Cool Homes: Northside Victorian 'returned to its glory'

"We knew the house needed to be returned to its glory," Murray Dwertman said. "It was asking for it."

He was standing on the front porch of his Northside Victorian home. A porch that you'd never guess wasn't there three years ago, when he and his wife, Michelle, bought the home.

That's a testament to the care the couple has taken in their work on the home, which included building a porch reminiscent of the one that would have been there when the home was built in 1885.

The funny thing is, the Dwertmans didn't set out to restore an old Victorian. In fact, they didn't even set out to buy an old Victorian. Out of the 50 or so homes they looked at during their house hunt, this was the only one from that era among a sea of mid-century moderns and foursquares.

"The house certainly spoke to us," Murray said.

That was in 2013, when the couple was moving to Cincinnati from Brooklyn. It was a homecoming for them both: He's originally from Covington, she's originally from Middletown. They met at the University of Kentucky but moved away from the area in the late 1990s, so they'd never known Cincinnati as adults.

Once they settled on the approximately 2,600-square-foot Victorian, Murray started researching: Everything from Victorian paint colors to construction and building. And then the couple started doing: Everything from replacing and rebuilding fireplaces to installing newly produced historic wood sash windows on the front of the house.

"Almost no surface in this house is untouched by us," Murray said. "I've used my teachers' summers wisely."

The biggest project was that front porch, which they designed, planned and built from the footings up. When the Dwertmans bought the house, it had only a concrete stoop. But they knew it had once had a porch, as does the one other home in the neighborhood that's just like theirs. They copied that porch's features with a few slight variations. A Victorian workshop in Texas milled most of the porch parts. Murray hand-cut the ones he couldn't find. Then for three months, the couple spent two or three hours each weeknight – after they put their son, Coen (now 5), and daughter, Reese (now 3) in bed – painting those pieces. Then Murray and his father spent about two months building the porch.

Murray, who studied architecture before ultimately becoming an art teacher, enjoyed learning about his home's history.

"What I found so neat about it was that everyone who worked on the house really believed in the merits of their trade," he said.

According to Murray's research, a family of carpenters built the house and members of that family lived there for 35 years, until 1920. In those three-and-a-half decades, they used their carpentry skills to keep updating the home, adding things like the detailed floors and a large leaded glass window.

The Dwertmans kept the updating tradition with meticulous attention to detail. Murray bought an 1886 fixture on eBay and rewired it, adding contemporary globes. And he patinaed reproduction Victorian wall scones to make them look historic.

Previous owners had already modernized some aspects of the home. Like the former chef/restaurant owner who fabricated a stainless steel kitchen island and countertops and added a six-burner industrial stove.

Another owner converted the attic into a bright and spacious third-floor master retreat (though the couple currently uses it as a guest suite).

The home is furnished with mid-century or new Danish and modern furniture and lots of artwork, including Murray's pieces and work by friends and family members.

With a yard that's uncharacteristically large for the neighborhood, the home that wasn't at all what the couple expected to buy turned out to be just the right fit for the family.