Our First House Mystery! SOLVED!!!

Greetings from Fairfield, Iowa!
Join us this week as the game is a foot and we seek out clues to solve our first house mystery! Gathering evidence from old photographs and newspaper archives we solve the case of the missing...
above the porte-cochère.

[@nancymays6506]

They said that the best part of the house was the green conservatory I hope you can do that restore a green conservatory that sounds so life giving and beautiful and magical and magnificent and anything less a disappointment Hope with modern technology and still given to quality and like of the period I hope you can do that It make just require some thought and imagination and brain storming but how absolutely glorious if you could have some beautiful flowers up there and even an English tea table there Don't stop dreaming Sometimes ideas on how just come to you over time

[@vickinoonan4619]

I love, love, love your Hall and Brown shirt! I am an avid follower of Kim and Kaleb from the 2nd Empire Strikes Back!! ❤

[@JamesABeckHouse]

@@vickinoonan4619 our favorite KZbin channel

[@vickinoonan4619]

@@JamesABeckHouse It's one of my favorites also!

[@helen1962]

Restoring an old home is give and take, you’ve chosen well. You’re doing a great job.

[@dombutler7685]

I like to think that previous owners told their kids that the laundry chute was out of bounds, but they could play on the porch roof!! Was it a space for husbands to sleep if they don't finish their projects?!! (probably!) A conservatory would be super cool, but expensive!

[@Fasciseus]

I grew up in my grandparents' house (c. 1888) in northeast Nebraska way back in the 1960s. Two comments, first on the upstairs porch (outside my bedroom); my grandmother would drag out the carpets and rugs onto this 2nd floor porch and proceed to beat the dirt out of them when spring cleaning, as well as shake out any other bed coverings. In the winter it was common to drag out the mattresses and let them outside on the porch overnight to kill off any bugs living inside the mattresses. People today should understand that the Victorian housewife were meticulous with cleaning. Trivia to witness, this is the reason there were small casters under all Victorian-era furniture so that it could be moved around and cleaned under and behind. Second comment on the storm windows. On my grandparents' house it was possible to hang and remove the storm windows (for winter) and the screens (for summer) from the inside of the house. There were two hooks attached to the top of the window frames on the outside that received corresponding metal eyelets (for a lack of a better term) from which the window frames would hang. A person would open the bottom sash of the window from inside, pick up the storm window or screen and turn it sideways and thru the open window, twist it around and with great skill and care catch the eyelets on the window with the hooks on the top of the frame, hand the storm window or screen (which is now held on the sides and outwards at an angle, slowly let the thing down and it would fall into place in the window frame, and be attached with a small hook at the inside bottom. No climbing up or down ladders on the outside required. Meanwhile, whenever these screens or storm windows were removed and carried all the way down into the basement, my grandfather would clean and touch up the paint and get them ready for the next cycle as the seasons passed. There was one entire room in the basement devoted to storing these windows.

[@JamesABeckHouse]

@Fasciseus this was my thought for those small storms as well. Working on a plan to rebuild the storm windows and replace the current aluminum ones on the house 42 total and will definitely need a good place to clean and store them.

[@LeahSease]

You both are doing amazing work and should be very proud of all the hard work rod iron will look amazing 🎉❤ love you both

[@blackorchid0000]

Wow that conservatory did look amazing, we did add one to our 1905 home in the UK. They are a great place to chill on rainy summer days.

[@lindafishman1084]

Love all of the stories and watching you lovingly restore this beautiful home Thank you for taking us all along for the ride ❤

[@theresaluvspims6163]

That was a fun mystery to solve. I was thinking it was going to be a room that was exposed to the cold for someone with TB to sleep in in the Winter. I like the truth better. Can't you see the Lady of the house still in her dressing gown taking tea in the conservatory in the morning? Again I respect that your plan is to restore and conserve. It is going to look great.

[@anitariley2681]

One of the fantasies I have when I actually own an old house is I will go up to the attic and find a mystery like you did! When I was first married, we went to visit my in-laws. At the time they lived in a fascinating old house built around the turn of the century. It had 4 floors (including the attic, which was big enough to have been used as a dormitory at one time), a root cellar under the porch, and a finished basement with it's own entrance! We found some cool stuff while up in the attic, stuffed behind the original walls. We found an original negative (on glass) of the house, some medicine bottles ( the original owner was the town doctor), and an old skate key....fantasize about going back there to that attic and see what else I can find! It was in a small town (in central Missouri )too. Your channel allows me to go back and relive those days all over again. Thank you!

[@DebraHaskins-r7y]

Loved the history of the house. You and your wife are doing an excellent job. Blessings and prayers...

[@staceyengardt3074]

Love the Hall & Brown shirt! So glad you follow Kaleb! Very informative. Here in SW Iowa, across the river in Nebraska City, NE. There is Arbor Lodge. They have a plant conservatory.

[@JamesABeckHouse]

@staceyengardt3074 His channel has been super inspiring to us and have been watching Kaleb since day 1

[@davidpatrick9865]

Thanks for putting these interesting videos out. We appreciate the research, too!

[@lauries6517]

The conservatory seemed so much bigger than the space it sat on. Can't wait to see more progress!

[@joycedudzinski9415]

The decorative wrought iron railing would look very nice on that flat roof.

[@terrig4750]

Oh my you have to try to redo the conservatory on the porch with safety glass maybe sometime in the future but that iron works nicely. Ps I like the hoodie you have on from the other KZbinr.

[@juliahelland6488]

Very amazing to have a conservatory! It must have been an after thought, and very cool for sure! 💯❣️ What brand of stripper works best? I have been struggling with removing paint from my old house windows and trim. Do you have any tips you can sure? Thanks for sharing! 💯

[@johnkennamann1462]

Nice hoodie!

[@JamesABeckHouse]

@@johnkennamann1462 it’s my favorite! and the mornings are getting chilly again.

[@WLM596]

Beautiful 😍

[@kileysecrest5803]

Have you checked the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps? That will show the outline of your house with the number of floors. I would be happy to check. I don’t know what dates are available for your area. The Sanborn will likely give you a closer date range for the conservatory.

[@JamesABeckHouse]

@kileysecrest5803 yes the first year our house shows up on them is 1927. It shows the porte-cochere but doesn't indicate a structure atop. So I'm not sure what to make of that. 🤔 facebook.com/share/p/bPYB6QEpo7ArGZyS/?mibextid=xfxF2i

[@kileysecrest5803]

Thanks for sharing. Looking closer, I see an “N” with an arrow pointing at the porte cochere. I haven’t encountered that symbol before. I also need to look again and make sure I am seeing it correctly. I will look into it and see what I can find. It is interesting that they simply labeled your home as five stories. Typically, areas that protruded outward denoted how many stories they were. This should have been the case for the porte cochere.

[@JamesABeckHouse]

@kileysecrest5803 I didn't catch that "N". I wish I had a better resolution copy. That year was removed from the library of congress site shorty after I did that. 😞 and haven't found any later ones to compare.

[@KeiPalace]

conservatory - greenhouse - imagine the possibility later of being able to 3-D print yourself one for your house.

[@vickileonard72]

Summer sleeping porch

[@tjanderson575]

Get to painting those columns Mr. Honey! They ain’t gonna paint themselves. How are you going to secure those fence thingymabobs to the floor of the roof of the car port? I’m stumped because…snow and junk and stuff, not to mention derecho winds that could potentially suddenly happen. Wouldn’t want those things to go flying through the neighborhood.

[@JamesABeckHouse]

@tjanderson575 the plan is to secure a lifted bottom wood rail like the widows walk was pr any of the porches here for that matter. The cresting has both a mounting stem and a way to secure them down to that. But still researching if that's the best approach since the roof top has a stretched rubber top.

[@janetwann5578]

A conservatory

[@WLM596]

Port Co sher

[@WLM596]

Conservatory

[@mfinn6589]

Sleeping porch?

[@JamesABeckHouse]

I should have had included an explanation of this in the video. A sleeping porch is a deck or balcony, sometimes screened or otherwise enclosed with screened windows and furnished for sleeping in warmer months. They can be on ground level or on a higher story and on any side of a home. A sleeping porch allows residents to sleep on a screened-in porch, avoiding warm convection currents from air and wall materials beneath or beside. Before affordable electric fans and/or air conditioning were installed, families often created such rooms, well-aired, where children would sleep during summer. The idea gained popularity in the early 1900s and became common in much of the US.

[@Fasciseus]

@@JamesABeckHouse I know from living in such a house this is true and it was better than sleeping in a room that was hot enough to curl your toenails. I'd pull my mattress outside on the porch and sleep at nights in the late summers, August was the hottest in Nebraska (where I grew up). These sleeping porches would be located on the house so that three sides would be exposed and allow different windows to be opened to get a cross flow of cool air to pass through the room. This back in the days before the advent of AC. Some houses of this era also had a small cupola or tower with widows, usually above the central stairway (stairwell) and it was possible to go up and open these windows to allow the hot air inside the house to pass upwards and out the windows, again depending which ones were opened to create a cross flow of cooler air from the outside. Your house @JamesABeckHouse has such a venting system in the 3rd floor tower with the round windows. Victorian go-green AC at the time.

[@JayYoung-ro3vu]

I was thinking 'conservatory' while you were talking. It was a high status item on a home in the era. Decades ago, I looked at a 1917 Arts & Crafts bungalow with a sleeping porch. The owner & I couldn't bridge the gap in sales price. Later, he sold it to his daughter and her husband. She is the great- granddaughter of the home's builder and first owners. I was OK with it, as if it mattered. I love the 'secret' nod to "The Second Empire Strikes Back" with the Hall & Brown hoodie!

[@paulaharris4667]

I recognize the 2nd Empire Strikes Back! 👍🏼

[@paulaharris4667]

The se

[@ducky1480]

conservatory. man i would sell my soul for a house with a conservatory. please put the conservatory back and make it a greenhouse with chairs in it