The Boy Who Loved that House

Story By Jennifer Nugent

The Italian Villa-style house at 117 Walnut Street in Belpre is no stranger to ghostly tales in which traces of former residents, like the infamous cigar smoker, have become as much of a permanent fixture of the house as the tower on the roof or the door windows that can be raised to allow access to the side porches. The three previous owners of what is known as Dana House or Elms Estate loved and cherished the home in their own ways, leaving few to doubt that each left a part of themselves within the walls of the circa 1850 structure.

Doug Hines, a native to Belpre and the latest in a line of four dedicated owners, began his own relationship with the beautiful historic home on Walnut Street as a child. At the age of five or six, he saw in the boarded up house what the building could—and should—be. A lifelong obsession with the house inspired in him a desperation to see the inside of the house, and, when the third owner of the house, Mrs. Mary Lou Haynes, moved into the home in 1977 and began removing the boards from the windows, he found his way in. Arriving with a mum in hand, the high school sophomore confessed to the rundown historic mansion’s owner of his long-time love for the house and she gave him a tour. In 2005, when Mary Lou was ready to give up the beloved home, she asked her daughter, Lois, to find “the boy who loved (that) house” and find out if, after all those years, he stilled loved it. Doug bought the house from Mary Lou soon after and began a major renovation, returning the old home to its former glory.

The house, which is now home to Doug and his high-end interior design business, Circa, was built in 1859. The Browning family, the builders and first owners of the home, was a founding family that came to the area with the Ohio Company and Rufus Putnam. As veterans of the Revolutionary War, officers from the Ohio Company were given plots of land as their retirement and settled their families in the area. In the 1890s, the house was purchased by the John Dana family, another founding family that settled in Belpre with the Ohio Company. The Danas remained in the house until the death of Miriam Dana Stone in in 1967, at which point the house’s furnishings were auctioned off, including a jardiniere from the Ming Dynasty that John Dana used for advertising in his canning business that can be seen today in the Blennerhassett Museum in Parkersburg. The house was boarded up until Mary Lou purchased the home in the 70s.

This Old House

The renovations of the Italian Villa-style Elms Estate began in August of 2005 under Doug’s direction and ownership. The first thing he did to the 6,500 square feet of Belpre history was put the 60-inch copper spike on the roof of the tower where one had previously existed. Through the long process, every window has come out of the house and been restored and rehung. The windows are all original to the house, including the door windows that open up onto the porches off the formal dining room, the drawing room and the library. Keeping the original windows, Doug says, was only possible because the years the house spent boarded up allowed the priceless historic glass to be preserved. The siding and overhangs were salvaged and the walls, foundation and roof were repaired and made to withstand another century and a half of wear and tear. The porches were taken off the house and put back on with ancient cypress floorboards from Louisiana. Several of the updates focused on the bathrooms and kitchen; a central VAC was also installed in the home.

“The one thing that’s interesting about the old house,” Doug says, “is that the Dana family really cherished and loved the property, but they didn’t do a lot to it, keeping the original structure and walls in tact. We didn’t have to reverse previous remodels because we were able to purchase the house pretty much in its original condition.”

Extreme Makeover: 1850s Edition

“My goal (for the Elms Estate) was to let the house be the best that it could be,” Doug says of his interior design decisions for his new home. “It was a bright house, and I chose colors that complimented the house. For instance, I love red, but I could never fi nd a room that would justify using red walls. I sort of let my feeling for each room, as well as the natural lighting, dictate the colors and color schemes of the interiors.”

Doug had plenty to work with when he began renovating and decorating the old Dana House. The interior woodwork, which is cherry and designed in the Egyptian Revival style, was mostly intact with the exception of a few places where it had been painted over to brighten the rooms. He incorporated pastel colors in the drawing room, where the bay window is located, and paired the light-colored furnishings with a beautiful red and white 1920s Chinese rug that came from the home of an ambassador to Germany. Doug used many of the items available through his business to decorate, including Schonbek Company crystal. The art in the formal dining room is contemporary in style and blends beautifully with the room’s period furnishings for an updated classic look. The clock in the entry is from the mid-1850s and was crafted in Kentucky. It has stood in the same place since the 1970s. The clock was a gift from Mary Lou’s husband; the day he died, she stopped the clock and it didn’t run again until Doug purchased the house—and with it the clock—in 2005.

“I feel like the house projects a fresh, classic styling with a new look,” Doug says of the end results of his decorating. “I have never wanted the house to be typically old in feeling. Mixing modern art with period furnishings and vice versa gives it a fresh feeling—the same feeling that I project in the homes and businesses I work in.”

Life-Long Passions

From an early age, Doug has had an appreciation for fi ne and beautiful things. More than the visual beauty of his surroundings, though, he has always had a deep interest in the process of creating that beauty—a life-long passion that has enabled him to build and grow a successful business of creating beauty for others.

At the same time that the Elms Estate was receiving major historic renovations, Doug was also building a 4,500 square-foot showroom for his business, Circa, onto the back of the house. Circa moved from Front Street in Marietta to the Walnut Street house in May of 2006 upon completion of the showroom addition.

Circa is a full-service interior design company for both residential and commercial spaces. The name Circa comes from the word “circa,” which means “around the time of.” Doug does all aspects of interior design—anything you see in his house or in his showroom can be duplicated somewhere else, including the doorknobs, the true working shutters, the gas lanterns hanging outside, the lighting fixtures and the carpet, wallpaper and drapes. “With Circa, we have a very classic design style with a contemporary twist. We carry many styles from ‘around the time of’ the periods of classic federal design, classic modern design and classic French design, to name a few.”

Doug, an allied member of ASID (American Society of Interior Design), has serviced clients as far away as Colorado and as far south as Florida, and he is willing to travel as far as he needs to go to share his designing skills with others and give their homes the same mix of historic and contemporary design that he enjoys in his own house. He works with his mother, Jo, who retired from another position to take care of the business side of Circa, and his father, Ray, who helps Doug with deliveries and installations.

Making “That” House His Home

When asked what his favorite room in Dana House is, he replies, “This week, probably the drawing room because it’s bright and airy, and I like the pale colors and the Chinese rug.” He also enjoys visiting the tower when the wind is blowing or a storm is moving through and he says it’s a perfect vantage point for watching the fireworks from the Parkersburg Homecoming festivities across the river.

Of living in a house with so much history, Doug says, “The house really feels like there is a legacy because we know that the Dana family cherished this house and Mary Lou and her family, the last owners of this property, cherished this house.” A collection of old photos portraying the history of the home has been passed down from owner to owner and Doug now holds the treasure. “You just wouldn’t believe the ties to this house—you wouldn’t believe what has trickled down over the years. The love of the people that have lived in this house is so apparent and you do feel it.”

And What About the Ghost Stories?

“There are ghosts stories,” Doug admits with a grin, “but the one that is the most famous is that on Sunday evenings in the library you can smell the scent of a fi ne cigar. You wouldn’t believe the people that have said to me, ‘Oh, it is so true.’” Doug’s guess is that it probably would have been John Dana that smoked the infamous cigars back in the late 1890s and early 1900s.

And if one can imagine the mysterious cigar smoke swirling in the library on a Sunday evening, one can also imagine a content Mr. Dana, smug smile on his face, cigar waving in the air, offering Doug Hines a “job well done” for continuing the legacy of the house at 117 Walnut Street.