MARYSVILLE — How many 112-year-olds still have the ability to raise a family and put a roof over their head?
This oldster does.
If anything, this two-story home on Second Street is improving with age. It won the 2014 Pride of Marysville award. The annual award was launched in 2012 by Marysville Mayor Jon Nehring in a campaign to make the city a better place to live by recognizing those who set an example for others, starting with their own property.
The yellow home owned by Steve and Peggy Richard fit the bill. It has a white picket fence and arched entryway arbor accented by lavender and greenery. It was praised for keeping up the appearance of a historical home yet incorporating modern elements and improvements.
The public nominates homes and businesses, which receive a decorative Pride of Marysville marker. Other 2014 winners are a corner pharmacy and central business block that have symbolized historical downtown Marysville for generations and a new national drugstore looking to help define the cityscape for the next generation.
The winning home has undergone a major facelift since the Richards bought it in 1988.
“We were living in Seattle,” Peggy said. “We were both entering second marriages and wanted an older home. We kept going north until we could afford a home we liked.”
The commute to their Seattle jobs wasn’t so bad then. She is an interior designer for Holland America Princess, Alaska-Yukon. He’s a buyer for Foss Maritime.
“When we arrived there was literally just the house, no landscaping. Nothing. A dirt alley,” she said.
The home, a former farmhouse, had been moved to this lot when Marysville Town Center Mall was built.
“They plunked it down on the dirt and basically hooked up the utilities,” Peggy said.
Still, it was love at first sight.
“What drew me to it was the windows,” she said.
Steve liked the price. “We could afford it,” he said. “It could hold the family and it fit in our budget.”
It was painted gray inside and out when they bought it. That had to go.
“I live in gray in the Pacific Northwest. I wanted something happier,” Peggy said.
The couple chose yellow for the exterior. “It’s really like a stick of butter,” she said. “Not bright. Soft yellow.”
The fence is engulfed by purple lavender.
“I thought I’d have this little hint of lavender around,” she said. “In the summer the whole fence is lavender. Giant lavender. I didn’t know it would get that big.”
People often knock to ask if they can cut some lavender. Others admire it from the street.
“We came home to find a card on our front porch that said something like ‘I want to thank you for the lavender. I drive by your house every day and it makes me so happy to see it,’ ” she said.
The yellow also is a draw. “We have had many people come up to get the paint formula for the color of the house,” she said.
That’s how she got the color. She saw a house in Snohomish she liked and knocked on the door to get the paint specs from the owner.
The house gets visitors from its past.
“A woman said it was a boarding house during World War II,” Peggy said. “It was broken up into units for boarders during the war years. I let her walk through and she told us, ‘This was a wall here and this was a unit.’ She remembered it. She and her mother lived in what is our master bedroom and bathroom.”
The Richards have invested a lot of time and money into the home.
“We painted, put carpeting in, put in central heating,” she said. “We’ve redone the kitchen and both bathrooms. Added a garage. A new roof. We built a garage and never put a car in it.”
Instead it’s storage for her holiday decorations, tuna canned from his fishing trips, and the overflow of Costco runs. It’s known as “Momco.”
“Our grown children often visit ‘Momco’ for a quick couple rolls of paper towels or Ziplock bags or Tide,” Peggy said. “When they need anything they go shopping at Momco.”
The home has seen a lot of life in 112 years.
“We raised a family here,” she said.
“Now we’re on round two,” her husband added.
Their 10-year-old granddaughter Lilly lives with them and has her dad’s old room, with the glow-in-the-dark stars he painted on the ceiling as a boy.
“It’s a house that has sheltered a lot of people over the years,” Peggy said. “We’re just the stewards for this phase. Just the temporary owners.”
They don’t know who nominated them for the Pride of Marysville award, but they plan to pay it forward.
“I am sure we will find a few houses to nominate,” Steve said.
Andrea Brown: 425-339-3443; abrown @heraldnet.com. Twitter: @reporterbrown.
Other awards
Best Business: Hilton Pharmacy
The corner building at Third Street and State Avenue owned by Scott and Mary Kirkland has been a centerpiece store in the heart of Marysville’s original downtown since Jeffrey Hilton, Mary’s great-great grandfather, opened the doors in 1919. The independent pharmacy, also known for gifts and gourmet goods, added exterior improvements and repainted in conjunction with Third Street aesthetic improvements and design updates of the Kwak Building opposite of Hilton on State. The Kwak property was the first building to adopt the city’s new downtown design standards, and was one of the first recipients to earn a Pride of Marysville award.
Best Block/Neighborhood: Historic Downtown Third Street
This business corridor along Third Street from State Avenue and heading east brings together the best of Marysville’s vintage past and blends it with a mix of contemporary stores and pedestrian fixtures. Hilton Pharmacy, Carr’s Hardware, the Dutch Bakery, Trusty Threads, Finders Keepers Furnishings and Wrenhaven Vintage Market and other quaint collectible and antique shops, fitness centers, ethnic grocery and restaurants give Third Street its rustic, unhurried charm and coziness.
James Comeford Award (Mayor’s Choice): Walgreens
This Comeford award, named after Marysville’s town founder and original trading post operator, is presented to the most-improved home or business in the downtown or waterfront district. The Walgreens property at Fourth Street and State Avenue did a complete renovation of the old Safeway and O’Reilly Auto Parts building, built a complimentary pad along the State Avenue side of the property currently unoccupied, and incorporated a new brick wall, bench seating, decorative street lighting, trees and landscaping along the sidewalks, which had previously been an old parking lot.
Source: City of Marysville
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