Times have changed since one Hollister resident’s home was built
in 1936, but very little inside the house itself is different
There was a privy in the back yard and an outdoor sleeping porch on the second floor when the Ross family bought their Victorian home for $4,000 in 1936.
Today the house has conventional indoor bathrooms, and the sleeping porch has been enclosed. But one thing hasn’t changed: a member of the Ross family still lives there.
Helen Ross, 67, moved back into her family’s Hollister home on Fifth Street after her parents passed away several years ago. She has continued their work in maintaining the house’s glory.
“I really feel like I’m the custodian of this old gal,” said Ross, patting one of the walls affectionately. “My parents left it in good condition. They kept it up, and they were satisfied with it how it was. When it came to me, I wanted to keep the spirit.”
Though no records exist stating exactly when the house was built, Ross’ father researched the Spanish land grants and found several records of their property being bought and sold. Around 1876, the property started changing hands frequently, which led the Ross family to believe this is about when the house was built.
Ross’ parents painted the house a vibrant blue-green accentuated with white trim, and she’s decided to keep it that way. She said she wants to maintain as many original features of the house as is practical. For example, the filigree swirling around the porch and edges of the house like elegant white frosting is all original.
“When I think about how this house was built, it’s amazing,” Ross said. “Carpenters just sat and did all this filigree by hand. No way would you find that today. Now everything is made with machines.”
The hardwood floors downstairs and softwood floors upstairs are all original, too, though they have been restored and refinished. The house has settled, and Ross said one day she put a marble on the floor at one end of a room and watched it roll all the way down to the other end of the floor. But such idiosyncrasies don’t bother Ross.
“The front of the house really wants propping up, but these things make it special,” she said, referring to the sloping floor.
The orange and red stained glass centerpiece window at the front of the house is original but was almost lost to warping caused by old age. One day Ross happened to look up at the glass as she stood beneath it and noticed it was bowing in the middle. She hired a glass specialist she found at an expo in San Jose to take the glass out and reinforce the jewel-toned panes before putting it back in its original place of honor.
The front door is original, too, but Ross never knew what the door looked like until she inherited the house.
“My dad didn’t like the glass in the front door,” she explained. “He said he didn’t want people looking in at us, so he put the door in between two big pieces of plywood, and that’s the door I grew up knowing.”
When she hired some carpenters to pull off the plywood, Ross said, she was shocked to see what her parents had kept hidden for so many years.
“The door is absolutely gorgeous,” she said. “It’s all redwood and it weighs a ton, but I think it’s wonderful.”
The upper half of the door is a patchwork of glass while the lower half is embellished with a sunburst-shaped carving. The door was missing its original glass, but Ross found a pane of glass with a frosted pattern in her basement. When she held it up to the door, the sizes matched.
She has since had new glass with a frosted pattern installed, but she framed the original piece of glass and hung it in the entryway.
Ross laments the loss of the original doorbell, which was once a part of the door. To ring the bell, a visitor would have to turn a small key in the door.
“When I found the piece of glass for the door in the basement, I hoped to find the doorbell, too,” Ross said. “But my parents never thought to save old stuff like that. They wanted to be modern so they took out the old-fashioned bell, but I would give anything to have that original bell.”
Her parents also modernized the house by taking the privy out of the back yard and putting in modern plumbing, but they slept on the outdoor porch for much of her childhood. Ross said she remembers running out to jump in bed with them and hurrying to get under the covers.
“It was considered healthy to sleep outside,” she said. “In the winter, they just added more comforters, and when the electric blanket was invented, that was a godsend. But it was a long time before they decided to close up the porch and make it another regular bedroom.”
Ross has added some modern touches to the house. She replaced the original windows with energy-efficient windows designed to resemble the originals, which had four small panes of glass in a line above one large pane.
She also remodeled and updated the downstairs bathroom and kitchen, but she made sure the modern additions complemented the rest of the house by matching the wood in her new cabinets to wood used in other parts of the house. Though it was a headache to have renovations meet modern building codes, Ross said she was pleased with how well the updates stayed in tune with the overall feeling of the house.
Maintaining the house is a never-ending process, Ross said, and aspects of it can get expensive. But the Hollister resident said it’s all been worth it, and she could never imagine the house leaving her family – it’s just too special.
“There’s a real sense of history here. The house doesn’t have a name, but it’s got a personality and it’s definitely a woman,” Ross said, smiling. “No man would look this good all gussied up.”
