NA Homes: Fearey House/Old Chamber

Old chamber location heart of Presley Realty ideals
By Lisa Kaylor Staff Writer
Posted April 14, 2009 4:17 PM

The Fearey House was built in 1900.
A framed copy of the original city plan of North Augusta hangs on a lime green wall inside Presley Realty.
The plan, and the wall color behind it, hearken to 1900s when 302 Georgia Avenue was built.
The quality of the workmanship, a tangible example of the ideals of the Victorian era, drew Joel Presley to purchase the property a year ago to house his real estate and development business.
His business, which involves helping people achieve goals with land that can involve legacies, sets a tone with an authenticity of the old ways of doing business, he said.
"This house is at least a little indication of what used to be," he said.
The house was built for John H. Fearey, a jeweler, who died two years later.
According The Augusta Chronicle archives, W.H. Rountree bought it and in 1906, sold it to Tom Butler for $2,000.
The Butler family occupied the house for about 75 years. Presley said his father and his aunt knew the Butlers and had been to the house, which sparked his interest in the property.
In 1981, Katherine "Miss Kitty" Butler sold it to Kathy and Terry Sullivan. First, however, she extracted a promise from them that they would leave the brick walkway intact because her father laid it when she was 16.
By that time, the house had deteriorated and parts were condemned. The city would not condemn the whole building, which gave the Sullivans the time they needed to restore the house, according to the article.
They discovered heart pine molding, carved oak mantles and brass doorknobs that were all original to the house. Some of the bricks, stamped "LeClede Crown St. Louis," were salvaged from the Robert E. Lee, a sunken Savannah River steamboat.
Today, those bricks still decorate the front walkway.
After the Sullivans' tenure, the house opened as a restaurant, The Back Porch, in 1987. However, the Greater North Augusta Chamber of Commerce bought it from the Royal Boutique frame shop in 1999, according to The Augusta Chronicle .
Members of the Chamber painted the interior, repaired shutters and installed new steps to the porch.
When the chamber announced plans to move to its current location on West Avenue in late 2007, Presley saw his chance to buy a well-preserved piece of North Augusta's history.
The original features that the Sullivans fell in love with more than 25 years ago endeared Presley to the home, as well.
"I love heart pine, and this house was the only one left on this part of Georgia Avenue that had not been altered significantly inside," he said.
In the year he has owned the house, he has painted the interior with colors that might have been used in 1900, restored some of the woodwork, pruned and shaped some of the older shrubs on the property and restored some of the hearth.
He said he is not impressed with newer homes because many times they have "stick-on" features that are supposed to be something that they're really not.
"I like things that are authentic, that are what they appear to be. This house is that, and it has survived."
Reach Lisa Kaylor at lisa.kaylor@northaugustatoday.com.

http://natoday.augusta.com/node/5311