After years of work, young family happy in old home

Rebekah Isaacson let her boyfriend talk her into buying a junk-filled wreck of an old house where neighbors parked their cars and changed their oil on the gravel in the back yard.

Five years later Rebekah Berry has a husband, a young son and a historic Elgin home that sports a wraparound porch any old-house fan would envy and interior amenities like a great kitchen.

This is a love story on many levels.

Rebekah really wanted to own a home and, even though it was her significant other, Chris Berry, who fell in love with this Italianate built in 1872, she insisted on buying it on her own because they weren't married or even engaged.

While she trusted his word that he would make it beautiful, her parents didn't. But when he handled the pre-purchase walk-through for her, he planted romantic notes throughout the house and proposed the day the sale was finalized.

"I promised her I was going to fix this house up, and it took me five years to prove this is the place we should be," said Berry, who worked as a carpenter while going to college and now is a Web developer.

"He kept his promise," said Rebekah, a financial planner. "The first week he painted the whole front of the house-I think to show he was serious and not going to leave me high and dry. One day my mother and I went shopping, and in the time we were gone he and his friend Ed Helm closed in one of the many doors into the house, sided it and painted it."

Although Dan Miller, a neighbor across the street who is well-known in Elgin old-house circles, showed up with ideas for rebuilding the front porch, Rebekah thought the interior should rank among the first projects.

And it did, with one of Chris' major achievements the creation of an Italian cafe-inspired kitchen in what had been the dining room.

Rebekah's father owns a sawmill in Wisconsin, and the kitchen's cherry flooring came from a tree that had held a playhouse for her and her siblings.

The couple painted the walls with shades of creamy gold and merlot purple selected from the tile backsplash of multicolored slate. The cabinets are maple trimmed with American cherry.

A cutout into the nearby living room provides a charming space for a table and chairs and borrows light from a bay window that stretches to the floor.

To get a feeling for the amount of work Chris did, you should know the walls in the living room were covered with paneling, the birdseye maple flooring was black and the walnut staircase railing was covered with two layers of green oil paint.

His pride and joy is the fireplace mantel in the front parlor that he built with first-growth walnut donated again from his father-in-law's sawmill.

Except for one recalcitrant piece of trim, Chris is finished with the first level, said Rebekah, and plans to create a master suite on the second.

But it's the exterior that neighbors like Miller and passers-by can appreciate every day.

When Rebekah bought the house not only was the paint chipping and the siding falling off, but it had a concrete stoop, an asphalt sidewalk, an ugly leaking roof and a single front door with no relationship to the home's style or era.

An early photo provided by a descendant of a long-gone resident proved the house had once worn a wraparound porch. Berry rebuilt the deck, Miller made historically accurate spindles, posts and railings, and a carpenter put it all together. The city of Elgin provided significant help with matching grants for the front of the house and a new cedar roof.

The elegant double doors with round-topped windows came from a New Hampshire antiques dealer, but they look like they were made for the house, which is confirmed by the marks the original hinges left.

"The double doors make this house what it is," said Chris.

Chris was raised in an old Elgin house and chose to return because he liked the prices of the area homes and the fact that Gifford Park is close to downtown.

And he thinks buying old houses and fixing them up is a good choice for young people struggling to afford their first homes.

"They have more character and depth," he said. "We never would have been able to afford to do this if we had contracted out."

His wife agrees - to a point.

"I love the house," said Rebekah Berry, "but I don't know that I would do it again.

If I ever had a daughter who did this, I would put my foot down and say 'no way.'"