Holiday Home Tour (1-4PM)&Reception(2:30-5PM)
Just $12 per person pre-sale and $15 per person at the door is all you pay to tour some of the finest and beautifully decorated homes this holiday season. Merry Perry Holiday Home Tour has done it again. What finer way to benefit our local food pantry and clothes closet.
Tours start at 1 PM and run until 4 PM. They culminate with a reception from 2:30-5 PM at The Center on Leicester Street, the former Perry Academy and later Elementary School. Over 100 years old, it has been readapted for professional offices, a State University computer lab, retailing and residences. Enjoy holiday treats while strolling the halls and learning how you, too, could lease space.
This year's home tour stops are: 1 Simmons Road, just off N. Main St. (Rt. 39) in Perry where the 1950's ranch home of Irene and Jim Majchrzak is filled with treasures and toys collected through the years. There's a blue, tear-drop chandelier floating above a table in the living room, a 1920s lithograph above the fireplace and an Oriental screen in the foyer. For Christmas, Jim and Irene display holiday collections that include Santas and antique Christmas books. A manger scene from the 1930s sits in front of French doors in the kitchen. The real treat is in the basement where Jim's vast toy collection is centered by his toy train display. Some of the pieces on the train layout are very old.
Look for vintage toys, tin signs, trivia, TV characters and collectibles in their original boxes.
Just down Simmons Road at #3148 is the 176-year-old home of Lauren and Dana Hurlburt. Built in 1832, they are just the third family to own Twin Oaks, originally built by the Toan family. The couple collects old cupboards of all sizes, shapes and wood. See the baker's cabinet and apothecary cabinet in the kitchen. Look for the long plank tables, antique trunks and chests. A special treasure in the dining room is a pump organ that belonged to Lauren's great-grandfather. Displays start on the front porch and coninue on inside where the appreciation for the past is evident.
Take Simmons Road back to Main Street and take the Y right on Leicester and cross N. Center St. (Rt. 246) at ArrowMart to reach the 90 Lake Street home of Tracy and Tim Eustace. This colonial was built in the early 1900s and is home to the young family. Disney-themed decorations are everywhere so be sure to bring your children along. Among the many distinctive features of this nearly 100-year-old home are two curved wood arches on the open stairway. A spacious stair landing features three Christmas trees and poinsettias line the stairs. The family celebrates Christmas with a birthday cake to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ.
Back on Lake Street, stay on it right to the light on S. Main Street. Turn right and head up the hill where at #111 S. Main is the 1800s Federalist-style abode of Perry teacher Regina Ireland. Reggie is an ancestor of the Cole family of shoe store fame who built it. Enter through the grapevine-swagged front door and you will see the wall-size mirror that once hung at Cole Shoe Store. Reggie decorates the home's wrap-around mantle with pine boughs, cones and candles. The front parlor tree features old-fashioned Santas, some of which belonged to the Cole, Ireland and Popp families. The dining room is a perfect setting for Reggie's traditional family Christmas Eve dinner. Reggie remembers visiting her grandparents at Christmas when they lived in the house. Rather than a Christmas tree, they had a thorn branch painted white and decorated with small glass balls. The family spirit and warmth is part of Christmas every year.
Continue heading south on Main and past Silver Lake Country Market look for the wooded development of Birchwood Acres on the right. Pull in and park at #13, the home of Bonnie and Charlie Miller. This saltbox home is just a year old but every detail is true to an 1800's New England saltbox. Known for her artistry and decorative flair, Bonnie has painted a distinctive mural on the walls of the front entry. It includes scenes from the area, including the Silver Lake sea serpent painted by the Millers' 17-year-old granddaughter. The main room, called a Keeping Room, has a 21-foot-high ceiling. It opens to the quaint kitchen with its cherry cupboards that match the cherry flooring in the downstairs. The Millers decorate eight Christmas trees, upstairs and down. Each is decorated to reflect a particular theme. In the upstairs bedroom, you'll find a tree with bubble lights and large ornaments. Tucked away in another nook is a tree with miniature ornaments. Bonnie surrounds her trees with her handmade Christmas quilts and festoons her four-poster bed with a holiday garland. You'll have surely worked up an appetite by now and that's good given the final tour.
Turn left back on S. Main and head north to The Center on Leicester Street. You can catch a glimpse of it as you drive by the Fire Hall on N. Main. Turn left onto Church Street and look for a parking spot. Try along Church Street or Hawthorne Street or the Center's parking lot on one-way Park Street. Perry Elementary School alumna Barb Sciarrino and her husband, Ray, own the former school building now and it is a must-see. They host the 2008 Merry Perry Holiday Home Tour Reception from 2:30-5 PM.
In their six years owning the 1906 solid brick building, they have tastefully converted it into 24 apartments and 50,000 square feet of commercial and professional space. The main-floor foyer features restored maple floors and warm woodwook. Festive decorations, delicious holiday treats and cheery Christmas music in this remarkable building make a perfect ending to Perry's Merry Holiday Home Tour.