The big, white house located on N. Calhoun Street was once the women’s nursing home.
My own mother, Deborah Tedrow, known hereabouts as Jim and Bonnie’s eldest daughter, Deborah Keith (WLHS class of ‘68), remembers visiting her great-grandmother there.
“She seemed to like it there,” Tedrow said, “I remember her looking out that big window and smiling.”
That big window is now the living room window of Ethan and Bethany Anderson. Ethan is the owner of Big Imprint and a former mayor of West Liberty.
Bethany is the founder and operator of the Anderson Language Center, an educational resource for Spanish speakers who want to learn English. The Andersons have three children in the West Liberty Schools.
The Anderson family moved in about a year and a half ago after spending quite some time updating and renovating the house.
On Friday, March 22, they held an open house and invited the whole town in to see what had become of the historic structure. Plenty of snacks and drinks were provided and everyone found something delicious to munch on.
“A lot of people have asked us to see the inside,” Ethan said of planning the open house. “It motivated us to get a lot of projects done.”
“It will never be this clean again,” Bethany said.
Ethan and Bethany Anderson bought the home from its previous owners, Chuck and Louise Newcomb.
“The Newcombs took such good care of it,” Ethan Anderson said, “and we feel privileged to be the next owners.”
They made a number of updates, the most extensive of which was rewiring the entire house.
“It was a treat,” Ethan Anderson said, “because it did get totally rewired, so we got to say ‘here’s what we want.’”
Much of the original woodwork remains, and the art deco style of the home, built in 1915, has been mimicked in the new wallpaper in the foyer, a complicated geometric pattern installed by Davella Santiago of Muscatine.
The wooden floors and built-in cabinetry have been lovingly maintained over the last 100-plus years.
The kitchen is the area that saw the most modernization, and yet the style fits in well with the flow of the house.
The herringbone pattern of the white wall tiles suits the art deco theme of the entryway and the wood and glass cabinets of the dining room. The backsplash behind the kitchen sink is very special and traveled a long way to get there.
“This, we brought it back in our carry-on bag from Morocco,” Bethany Anderson said, gesturing toward the colorful ceramic tiles, “so it’s really special.”
The bag was so heavy with dozens of tiles that Bethany couldn’t lift it to stuff it into the overhead compartment.
“Ethan had to lift it,” she said with a laugh. They were in Morocco just before the pandemic began in 2020, and at that time they did not know what they were going to do with the tiles, they only knew that someday they would be glad to have them.
Renovations to the upstairs and basement have been minimal and were mainly limited to rewiring and painting. The paint colors are bright and fun but also cozy and sweet, and the art on the walls tells the story of a happy family growing together in a loving home.
And what better backyard for a growing family than a view of Kimberly Park? Real estate is all about location, location, location, and this home has it!
The Anderson home is adjacent to the park and half a block from West Liberty Middle School, where their oldest, Lilliana, is a star student and musician.
All up and down the street are neighbors who are glad to see the old homes on their street restored and enjoyed for all their beauty.
“It’s really nice to see people taking care of their old homes when they can,” said neighbor Chris Martin, who attended the open house on Friday night. Martin also owns an older home on Calhoun and has been gradually updating as well.
As a final touch, the Andersons recently installed a landline and an old-fashioned phone chair with an attached table for their rotary phone.
If the power goes out and the cell towers fall, as happened during Derecho 2020, the phone in the Andersons’ foyer will still ring.
And the number is very special to them, because the last four digits mean a lot to them both. Ethan explained his thought process when choosing their new phone number, which is similar to Bethany’s childhood number.
“Bethany will be happy because that was her phone number,” Ethan said, “and I’ll be happy because that’s the number I used to call to talk to my best friend.”