CMBRG hosting Colfax Tour of Homes November 19

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX —  To start off the holiday season this year, the Colfax Municipal Building Restoration Group is hosting the 2016 Fall Tour of Homes in Colfax on Saturday, November 19.

The Tour of Homes is the same day as the Grapevine Craft Sale, and in fact, tickets will be for sale at the Grapevine Senior Center on Main Street from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The Tours of Homes runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and tickets also will be available at each of the homes.

Proceeds from the Tour of Homes will go toward future projects of the Colfax Municipal Building Restoration Group

The ages of the houses on the tour range from the early 1900s to 2016.

The Tapestry Trunk Bed & Breakfast (503 Pine Street) will serve refreshments throughout the time of the tour.

Here are the houses on the Tour of Homes:

608 Iverson Road

Work on the two-bedroom one-story ranch-style home at 608 Iverson Road owned by Pam Arntson began in 2015, and the house was finished in 2016.

The house is located along the banks of Eighteen Mile Creek.

Arntson said her favorite part of her new house is the sun room located on the west side, which she uses as an office.

“It’s beautiful in there,” she said.

Arntson said she also appreciates having a laundry room upstairs after carrying laundry up and down the stairs for 46 years in her previous home.

The convenience of having a garage attached to the house also is greatly appreciated and comes in particularly handy while carrying in groceries and other items, she said.

615 Iverson Road

The home at 615 Iverson Road is owned by Mike and Carol Boyd.

The Boyds have lived in the house for four years.

The house was built in the 1960s, and it was designed by Colfax resident Jo Iverson and was built by Colfax resident Danny Kiekhafer.

“Jo had a lot of foresight and designed the house with a bathroom in the master bedroom. That just wasn’t done back then,” Carol Boyd said, noting she believes they still have the plans that Jo Iverson drew up.

Boyd said she and her husband are only the second owners of the house that was previously owned by Ken and Jo Iverson.

The house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and the main floor features a dining room, kitchen, living room and family room.

Carol decorates the house with three Christmas trees each year in the family room, living room and dining room.

The house is situated on a one-acre lot along Eighteen Mile Creek and has a screen porch.

“It’s like being in the country in town,” Carol Boyd said.

The house is decorated in what she describes as a “country style” with crocks, pottery and quilts made by family members.

Colfax Rural Lutheran

The Colfax Rural Lutheran parsonage at 407 University Avenue is owned by the three-point parish that includes Holden Lutheran Church (county Highway M), North Running Valley Lutheran Church (county Highway A), and Norton Lutheran Church (state Highway 170).

The parish purchased the parsonage in 1950.

Prior to buying the parsonage, Colfax Rural Lutheran was a four-point parish that included Colfax Lutheran.

According to the September 18, 1949, minutes of the Colfax Rural Lutheran joint parish council, “a committee of three members was elected to canvas the Village of Colfax for the purpose of finding available houses suitable for a parsonage.”

The committee included Ed Iverson, Helmer Anderson and Alvin Berge.

According to the minutes of the October 26, 1949, congregational meeting, “A motion was made and seconded to take a vote on the Dr. Gregory house, those in favor of said house to vote yes, those opposed to vote no … the result of the voting as follows: 92 ballots were cast, of which 52 were yes, 38 were no, and 2 were blank.”

By January of 1950, the parish was trying to decide between the Dr. Gregory house and the Harold Hjort house.

At a meeting January 23, 1950, the joint parish council authorized the parsonage treasurer, Arnold Gunderson, to pay Dr. Gregory $500 down to bind the bargain on the house.

The parsonage sits on a double lot straight north of the junction of state Highways 40 and 170.

The main floor features the pastor’s office, a dining room with built-in china cabinets, a living room with a fireplace, and exposed wooden beams throughout the main floor of the type that grace the ceiling of the Colfax Public Library.

The parish’s current pastor, Reverend Robert Schoenknecht, lives in Eau Claire.

The last pastor to live in the parsonage was the Reverend Paul Tobiason and his wife, Jeannette.

Colfax Rural Lutheran Parish will be selling “Rita Sundstrom’s Famous Donuts” at the parsonage during the Tour of Homes.

510 East River Street

The one-story, three-bedroom, two-a-half bath home at 510 East River Street is owned by Dave and Paula Hovre.

The house was built in 1958, and the Hovres have lived there since 1971.

Dave Hovre said his father had ordered the rafters for the house only a few hours before the June 4, 1958, tornado that destroyed much of Colfax.

Erling Lunn actually ordered the rafters and said he would help put them up when they arrived, Hovre said.

Erling Lunn died in the Colfax tornado.

The house that had originally been on the foundation had been moved to the north side of Colfax, and the tornado destroyed that house, too, Dave Hovre said.

Hovre’s mother died in 1971, and at that point, his father no longer wanted to live in the house, so Dave and Paula bought the house and moved in.

“We have removed walls and opened it up. We have remodeled every end and have done it all ourselves,” he said.

Paula Hovre has done the designing for the remodels, “and she has worked harder than I have to do the work,” Dave Hovre said.

Dave said he and Paula agreed to be part of the Tour of Homes because they wanted to do something to help the Colfax Municipal Building Restoration Group.

“From Paula and I — I want to say, ‘welcome to our home,’” Dave Hovre said.

310 Cedar Street

Believed to have been built in the 1920s, the home of Troy and Michelle Knutson at 310 Cedar Street is a two-story structure with three bedrooms, four bathrooms and an attached garage that sits on a double lot.

The house has all refinished woodwork, and Troy and Michelle have lived there for four and a half years.

Their favorite part of the house is the huge, spacious kitchen, that, like the rest of the house, is full of antiques and Colfax history.

Troy Knutson was the recipient of the first annual J.D. Simons Community Volunteer Award in 2016, and for the Colfax Sesquicentennial in 2014, he put together a book, “Looking Through the Lens: Colfax History in Pictures.”

Knutson, president of the Colfax Municipal Building Restoration Group, put up a display of Colfax memorabilia at the Colfax Public Library’s 100th anniversary celebration October 22 in the Colfax Municipal Building Auditorium.

The display items for the library’s anniversary were a fraction of Knutson’s collection.

“If you want to see more of my collection, come on the Tour of Homes November 19,” Knutson told those who attended the library’s anniversary party.

302 Dunn Street

The brand new house at 302 Dunn Street is the very first home built in the East View development.

The Village of Colfax purchased land from the Jim and Mary Schindler farm to start East View, and the house built and owned by Andy and Sara De Moe was constructed as a “spec home” in 2015.

The one-story house with an attached garage has three bedrooms and two bathrooms and is 1,566 square feet.

The house is currently unoccupied and is listed for sale.

Pine Street

The Tapestry Trunk Bed & Breakfast at 503 Pine Street is owned and operated by Susan Hill of Colfax.

During the Tour of Homes, Hill will be serving refreshments.

Colfax has not had overnight accommodations in decades.

Hill opened the Tapestry Trunk in 2015.

The bed and breakfast is a “modest” older home built in 1910 for the Lewis Rowe family. Rowe was an early blacksmith in the village.

Sometime around 1945, the house at 503 Pine Street was purchased by Hill’s aunt and uncle, Edna and Elmer Hill.

Edna and Elmer’s three daughters and two sons grew up in the house.

In the early 1980s, almost 40 years later, Elmer Hill retired from the Colfax Oil Company, and Edna and Elmer moved to their lake home, Hill said.

When the house was first built, the basement was no more than a root cellar along with a huge boiler built into a rounded wall of Colfax sandstone, she said.

Elmer Hill took on the work of putting a proper basement under the house, and with the help of friends, Elmer dug out a full basement, bucket by bucket, with a conveyor, and laid a new concrete block basement, Hill said.

Each of the four guest rooms in the Tapestry Trunk is decorated with a unique theme (Golden Traveler’s Room; Red and White Lighthouse Room; By the Seashore Blue Room; and the Green Up North Room).

Hill’s slogan for the Tapestry Trunk is, “Who says you can’t go home again?”

In addition to the themed bedrooms, the Tapestry Trunk features a spacious kitchen bright with natural light and patio doors opening onto a deck.