Christmas mixes with old and new in home tour

Owning an antique shop doesn't hurt Bud and Gayle Klette one bit when it comes to furnishing their 125-year-old historical home on North Nevada Street.

The rooms of the Elliot-Chartz House, built in 1876, are brimming with dolls and knickknacks from days long gone. Hutches in every room display their passions. Sunday, the Klette's opened their home as part of the Nevada Landmark Society's Victorian Christmas Tour.

The couple bought the home in 1982 when they decided to retire from the antique business and get out of California.

"Everyone here comes from California, don't they," kidded Bud as he stood in the front room with its vaulted ceilings and Christmas tree decorated in ornaments from 1950.

Initially, the duo bought the home used as a boarding house for their own bed and breakfast, but decided to close that operation and open another antique shop, Art and Antiques, at the corner of King and Curry streets.

"Because we have the antique shop, we kinda cheat a little," he said while standing amid the century-old furniture gracing his home.

The house was built by prominent lumberman, Frank Campbell.

Its most notable owner was journalist and lawyer Alfred Chartz, who had spent some time in prison for killing a man who insulted either his editor or his wife.

"It was his wife that they insulted," Bud said. "I think it was his wife. That's what I was told."

Chartz was pardoned from his sentence and went on to become a renowned lawyer.

Bud and Gayle tool around their 2,200-square-foot home with only their Pekinese and cocker spaniel pooches to get underfoot. Opening their home for the tour is part of the fun of having an old place.

"Everyone that comes in here on this day has an interest," he said. He alternates years in the tour because, "people don't want to see the same thing every year."

Pat Moran-Stark greeted guests to her daughter's 150-year-old home at the corner of Spear and Walsh streets.

The Presbyterian Manse was home to a reverend and his family in 1921 and was moved in 1971 from the Presbyterian Church, where the rose garden is now, to its current location.

"Boy, that's a whole story in itself, the moving of this house," said Moran-Stark as she stood in the newly carpeted and remodeled home where her daughter, Lila Young, raised three children. A beauty parlor was added to the north side of the home where Young earned her living.

While her daughter was away at a real-estate convention, Moran-Stark offered to handle the tourists.

"I talked her into doing the tour," said the silver-haired hostess , who was a founding member of the Landmark Society.

Ushering at least 30 visitors through the two story home, Moran-Stark had it down to a science and could even ignore the screeching angel that was malfunctioning atop the lavishly-decorated Christmas tree.

"We have a screaming angel," she told the guests as she walked them through the home, stopping in the kitchen to offer them cookies and fresh hot apple cider.

In all 11 locations were showcased in the tour. All proceeds benefit the Robert's House Museum.