| Riverbend Neighborhood Association: Our House |
22410 Alexandrine By Ned Nikodem Our house, built in 1917, is probably the oldest on Alexandrine. Jim Guinan had it built for himself and his wife Bess, (my wife, Beth's, paternal great uncle and great aunt). Jim was an enterprising businessman, who engaged in a number of activities: real estate, insurance and bonding, and part ownership in a coal company. He was also active in politics and once ran unsuccessfully for Congress. (We still have one of the original cloth banners from the campaign in our basement.) The four-bedroom house had a first-floor powder room, in addition to the full bath on the upper level, an uncommon feature for 1917. The house featured an attached, two-car heated garage with running water and a central drain for indoor car washing in all seasons. (Having an interest in a coal company, when the house was heated by a coal-fired boiler, meant heating the garage was not an issue.) The house includes a back stairway that went past the maid's bath and led to the maid's room with its attached dust porch. The house had a central call system with pulls in all the rooms that flipped signals in the kitchen so the maid would know in which room she was wanted. Aunt Bess was known for her home-made taffy. In advance of Halloween, children from the area would come to the house to help hand-pull the taffy. Then, on Halloween, the house was a must-make stop to gather portions of the sweet, sticky treat. When I moved into the house, I wondered why a room in the basement was surrounded by what appeared to be a chair rail on which were mounted countless clothes hooks. I learned, many years later, from a person who once pulled taffy in the house as a child that the hooks were for hanging the taffy before it was cut and wrapped. Although Jim pre-deceased his wife, Aunt Bess lived into her nineties and continued to live in the house. Her two maiden nieces, moved in, shared the house and helped care for her. Because both Guinan children entered religious orders, upon Aunt Bess' demise the house passed to one of my wife's other cousins, Ruth (Potter) Speth and her husband Steve. They occupied the house until 1986, when it became our home. We are, therefore, only the third owners, all in the same family, who have lived at the property. In 1992-93, Beth and I converted the original butler's pantry and garage into a breakfast room and family room. We expanded to the rear of the original garage to add a large bath, utility room, vestibule and oversized two-car garage. Because I do not have ownership in a coal company, the garage is not heated and does not have running water with a drain. At that time, we also redid the front entry and steps, with the brick retaining walls fronting Alexandrine. We made permanent our claim to the house by carving our family name in stone on one of the pillars of the new entrance. In 2004, we enclosed the large porch on the east side of the house facing Military. Our younger daughter, Rebecca, who was an infant when we moved in, recently told us that we are never allowed to sell the house. Of course, even without her mandate, we have no intention of ever doing so. Home |
