TriadHomes.com

You might expect the discovery of hidden treasure to make you wealthier — unless you were renovating an old house.

Take Rick Luebke, who is updating the H.H. Felder house, his two-story home at 1115 Virginia St. in the historic Fisher Park neighborhood just north of downtown Greensboro. He found hidden windows at the back of the house, a discovery that brought light into the home’s interior before it lightened his wallet.

Luebke made the find in the butler’s pantry before the professional contractors at Southern Evergreen began their work.

“About a month before we started the project, my wife, Margaret, asked, ‘I wonder what’s behind the plywood?’” said Luebke, who got out his crowbar to investigate. “The plywood had been nailed up with at least three boxes of nails. I got it far enough where we could shine a flashlight in, and there were three windows! Our next-door neighbor, who’s been there over 40 years, never even knew those windows were in the house.”

Like the other 48 windows in the 2,700-square-foot home, the newly discovered ones needed work. So Luebke called Double Hung Historic Window Restoration in Greensboro to let them know they had three more windows to strip and restore. But Luebke, 58, knew what he was getting into. He worked as a Realtor for 20 years, does preservation consulting work and volunteers as a showroom manager at Architectural Salvage of Greensboro, where he found floorboards and other material for the renovation.

For the money he and his wife are putting into the project, Luebke said, “We could have bought a house near about any place in town.” He continued, “It’s been a substantial investment, but it’s worth it. I look at it this way: You really don’t own an older house, you’re a steward of it and a caretaker. It’s been more than we expected, but of course we expected it to be more than we expected.”

Luebke characterizes the house as Tudor Revival, while Nora Miller, principal interior designer and historic preservationist for Southern Evergreen, said “it’s a Craftsman house with Tudor details.”

“It was a fairly common combination,” she said. “This whole street has a pretty eclectic style — it’s not a real pure style on any of them. This whole street has a lot of fun twists on Tudor, Craftsman and Colonial.”

Southern Evergreen specializes in “crafting energy-efficient and sustainable homes,” and staff members call the Luebkes ideal clients.

“Every time we’ve encountered a problem — something that we’ve looked at and said, ‘We really ought to remedy this’ — they’ve said, ‘Do it,’” said Tom Garcia, the company’s founder and builder/engineer. “They’ve always wanted to make sure everything was done properly so this house would stand another hundred years.”

For example, he said, replacement windows would have cost substantially less.

“They chose to spend the additional money to have all the labor it took to take these windows out, tear these windows down to their frames and rebuild them back,” Garcia said. “Their heart’s in the right place. They love this home, and they want it to stand a long time, and be like it was when it was built in 1917. We admire the heck out of them. They’re true believers in preserving.”

The three hidden windows are only the most obvious example of the homeowners going to considerable expense to remain faithful to the home’s original design. They knew a basement fire had caused damage at some point in the home’s early decades, but they didn’t know the extent of the damage, which made it necessary for them to rebuild an entire section of the house. They paid to remove a chimney that once vented the home’s coal furnace, but retained the top of the chimney to maintain the home’s historic roof line. Southern Evergreen found huge, room-dividing pocket doors sealed inside walls in the home’s main living area and restored the doors’ function and appearance.

Less visible work has been no less important, from plaster repairs to the tedious job of snaking modern wiring through sealed vintage walls. The house has also turned green: Despite its age and size, Garcia said the house will meet the standards of a green house, as set by the National Association of Home Builders, and meet stringent federal Energy Star guidelines. Both of those claims will be independently verified after completion of the restoration work.

“All of the ductwork has been totally replaced to very high standards,” Garcia said. “It will be tested for air leaks. It’s something you don’t see, you don’t know it’s happening, but it is. The ductwork is better than you find in most new homes.”

On the exterior, removing the siding allowed Southern Evergreen workers to add more insulation to the walls. The new cedar shake siding restores the home to its original World War I-era appearance. The siding went on unadorned, with no finish.

“It will just sit there and weather,” Luebke said. “The paint scheme is going to be in grays. It will go with the roof. As the cedar ages, it will go from a brown to a gray. It’s good for 200 years without having to do any kind of painting. Folks just don’t realize that cedar, being a natural material, should be left in its natural state. Once you put a coating on it, it ceases to breathe, and it’s susceptible to cracking, to rot.”

The interior colors move beyond the gray exterior, with yellows and greens replacing the heavy wallpaper favored by interior designers when the house was built.

Only a few modern conveniences will vary the home’s look from its original appearance, which makes the home aesthetically appealing and helps it qualify for a tax credit under state law, “for qualifying rehabilitations of non-income-producing historic structures,” according to the State Historic Preservation Office.

“Basically we wanted a new kitchen, and Margaret’s always wanted a nice master bath,” Luebke said. “Those were the only two rooms that were really changed. Everything else is the way it was, following the Secretary of the Interior’s standards for rehabilitation so we can apply for the 30 percent North Carolina tax credit. Every little bit will help.”

Contact Eddie Huffman at 373-7335 or eddie.huffman@news-record.com.