most of 16 foot tall basement underneath this old structure, which was highly unusual thing to do, and when they did move the earth to dig out for the basement they also terraced the hill, and so the house does have a very nice presence if you will, it looks like they was planned. I'd like to invite you in to have a look at the room in Kendall Manor, which has only the only one that has retained its original use, we're in the formal parlor, and I want you to take note of the wallpaper, the cornices, and the furniture.

The furniture I'm piece I'm staying in front of has a cameo or a face carved in the back of it. The faces in each one of the pieces of the parlor suit has the face carved to coordinate with the faces in the gold leaf cornices. The furniture was manufactured in France of Rosewood and Walnut, strictly for Kendall Manor, and it is the only remaining pieces we have of the original furnishing. Another item of interest is the spot in the mirror. People refer to it as the character spot, it's the silver that has deteriorated, and as it pulls from the surface away to the back of it, it's left a pattern that looks like a plume of the wallpaper, and people are intrigued about how we got it all to match, but it is by accident. The parlor doors that separate the original two parlor's are quite massive and heavy. They each have three panels of Tiffany sat in glass with a medallion pattern in the center with the design itself, coordinating with the ruby glass or bohemian glass that's elsewhere throughout the house.

Another interesting architectural feature in the home is the beautiful staircase, it's Walnut, shipped here from Philadelphia, and it's crowned by a newl post at the bottom of the staircase that has a little wooden knob at the top, and the little button that would be put here was known as a brag button or a debt stone, indicating no more money was heading to be spent. It was like, I paid off my mortgage, look how much I could afford, because the finer a stone indicated you spent more money. You have to not only love the structure, but be willing to spend the time and effort that it takes to bring it back to life. It's considered an architectural treasure, it is a very unique building. Well to us I think it means, it probably means two things, the chance to preserve some very valuable history and the opportunity to offer that setting for other people to enjoy. The beauty in the history of this building is obviously there and to be able to share

it with people rather than have it just be a private residence is that's unique. John Van Valkenberg was a colonel in the Union Army. He basically served the Army in Virginia and did not come to Huntsville doing the Civil War contrary to some of the legends. He did a little business in Tennessee before the war and after the war he decided to move to North Alabama and settled in Huntsville. He came down first without his family, brought him worked here in farming or in some capacity and then within a year opened his own farm implement hardware store and from that beginning the family had a very prominent farm implement hardware business for several decades in the city.

The father's the one that built the business and made the money. John Van Valkenberg now, Wilbur the man that built this took his inheritance from his dad and basically used that to substantiate the build his house and he stayed in the business and ran it until he died. Since the time it was built was probably the most expensive house in the city and one of the first ones to be rebuilt after the reconstruction days were over and as a commerce began to increase and money began to accumulate rumor has it that they spent about $55,000 when the house back in 1902. The materials as best we can tell the quality of the materials are unique. It's certainly not locally produced we're fairly sure that most of the woodwork in the house was imported of whether it be from another part in the country or whether it be overseas we're not absolutely sure but the brick for instance we hear the brick was imported from Ohio and the brick was bought down by barge steamboat, up a Tennessee river and brought

in here and we hear the craftsman came with the brick. The house is basically three brick thick and it has exterior and interior walls that go from a huge foundation in a basement all the way to in some cases through the attic and what they did they used those foundation walls then to bridge the support floor pieces into sockets back in the brick and the foundation for each one of these walls is probably four feet thick and as best I can tell about six feet deep so they really built it well. The house is not settled in almost a hundred years. We're now standing in the entrance of the house and the architect decided to be a grand entrance you actually have three entrances before you enter the main house you have this first one with the arches and the columns and then as you enter now you see you have two more curved entrances with the pladium doors the last and final entrance.

This is our sun rim and this is probably the other than the kitchen door into the breakfast room this has been the only other structural change we've made to the main house and what we're doing is the porch there was an existing porch here and we just glassed inside the porch to create this I call it a morning room or sun room. We're in the four year now this to me and this is probably my favorite room first of all is the entrance to our home it was designed to be a dominant impressive entrance in our opinion it is it's got incredible woodwork all the way from the ceiling which has cross beams to the floor which has park a floor to the pladium door entrance it's got one fireplace that's got important marble it's hand carved the columns this this all this is all natural wood of course and hand carved.

This is where also the park a floors merge there are five treatments of park a floor that merge within this room each room has its own border its own park a design and in this one spot you can see see all of that of course the four year opens to the stairway and I suppose a stairway is the more impressive thing if you just enter the home for the first time it's all natural wood it's bound by a brass rail that's very old night the design goes all the way up to the second level and of course the stairway accents itself and it splits at the top four year and goes back up in a split stairway to the upper level. This room is designed as a ballroom and although we've not decorated as such I think the previous owners did decorate it as a ballroom or didn't decorate it perhaps is a better description not to say we haven't had a few dances in here but you can see the ballroom lights which are original to the house which was quite unusual back in 1902 to have the

electricity in a home let alone all these wonderful lights there's been some mystery surrounding the stained glass which is probably the primary feature of this house as to whether or not it's Tiffany window all the windows for that matter but one of the the particular unique architectural features of the house is it has three stained glass windows the legend is that the windows were important windows and that Tiffany may have made them and that's supported by the Van Balkenberg current generation. We had the happy occasion of having the second owner of this house visit last week and she's a little like you well into her 80s and she was sitting here and of course we asked the question do you know whether or not the windows are staying around Tiffany and she said my dear she said of course they're Tiffany she said the Van Balkenbergs only used the finest materials in this house

why wouldn't they be Tiffany well that was good enough for me I happen to think they're Tiffany. Neither of us ever thought we would you know live in a house like this and you know we know we are caretakers of the house we know that basically the house possesses you rather than you possess it and you you take care of it just like you were a child then that's the passage we're in in our life and so it's just really been a discovery for us and just a big part of our total you know life experience to have enjoyed our time here and we plan to enjoy a lot more time here. Well come right in welcome to Swan House by Chaucer Hall as it's now. The house was built by Theodore Swan who was an industrialist in Birmingham Alabama and the chemical business. He was a very successful man he could make millions of dollars overnight

which was one of his falls. This is a very good room in the house which we were in earlier as you can see his oak panels and where they were they were re-sealing difficult sealing for his day. His business was bought out by Monoceno Chemical. I understand he had the first patent on detergents and that's where his Monoceno bought it to get the patent. He lived here for 14 years he lost it in 1942 it was finished in 1929 after 4 or 5 years of construction. The house in 1929 cost well over a million dollars based on today's mark it'd be 25 million dollars. This is a library. Everything in this room was hand-carded all the pounded hand-card. He had the Canterbury Tails and the one that's in Canterbury

Cathedral over here, over here in the Shownway and here. It's just like Shownway and the Four of the First Heads. Around the room you see crossbows that's part of my personal collection crossbows and armor. Most of the crossbows in here from the 17th century. The house has nine full beds, three half beds. It has ten function in five places. It's got two artificial five places. It has ten function in five places. It has four bedrooms on the bedroom floor. It has two bedrooms on the top floor. There's four and a half stores high and so two bedrooms would be in a half store. People think of it as being large as 30 room houses and 30 rooms as good many houses. Although the original appraisal for the insurance company called a medium size family dwelling. Most of us wouldn't call it a medium size family dwelling but that's why he describes it in the insurance policy.

The house when it was built as I mentioned was commercial. It was built as a commercial building. It's poor concrete all the way from the bottom floor to top which is four and a half floors as I mentioned. It has not a piece of wood in the structure. Every piece of wood you see in this house is just purely ornamental. You have no studs in the house. The walls, the thinnest wall, exterior walls on the house is 16 inches thick. The house would not burn as such. It would burn one room with maybe two rooms. The roof, the rafters of steel and then the roof decking is three inch gypsum which is the same thing sheet rocks made out of. Only three inches thick. Then the slate or rock, they'll be made directly on the gypsum and fastened to the gypsum. One interesting thing about the house, we drilled that hole for that light. It took us, I had to be six hours, two

men, six hours to drill that hole. Now wall was a little foot thick and it's brick. How it brick. It was more like a, more built more like a commercial building or a hotel because it had ice cold rain water to every bathroom. It had hot water, rain to every bathroom, immediate hot water, instant hot water. It had a vacuum system, central vacuum system, had a built-in, an income system, had a built-in burger alarm system. One very unusual thing it had, from 1929, had a built-in television antenna which most people hadn't had never heard of TV in 1929. This is Elevator, which is always Elevator on a home in City Birmingham. This was the first one. It's also also called with a minute forward, which you can see. How it meets, how it meets your all downstairs.

This room is a room we call a pub. Actually, it's a tavern. The difference being a tavern you stayed overnight in a tavern. The pub was more of a bar. But the taverns preceded the bar, the pubs. This is the 17th century tavern in that shelter. We're now in what we call the trophy room. As you can see, it's trophy is all around. But this was also a theater of swans, a poker room. Also on the wall here is a fox-hunt. You can see it all the way around the room. It has a fox over there and he's head to the woods. It looks like he's going to make it, but he's not. He's over there in that trunk, which is sort of pitiful, really. You've got a little fox over here looking at you. This room is no one room. As the name we gave it, a reason is called a stone room. We call

it no one room because everything in his normal knock texture. The stone work in this room is very historic place. I'll come out of historic place. Stone work in this room came from Hatingham Castle, which is about 45 kilometers north east of London. It was built in 12th century. It was built in 1120. And this stone work came out of the garrison. It's an Ichoic, it's a normal, what they call a normal towel or a normal keep, which is the same as the towel of London, it was a normal towel. The man that built this castle was named Divya, D-E-V-E-R-E. He was the son of one of William Conqueror's top men. That's one interesting thing about Divya family. Some people think a Divya was really Shakespeare,

and that's pretty pop with theory. A lot of people believe in that. You're now in such a kitchen, and that's a spit. You wind this up like this and then start it. It was hooked, it turned this, to turn it all to each of me. While she was doing something else flirting with him about that something. The house is full of hidden components, and hidden storage areas is, I guess, about 17, 18 hidden components, and probably about four or five walk-in causes, hidden walk-in causes, and two hidden rooms. The reason for all these hiding places is the house was built during prohibition. It's also very traditional on the English house, 17th century English house, to have what they call priestholes. So the hidden places feel fit right in with the year the house was supposed to represent. We have shown the house to everybody from all over the world. I've always, especially liked

showing it to Europeans and people from England also, and they're very proud. So .

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