1 of 5
Ellen and Pettus LeCompte in their living room, furnished with cherished family heirlooms
2 of 5
One of a pair of lamps made from 19th-century urns Ellen LeCompte’s ancestor brought back from China in the 1880s
3 of 5
A favorite portrait of triple-great-grandmother Rebecca Barnes with two of her grandchildren, Mary and Edward. All of the furniture in the circa 1840 painting by the American artist Cameron is still in use in the LeComptes’ Byrd Park home.
4 of 5
A collection of 18th-century British-made fans and 19th-century ladies’ accessories acquired and used by Ellen’s ancestors
5 of 5
The family still uses a double dinner service made by John Ridgway & Co. in Staffordshire, England, in the 1840s for large parties and holiday dinners today.
As a child, Ellen LeCompte would often seek out her great-great-great-grandmother Rebecca Barnes for comfort.
“I’d go into the parlor and talk with her,” LeCompte says. “If I was unhappy, she was unhappy. She was always sympathetic.”
You see, “triple-great” Grandmother Rebecca — as LeCompte refers to her ancestor — was available to her via a portrait, which hung in her childhood residence. Now, the painting is one of many family pieces LeCompte and her husband, Pettus, happily display in their Byrd Park home.
“It’s important for families to be stewards” of history, LeCompte says, noting that an 1830s desk originally from her ancestor’s Philadelphia house was a repository for many generations of family members. When she began exploring its contents, she found “archaeological layers” ranging from a power of attorney declaration from 1688, deeds written on sheepskin from 1720 and a receipt from the mid-19th century for a great-grandfather’s Marine uniform. “It wasn’t important then, in 1858 — just a receipt,” she says, “but it’s very helpful now, to have these mundane things.”
Fortunately, the LeComptes have space for family heirlooms. Their home, a Tudor Revival built in 1923, has more than 6,000 square feet over three floors and was owned for 40 years by Pettus’ grandparents. After purchasing the house from his grandparents’ estate, Ellen and Pettus began updating it while incorporating items gathered via the family tree.
“Things fell into place,” LeCompte says, noting that the house needed no structural work but plenty of system updates: plumbing, electrical and security. “We redid the 1929 kitchen, keeping the original tile where we could. And,” she adds, “we kept the bathrooms, even though we had to fight the plumbers over that, because there aren’t access panels [to the pipes]. And we had a painter here for six months.”
Using colors found in the existing living room rug, a 20-foot-by-11 3/4-foot Persian carpet dating to 1920, LeCompte worked with a friend to create a warm and welcoming living environment. “I spend a lot of time in the United Kingdom with very fun friends and very fun houses,” she says. “English country houses are all very comfortable, and they use what they have.”
Over the years, LeCompte made decisions about how to best use what she had. She relocated two parlor settees from the living room and purchased new sofas that offer comfortable seating for her regular afternoon tea with friends. A circular glass-topped table might not be antique, but it’s good for tea spills, and its wood base with ball-and-claw feet is in keeping with other furniture in the room. Porcelain vases her great-grandfather Lucien LeCompte Dawson (Ellen and Pettus share a common distant ancestor) brought back from Hong Kong have been made into lamps, despite what antiques experts might recommend for authenticity. And Gilded Age lamps are missing dangling prisms, removed so they would nestle easily against a wall.
“It’s all here together and very eclectic, but it works,” LeCompte says. “These are treasures that connect us with our family heritage. Having these things is important.”
