Family enjoying every nook and cranny of 100-year-old home

Posted 10/22/18

The sounds of a Lyon & Healy Centennial harp being plucked by the matron’s fingers travel from room to room in this 100-year-old home like a melodic tour through time.

The heavenly music …

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Family enjoying every nook and cranny of 100-year-old home

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The sounds of a Lyon & Healy Centennial harp being plucked by the matron’s fingers travel from room to room in this 100-year-old home like a melodic tour through time.

The heavenly music resonates across every surface; warm, honey-colored maple floors, crisp walls sparingly covered with colorful family-made art, through the bright kitchen and up the fresh hardwood stairs. The precise notes carry you through a home with family-style elegance — a home meant to be lived in, but quickly transformed into a showpiece. Every surface or appointment was created, restored or improved over many years by patient hands, those of Kent and Holly Kienlen.

While much of the home’s history is unknown, the Kienlen’s history with it began when the couple went looking for a family home and needed a deal. The abandoned brick house at 104 S. Edmonds St. was definitely that.

Sitting empty for three years, the interior was trashed. Rebels had figured a way into the eyesore and lit fires in the basement during clandestine parties.

But that was 27 years ago, when the young family was still trying to scratch out a living. Kent, originally from Worland, is an optometrist and now owns Big Horn Eye Care on Bent Street. Holly, originally from New Jersey, is a paraeducator at the Shoshone Learning Center. She plays the harp at functions and special events. The two met while attending classes at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City.

They married and started a family, raising three daughters and a son. The large family needed an appropriately-sized domicile. The older five-bedroom house was exactly what they needed. But making a home of the structure was going to be a challenge.

“We didn’t even have toilet seats when we moved in,” Kent said.

The structure, built in 1918, had been neglected. The yard was a mess of tangles and dead grass. Luckily, Kent is handy. His brother, Jerry, is a house builder in Worland. Kent worked for him when young, learning everything from pouring concrete to finishing work.

“We put it back to what we thought it would’ve been like originally, but new,” Kent said. “It’s a love/hate relationship. The hate is the part I can’t get done.”

An unexpected kitchen remodel

The only completely new room in the house is the kitchen. The original kitchen was cramped and inefficient. Holly hated it.

“We were going to wait until we could afford to do it all, not just in little bits and pieces,” she said.

That plan changed when Kent attempted to sneak a few homemade french fries while Holly was away. (“We never get to eat french fries in this house,” Kent explained.)

Unfortunately, Kent isn’t as handy in the kitchen as he is with remodeling.

“It was my fault. I came home from church on Sunday as my wife was taking our daughter to college. I put on a bunch of oil, turned on the burner and then went upstairs,” he recalled.

Suddenly, smoke alarms went off.

“I came down and flames were up to the ceiling,” Kent said. “When my wife called from Denver she asked me how I was doing. I said, ‘At least I didn’t burn the entire house down.’ So we got a new kitchen.”

Holly wasn’t too upset. The original kitchen was hard to negotiate through a family meal. While not huge, bay windows filled with plants now open the entire space to the southern sun.

Custom cabinetry is plentiful. Black marbled counters match perfectly with a majestic Viking double oven complete with a huge, stovetop griddle.

“It was our one splurge,” Holly said.

A single bare-brick column accent is the last remnant of the original kitchen. Through a door trimmed in natural wood molding, the dining room is the closest to all-original, with built-in china cabinets and a picture window settee.

Original features with modern comforts

The interior of the house is cozy, but also with an open, airy feeling, thanks in part to 9-foot ceilings. Kent used original glass from the home in his hand-crafted bookshelves, which flank the freshly tuckpointed brick fireplace. The bricks are the same as those created to build the Western Sugar factory in 1911, helping to date the house.

On the main floor, the Kienlens remodeled the main bathroom to modern comforts. Upstairs, a huge claw-foot bathtub and vintage cabinetry give way to one modern improvement: a wall-mounted flat-screen television.

The original kitchen counters, complete with a potato bin, were moved to the top floor and recycled as perfect cabinets for Holly’s sewing room.

Now empty-nesters, Kent has taken over part of the upstairs for an office and added plush carpeting for a warm feeling.

The house has history. Art Pifer, early Powell blacksmith, once called the Arts and Crafts-style house his home — and that local teachers used to rent two of the bedrooms in the front of the house.

Later, it was the home of Powell car dealer Roy Raymond and family.

It was constructed by a great builder and has good bones, Kent said.

“A lot of older people I’ve talked to said this was one of Powell’s showcase houses,” he said.

Family heirlooms with deep roots

Outside, grand old pines tower above the house to the north and willows, adorned in yellow fall leaves, border a gravel drive to a new workshop.

A small, original log barn holds down the northwest corner of the expansive yard. Family handprints are pressed into cement in the hearth — just one of hundreds of projects completed with the family touch.

The couple has brought life to the grounds, including rose bushes — a family heirloom from Kent’s grandfather, Dr. William Watts Horsley. Once considered one of the country’s foremost authorities on roses, Horsley is famous for growing rose gardens in the Big Horn Basin.

The yard, while big and open, has a very private feel that many town homes lack, thanks to some white fencing and natural foliage. It’s a double lot. The couple purchased the second lot, feeling like they paid too much at the time. Now the purchase — a few thousand more than they wanted to pay, Holly said — seems like the best decision they’ve made since banning Kent from cooking french fries.

Only a glimpse of the manicured backyard is seen from the front entrance.

But once through the heavy door, the tour of memories and music begins again. A handmade yo-yo tapestry welcomes visitors, who immediately find their way to the grand pedal harp near comfy chairs and inviting couch.

The Kienlen children are all grown and starting new families. Now Pepper, a female black lab, greets visitors with a distinct smile and playful spirit.

“She’s our spoiled fifth child,” Holly said.

Thanks to the skilled and diligent efforts by the Kienlens, one of Powell’s few century homes to survive has a bright future, looking forward to its second hundred years as the couple continues to cross projects off the list.

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