Published: April 23, 2008 10:39 am            

HOMES: Hemphill family home, once ‘twin’ of nearby house, has been updated.

HEMPHILL HOME

• OWNER: Barry C. and Barbara C. Hemphill

• ADDRESS: 431 Willow St.

• SIZE: 3,165 square feet, with 575 square feet of garage capacity

• BEDROOMS: Four

• BATHROOMS: Three full, one half

• FIREPLACES: Three

• ASSESSED VALUE: $444,444



VIDEO

• ON THE WEB: For video of the interior of the Hemphill home, visit www.lockportjournal.com/multimedia



Willow Street lot has rich history



CITY OF LOCKPORT — As you pull up to red brick home on Willow Street, the feeling of history is all around, from the white shutters to the brick driveway.







The house has been home to Barbara and Barry Hemphill since 1991 and is the third-highest assessed residential property in the city.

The Hemphills purchased the property from David Ulrich, who now lives around the corner on Locust Street.

Barbara Hemphill said the house that stands there today, built in 1941, is not the original structure that was on the property, but the history of the lot has been meticulously preserved over the years.

Barry said the oldest transaction listed on the property’s title is in 1828, when a man named Jesse Haines bought the land from Ezra Washburn.

The earliest record of a house on the property doesn’t appear until about 60 years later, however, when a home was built by the Rangueberg family in 1882.

The house was originally the “twin” of another red brick home three doors down, owned by another brother of the same family, Barbara said.

At that time, there were no other homes between the two lots, and Barbara said there were rumors the two houses were connected by an underground tunnel, so the families could go back and forth, but there is no evidence of a tunnel these days.

“Everyone always asks me, ‘Have you ever seen anything in the basement?’ ” she said. “The answer is no, so I can’t verify this. But it’s kind of an interesting tale.”

The two houses are no longer “twins,” however.

Around the turn of the century, the home on the Hemphill’s property either burned down or was destroyed in some other fashion. It was vacant until the Castle family, who owned a manufacturing facility in the city, purchased the land in the 1940s.

“It was kind of in disrepair,” Barbara said. “They tore down what was left of this house. I don’t know how much was left and in what kind of state it was, but they took it down, and they rebuilt it to their own design, but they re-used the brick.”

The brick looks different, however, because the Castles used the reverse side of each brick, giving the home a more antique feel.

“The story is they used most of that original brick, but built a totally different floor plan,” she said.

Since moving in to the home, the Hemphills have made some improvements to the backyard, including building a gazebo and changing the landscape by adding onto the kitchen. During those projects, they found some interesting relics of the past.

“We’ve dug up things in the yard, and we did some building in the driveway, and we dug up some area out in the two-car garage to make it a three-car garage, and we found brick underneath there,” she said. “They just kind of worked over some of that original floor plan. They just left the design of the house under there and built on top of it.”

Living in a house with such history behind it is “interesting,” Barbara said.

“I always loved older homes,” she said. “Not only is there history there, but they’ve been worked on. You’ve got the little things like hooks in the bathroom to hang a pair of pajamas or a robe on. You move into a brand new house, you’re starting from scratch.”

The Hemphills have redone almost every room of the house. In the living room and dining room, they put in new carpets and drapes. They re-did the floors in the hallways and dining room.

They made an addition to the back of the house to enlarge the kitchen.

“When you get older homes, they don’t function quite the way we like to live in this day and age,” Barbara said. “They usually don’t have family rooms. They don’t have as many bathrooms, or if they do, they’re not very large bathrooms. Kitchens are usually very small.”

When the Castles built the home, the kitchen was very small.

“They had a maid, so of course the only person in the kitchen was the maid,” Barbara said. “She just had to disappear in there and make the meals and serve them.”

The Hemphills wanted an eat-in kitchen, so they knocked out a wall and made an addition onto the kitchen, adding in enough room for a dining area. They kept some of the original brick on the walls, however, keeping the old-style feel of the room.

“It’s made a big difference,” Barbara said.

The Castles finished off the basement in the 1950s, adding a game room with knotted pine walls. The Hemphills now use the basement as an office, TV and billiard room.

The home has four bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms.

There are three fireplaces — one in the game room, one in the living room and one in the master bedroom.

The color scheme in the house has a floral feel, with a lot of green, rose and burgundy. The aim is to create a comfortable atmosphere, a homey place for the family to settle into.

“(Lockport) has been our home for almost 30 years, so obviously we’ve settled in,” Barbara said, laughing. “We’re pretty comfortable here.”

Contact reporter April Amadon at 439-9222, ext. 6251.

        

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