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When Scott Cilley and his wife, Bernice, first toured what would become their new home — a 1913 Federal Revival-style townhouse in the Fan — they weren’t sure if they were up for the challenge. “It was in bad shape,” Cilley says. “There was a leak in the roof that needed to be fixed, and the plaster had been compromised in almost every room.”
But they fell in love with the home’s unique architectural details, which had been left mostly untouched. “We had restored two historic homes previously,” says Cilley, an antiques dealer specializing in traditional 18th- and early 19th-century furniture. “I think our Realtor friend showed us this house because he knows we’re crazy about [taking on] serious projects like this.”
The Cilleys purchased the house and embarked on a total restoration designed to modernize the house while preserving its historic integrity. They repaired the ceilings and walls, improved the insulation, and added electric wiring, plumbing, and central heating and cooling in partnership with Mike Smith of Smith Carpentry.
They also made interior structural updates to improve traffic flow. “We opened up the back of the house by removing a wall between the back room and the kitchen, and we turned a closet under the back staircase into a half bath/powder room,” Cilley says.
The couple chose to keep as many of the home’s original details as possible, such as the crown molding and door and window frames. “The practical vision was to make it livable, but the driving motivator was to preserve a house that hadn’t been altered over time,” Cilley says.
Cilley’s favorite space is the front parlor, which features a formal Neoclassical-style fireplace with Corinthian columns and kylix (double-handled urn) carvings. “We removed [the old] paint and repainted it to showcase the details, and we painted the surrounding walls with a dark blue that really makes the room pop,” he says. “It came out better than I had imagined.”
Original details in the upstairs bath include the stained-glass window, a clawfoot tub and a trio of built-in medicine cabinets.
They cleaned and repainted the original gingerbread beaded archway leading from the entrance hall into the dining room, and they cleaned and rehung a pair of pocket doors between the dining room and back room. They also installed a refurbished antique gas light fixture that once hung in The Jefferson Hotel.
Upstairs, the hall bathroom features an original clawfoot tub and a trio of built-in medicine cabinets. The light fixtures are new, but the globes are original — their amethyst color complements the purple-tinted panels in the stained-glass window above the tub. “We also put in an antique dry sink and converted it into a wet sink for the vanity,” Cilley says.
A transomed door that originally connected the family room and the maid’s quarters was removed and reinstalled upstairs to make a shoe closet. The sleeping porch was converted into an office space, where they replaced a set of leaking, nonstandard-sized windows with exterior glass doors that happened to be the correct size.
Cilley encourages anyone undertaking a historic home restoration to use high-quality materials, ideally that reflect the style and period of the home. “There are plenty of architectural salvage shops in Richmond,” he says. “Try to save as much of the original detail as you can. It really becomes a labor of love, and it’s very worth it in the end.”
