Home & Garden

Here's a look at two old gems-full of charm, rich in history and built to last. Who lives there now...how did they reclaim the space... and what's it like to own a little piece of history in the heart of the city?

The Hidden Retreat with a Spectacular Sunrise View

She wasn't impressed the first time Walter Wojno, her college sweetheart, took her to see the old brick house on Perkins Hill. It was built in 1912 as the Gate Lodge (a caretaker's home) on part of a historic property called Auld Farm. Walter bought it in 1947.

He thought it would be a good investment. She thought it needed an awful lot of work. "I told my mother I never saw such a horrible house in my life," Virginia Wojno-Forney recalls.

Because the home was built when electricity first came to town, an unreliable electrical system with gaslight backups in every fixture proved to be a challenge to comfortable living.

Initially, Walter rented the property to an architect and an interior designer. They rewired everything, converted the furnace from coal to gas and made a number of other practical and aesthetic changes to make the place more livable.

Walter and Virginia (married by this time) moved into the Gate Lodge in 1951. Their daughter grew up in the home, and Virginia has lived there ever since.

The original structure was not too large--just a living room, dining room and kitchen on the first floor plus four bedrooms and a bath upstairs. During their time together, the Wojnos added a music room and a breakfast room. Those additions went pretty smoothly.

It was a different story when they tried to install a whirlpool tub to the bathroom upstairs. Their dining room ceiling caved in, destroying their mahogany dining table and leaving the couple without a bathroom for three months while steel support beams were installed. Virginia still reels at the memory of being forced to rent a room at the motel next to St. Vincent's just to use its bathroom.

The home's exterior--all brick with the original slate roof--has required little maintenance over the years. The couple did add a decorative rod iron fence, rod iron window embellishments (for security) and rod iron exterior accents--all in keeping with the period décor of the original gate at the entrance to their property.