Family restores Norcross home to former glory

Walking along the gently rolling hills of Norcross, it’s easy to see why the city prides itself on its small-town charm and historic character. Grand Victorian homes sit on tree-shaded lots next to small antebellum cottages, and classic Southern pillared front porches seem to be a part of every home, whether old or new. There’s a neighborly feel to the sidewalks and scale of the town’s 4 square miles.

The people who live in Norcross are always delighted to introduce people to their town, and each year the community welcomes visitors for a holiday tour of homes. Next Saturday, Pam and Jeff Hopper will open the doors to their 1906 two-story Queen Anne for this year’s tour, one of five houses on the route.

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Kimberly Smith/staff photographer

Pam Hopper has strived to create a feel appropriate to the period of the house while also bringing to it a modern sensibility.

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Kimberly Smith/staff photographer

The grand staircase with the original fretwork is a focal point of the house, one of five selected for the holiday tour. The house went through several renovations before the Hoppers bought it, but everything was not up to code.

2008 NORCROSS TOUR OF HOMES
Saturday; daytime tours 10 a.m.-5 p.m., candlelight tours 6-9 p.m. Tickets on sale for $20 and available at merchants in downtown Norcross. Includes the tour of five homes, live music in each home and shuttle transportation. For more information, go to www.norcrosstourofhomes.com.

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“It’s taken us 10 years to get the house to where it could be on the tour,” Pam said, as she talked about the work that’s gone into the renovation of their home. Pam, 49, and Jeff, 51, bought the house in 1998, moving from a 1928 bungalow in East Atlanta in order to eliminate Jeff’s 27-mile commute to his Norcross blueprint shop, LDI Reproprinting Center. Now they live within walking distance of his work.

When shopping for their home, they looked at the new construction in Norcross as well as the older housing stock. Because they had enjoyed renovating their East Atlanta bungalow, they decided they could do it again, and this century-old four-bedroom, three-bath home was the right house for the young family.

It was a house in need of lots of tender loving care. Built by Thomas Ray, president of the Southern Oak Harness and Leather Co., the home had been through several renovations, but not everything was up to code.

When they bought the house, the Hoppers couldn’t run the dryer and the oven at the same time, so replacing the wiring was a top priority. For three months, they lived elsewhere while they redid all the bathrooms, pulled up all the carpet and removed all the wallpaper. Then the family moved in.

Son Kam, 15, and daughter Lydia, 13, have grown up living through the rest of the house renovation, which included putting in an entire new plumbing system, building a new foundation for one section of the house, replacing the kitchen, rebuilding the front porch, removing three old layers of roofing so they could install a new one and stripping off the aluminum siding that once clad the house.

“The Dumpster loads removed from this property far exceed the materials we’ve put back on,” Pam said, laughing.

Few original exterior materials were left to work with, but the family went to great pains to replace like with like, including having the ornate raised molding detail on the house exterior reproduced by craftsmen who used the “shadows” left by painters as their design guide.

The house footprint is still the same, and inside the only change to the floor plan was to combine three rooms — the kitchen and a small addition housing a pantry and laundry space — to make one larger kitchen that encompasses all those functions.

It’s testimony to the family’s well-planned renovation that nothing the visitor sees today gives a clue that the house has been anything but immaculately kept through the years.

Huge post oaks and a black walnut tree shade the house on its high perch. Supposedly, the house is sited on the ridge of the Eastern Continental Divide. An active railroad line forms the backyard property line, and the wide front porch offers a great vantage point for watching life on North Peachtree Street.

Pam has been the interior designer, and her choices include an eclectic mix of materials, pattern and color that feels appropriate to the period of the house but is sparked with an updated, modern sensibility. She turned the large foyer into a living room, and the grand staircase with its original fretwork serves as a focal point. A parlor and dining room, kitchen, TV room and full bath complete the ground floor. Upstairs are four bedrooms and two baths.

The house is filled with furniture both old and new, inherited antiques and purchased pieces. Portraits of family adorn the walls, and a collection of hand-painted Venetian water glasses from Pam’s grandmother are lined up on a marble shelf over the kitchen sink.

At every turn there’s a surprise, and an alert visitor will notice that every inch of the 12-foot ceilings has received its share of attention and special treatment. Even Mr. Peabody, the family dog, has his own unique sleeping spot in the master bedroom.

Decorating the house for the holidays in preparation for the tour, Pam was able to indulge a love of the theatrical and dramatic. The home’s generous spaces and well-proportioned rooms allow for the use of large splashes of color and shine. Sparkling, glittering and feathered, the holiday decorations share the same fun-loving style as the day-to-day decor of the house.

Opening their home for the tour is one way for this family to give back to the community they’ve adopted. While they enjoyed their time in Atlanta, they find Norcross to be a very special place to live.

“It’s like living in a small town,” Pam said. “Everybody knows everybody, and your kid can walk downtown or ride their bike around and you don’t have to worry. Norcross just has a very connected feeling.”