Sledding into the season with its eighth annual Holiday Home Tour, Strasburg once again invites visitors from both near and far to experience the town from the inside out. In an effort to both showcase the town’s history and raise funds for its preservation, the Strasburg Heritage Society arranges a home tour that allows people to visit designated homes, walk around town and “get ideas for their own homes,” says Penny D’Alessandro, publicity co-chair for the event.
This year, 10 decorated homes, as well as three churches, each unique and welcoming, will be on the docket. In addition to the selected homes and churches, the event’s other co-chair, Lorna Mentzer, says, “This year we will have crafts, lunch prepared by local Girl Scouts, a silent auction and the selling of greens.”
The popular silent auction prize remains a dinner cooked in a hearth within a restored Colonial home in Strasburg for six to eight people. “This dinner went for $1,000 last year!” exclaims Mentzer. The ladies who cook the meal are “also dressed in Colonial garb” to really recreate the ambiance for the dinner.
Tickets for the event are brochures containing both photos and a map listing the 10 homes. Attendees are encouraged to visit the houses in any unstructured order. “Since Strasburg is a historic town with more original 18th-century homes than Williamsburg, it is delightful to walk part of the tour and enjoy all the decorated houses on and off the tour,” says Mentzer.
Even longtime residents look forward to the event. Amy Brown Fasnacht, who has lived in Strasburg for over 30 years, says, “The home tour was the perfect event to jumpstart my Christmas season, and I was finally able to end some curiosity as to what some of these historic homes look like inside.” The tour style was “convenient,” she adds. “I loved moving from home to home at my own pace, and was filled with inspiration from many different styles of decor.”
As far as traditional trimmings go, the Heritage Society fully endeavors to make the day memorable: “We [the committee] provide docents for each home, but homeowners usually choose to greet their guests and accept compliments and share stories about their homes and/or decorations,” adds Mentzer. This special event is their major fundraiser for continued historic preservation, so visitors should delight in knowing their day filled with Yuletide adventure will go a long way towards maintaining the beautiful town for many years to come.
(Note: The following three homes appeared on last year’s tour.)
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Moving to Main Street
During their vacations to Strasburg to visit The Creamery, the farmlands and “of course the Amish,” Bob and Laura decided to make the move to Main Street, Strasburg after retiring from New York in 2014. The tax records for their home date back to 1815, when it was a one-story log house so it’s no surprise this home has historical charm and character. Records also show that the second floor was added in 1820, when the taxes doubled.
While working on the home, the Mallers must take into consideration the historical rules set forth by the Heritage Society, meaning the green paint that Bob talks about repairing on the front windows needs to stay original to the period. Only the outside (that which is viewable from the street), however, is bound to the rules. Inside many changes have taken place over the decades, with various owners adding personal aesthetic touches.
The Mallers display traditional Christmas decorations, such as a tree adorned with nostalgic ornaments, like a pink ball from when Laura was a child and “Laura’s knitting ball ornament.” Bob points out, smiling, that these touches really reveal the personal nuances throughout the home. Their holiday decor lends itself well to the style of the home, as do the many souvenirs amassed from their travels. Shelves in the renovated kitchen house Delft pottery collected from Amsterdam. “I love the blue Delft against the yellow wall,” admires Laura.
Treasures reflecting their German heritage are arranged throughout the home, invoking both a holiday feel and a sense of who they are. Beautiful German crafts like traditional smoker nutcrackers (some with incense inside), several Christmas pyramids (which use the heat of candles to spin a carousel atop a pyramid shape adorned with various carved motifs) and a display of Hummels are sprinkled throughout the historic home, especially in the dining room and near the tree.
Committed to the home’s restoration and history, they say they have a chance to be “caretakers” of the home. “It’s been a labor of love,” says Bob warmly.
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Whimsy Wonderland
This home on Old Post Lane features festive décor outside and in. Visitors find themselves immediately greeted by a doormat sporting a cow wearing Christmas lights, a metal rooster and a cow wearing bows about the neck. All are harbingers of color schemes and themes within the home, built in 2015, which houses two retired educational professionals, their dog Raven, and their collection of whimsical arts and crafts within the newer 55-plus community neighborhood.
Chuck and Kate moved up from Maryland to “enjoy the art scene” after attending the Long’s Park Art Show and visiting numerous galleries in downtown Lancaster. Upon first walking in, tour attendees will immediately be drawn to a large piece of red, purple and yellow furniture adorned with artsy objects. There are many different types of art present, but “We really like masks,” says Chuck. In addition to random finds, the cow and rooster theme from outside becomes more cohesive inside, with a small black table covered in over a dozen black, white and red chickens with coordinated wrapped gifts comingled in the display.
In another room a tree sits atop a table draped with a red polka dotted tablecloth and surrounded by more gifts wrapped in various, yet interconnected, patterns. Throughout the home, presents are wrapped and placed in displays expressing the individuality evidenced by the owners. No area is left undecorated; large green wreath balls with oversized red bows hang outside the wide, bright windows.
Pieces within the home have been culled from adventures the couple has had in multiple cities like Atlanta and Santa Fe, states like California and North Carolina, and countries like Haiti and Mexico. Within the larger scheme, however, is a specific fondness for cows, chickens and French bulldogs. “Even the dishware has chickens,” says Chuck.
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A Cozy Cottage
Just down from the square on Decatur Street lies the white 1951 Sears Roebuck home. These types of homes were made available in a catalog featuring different styles, where buyers would purchase a “kit” and a local contractor would build the house. The original home, currently rented by Marilyn Weaver, offers a widow into that fifties vintage period with its cozy kitchen, Armstrong linoleum and white painted cupboards.
“I lived in a house where the walls were all white, so I wanted some color,” explains Weaver of the current living room wall color, Golden Gate Coral. Each room is painted in a varying intensity of the coral in an ombré fashion, with the living room and downstairs rooms going down the paint sample’s hue intensities.
The 1,600-square-foot home has one bed and bath downstairs, with two bedrooms and one more bath upstairs. The walls are decorated with both of her daughters’, Erin and Elizabeth’s, art. A traditional tree sits in the corner with a 70-year-old wind-up train around the bottom.
A large, eye-catching gingerbread house, handmade by Weaver, sits on a table. She learned from Peg Williams, the late founding member of the Heritage Society, who taught people her special skill. It made a mess and took eight hours, but the home is really something special. With lights inside, innumerable types of candy, royal icing for snow and gummy snakes “for her four-year-old grandson,” it’s no wonder it took eight hours to complete. Tradition states, according to Weaver, that the day after Christmas, the house is broken apart and eaten for dessert.
Currently, Weaver teaches Bikram yoga five times a week, but before that she was a flight attendant. Her love of travel took her to India for fourteen days to participate in the Festival of Lights by the Ganges River. The peacock on her Christmas tree is inspired by her trip, where, she says, “Peacocks are a big part of their culture.”