Rose Nhem: Eureka, California, is known for its distinguished Victorian houses, but that's not all there is to this town's structural landscape.

Take a look at the different neighborhoods or even right down your street, and you'll notice an impressive variety of houses that represent notable design eras.

From craftsman to deco to contemporary and everything in between.

We'll meet with the homeowners to find out what's inside these architectural gems.

Come along as we take you "Beyond Victorian."

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Rose: This home is one of the finest examples of the craftsman style in Humboldt County.

With its numerous windows and striking presence, this home invites you in to experience its charm.

Join me as we sit down with Dave to learn more about its history.

♪♪♪ Rose: Dave, thank you so much for inviting us into your home.

Dave Mulhern: My pleasure.

Rose: Could you tell us a little bit more about this house and how you came across it?

Dave: Well, I'd been looking for a house for several years.

One day I drove by this house.

It wasn't on the market but there was a real estate sign in the front, and the front door was open.

The realtor had finished with his customers, they had left.

I introduced myself and he told me how much they were asking for the house.

I said, "I'll pay that much for the house.

Will you sell it to me?"

Rose: I imagine that was a very easy decision to do once you walked through?

Dave: The living room was a selling point.

When I walked in and saw the living room and the dining room and I was sold as soon as I walked in the door.

Rose: Right, it's been great hearing these stories.

Could you show us more of the home?

Dave: Absolutely.

Rose: Oh, wow, so this is the living room?

Dave: This is the living room, the first room you see when you enter the house.

It's always been my favorite room.

It was in almost this condition when I found it.

There were some changes done to the room, but minor.

Just this was--this sold me on the house.

Rose: I really love how wide that fireplace area is.

Dave: An enclosed space around a fireplace is normally referred to as an inglenook.

That's a pretty big inglenook, yes.

I've seen larger ones, but most of them are more intimate.

So this room and in the dining room's all original.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Dave: Except, in the dining room, the most obvious changes are the ceiling detail, which was there originally.

Again, I had the original blueprint so I was able to look at that, and then when we pulled down the wallpaper on the ceiling, there was a very large witness mark.

That said, the built-ins are original, and they were just like that.

We refinished them.

And the wood trim around the doors and the continuous head rail that wraps around the room, and the detail around the room on the ceiling, those were here and original when I had the place.

Rose: So I see the dining room leads through a couple of doors here.

What's through that?

Dave: These are both swinging doors that have been restored and the one door leads to the breakfast room and the other one leads to the kitchen.

The kitchen's been extensively remodeled.

Originally, it was similar in layout to what we have now with the hood being over here.

This is a plaster hood we made to replicate the original plaster hood that was here, and this heating, the stove and oven were on this side of the room.

Dave: This leads back into the living room, of course, and then it leads into this wing of the house.

They have--this is House of Angles, so these, you'll notice, are at 45-degree angles to the main house.

Rose: Yeah, this is not very common that I come into a home where I have to maneuver through corners.

Dave: So this leads into a Jack and Jill bathroom that connects the two back bedrooms together.

We removed all the 1950s fixtures in here.

That window was--is original, but had been removed.

I found that window in the basement.

Rose: In the basement?

Dave: And we figured that that's where it went so we brought back--that back in, installed it.

The etching on the plaster is original and once we started taking off the remodeled fixtures that covered it, much of it was exposed so we redid the whole thing in etched plaster and brought in a shower with subway tiles.

Rose: That's so great.

Dave: We had a relatively period-correct sink.

That actually is a period-correct sink but it's not original to the house.

Had to get that in Niagara Falls, New York.

Again, bathroom originally no molding around the windows or doors, and coved ceilings and, again, we brought that back to what it was intended to be originally.

Rose: That's amazing.

Dave: Here's the back bedroom.

This room, interestingly enough, it's a small third bedroom, but it has the most extensive amount of woodwork.

So this room has a picture rail in it.

It has a continuous headrail in it, it has a plate rail in it.

None of the other bedrooms have those features, and this is not the master.

This is one of the smaller bedrooms.

But it's the most--and again, all this woodwork was painted.

I had it all stripped and brought back, mostly Port Orford Cedar back here.

Same thing with the baseboards and base shoe.

This is all original.

They didn't take this material out.

And the door trim's original too.

So this room is mostly original.

Rose: That's great.

Dave: It is great.

Rose: Why do you suppose one room has more woodworking than the other rooms?

Dave: I asked that exact same question, "Why does this room look different than every other room in the house?

What made this special?

Why did they go to the extra work to do this?"

And I got the original plans.

I looked at it, it's on the original plans.

I don't know why they decided that this room would be-- have much more elaborate woodworking in it than the others.

But this is how--this is how it was drawn out originally, so.

And these, again, these lights in here are original lights for the building.

Rose: How do you feel about the layout of the house?

Dave: It's quirky, and I love it.

The odd angles that the rooms are in and the kitchen took a little bit getting used to, but once living in the house, it--they feel natural and very comfortable.

Rose: And here, the angled rooms here.

Dave: This is another one of those rooms to--triangular rooms to make up for the angles in the rest of the room.

One of the unique things about the period and the time is this was taken from--there was a Japanese Expo at a World's Fair that both the Greens and the Hindmans went to and it influenced a lot of their design work.

And one of the things I was told was lucky in Japanese culture was the number 3.

And if you look throughout this house, originally this had three lights.

All the bedrooms had three lights in them.

And in the living room, there are four lights, but each light has three shades.

Rose: Three shades, oh, that's a detail that I didn't really notice before.

Dave: It's in the culture of the time, the three was just a lucky number, so it was used extensively throughout this house.

Rose: That's great.

Dave: And lastly, we have where we started.

Rose: Right--it leads right back around.

That's amazing.

Rose: So what is it about the craftsman style that appeals to you the most?

Dave: I've always been attracted to craftsman homes.

They always seem simple, straightforward homes.

The detailed woodwork on 'em.

I'm a woodworker, I've always been attracted to exposed woodwork.

Now I find them a real comfortable style.

Rose: Dave, thank you so much for sharing this space with us and telling us more about the home.

Dave: My pleasure.

Appreciate the opportunity to share the house with you.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Rose: It's not uncommon to experience a bit of gray here in Eureka, California, so it's a real treat to come across a home that brings in the Mediterranean sun.

Let's meet with Marcelle and Steve to see what it's like to live in this stylish revival.

♪♪♪ Rose: Steve, Marcelle, thank you for bringing us into your home.

Steve Kosack: Of course.

Marcelle Olsen: Yeah.

Rose: What drew you to this home?

Steve: Love at first sight.

Marcelle: Absolutely, we were determined to get it.

We really wanted a stucco house and we wanted a house from the '30s.

Rose: What was it about this particular home that you just fell in love with?

Steve: Oh, the way it looked from the street.

Great curb appeal, and once we got inside, that was it.

Rose: What is your favorite part of the home?

Marcelle: I love this room.

I really, really love that window.

I love the floor plan as well, it just flows.

Steve: Yeah, I like the openness from front to back.

You can see the whole house up and down, and you can also close off all the rooms too, so you can have a little privacy in different areas also.

Marcelle: So it's kind of like the dreamhouse that we always wanted.

Steve: I really like the trim.

The color is lighter than most trim from this era, and it's really beautiful wood.

Yeah, gumwood.

Gumwood trim, it's just beautiful.

Rose: Is there anything that you find inconvenient about the house at all?

Steve: One bathroom.

Rose: Oh my gosh, this is huge.

Steve: It's a great size for this era.

You usually don't see bathrooms this big.

Rose: It has its own, I assume, clawfoot bathtub?

Steve: No, not clawfoot, but it's got a great tub and shower combination.

Still original.

Built-in vanity, original.

Rose: Love the tiles as well, oh my gosh.

Steve: The tile work is to die for.

We're right in the middle of redoing the floor.

We're gonna scrape the grout, replace the broken tiles.

And we love the river glass in the window.

Rose: Yeah, I hardly see that type of glass anymore.

Steve: And the glass in this window matches the cabinets in the kitchen.

Rose: Oh my gosh.

Steve: And it's all seamless.

Rose: Oh, wonderful.

Steve: And then of course, a true throne room.

Rose: True throne room.

Steve: Completely separate.

Rose: Wow, it's totally... its own alcove here too.

Steve: Yeah, that's something else that we really like.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Rose: What's it like to live here throughout the seasons?

Steve: Summertime is nice, yes.

Marcelle: It's light and all the rooms are light, which is just--I love that part of it too 'cause our house before was really dark.

It was in the redwoods and I just--it was a beautiful home.

I just thought, "I just can't live in this dark a house."

So that was a big appeal too when we walked in.

Steve: Yeah, the lightness of it.

Marcelle: The lightness.

I love it all, I really do.

I love what we've done to the kitchen.

It's so cozy.

Rose: All right.

Steve: Here's our beautiful kitchen.

Spent a lot of time in here, one of our favorite rooms.

It had been remodeled by the previous owners but we added our touches: backsplash, counter.

Put in the wood floor that matched the rest of the house.

And of course, our beautiful stove.

Rose: Oh, I love that stove.

Steve: Thank you, the stove, actually, wasn't here.

It came from across the street.

He was remodeling his house and wanted to get rid of it, so I grabbed it.

Rose: Wonderful.

Steve: It's very nostalgic for me because my mom's house where I grew up in had a stove exactly like this, so it was-- Rose: Meant to be, it seems.

I love it.

Steve: Yes, it touched my heart.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Rose: What was the hardest part about renovating or redecorating the house?

Marcelle: Impatience.

I knew how I wanted it to look.

I'm a pretty good decorator, so as soon as I moved in, I was like, "Okay, that, that, there," so, but it all took time.

The painting took almost a month.

Steve: Seven weeks.

Marcelle: Seven weeks to repaint everything and wallpaper.

That took a while, but we just had a vision and knew how it was gonna look and it turned out that way.

Steve: Myself being in the building trade for so many years, I like the craftsmanship that goes into these houses.

They're really well built and well done, yeah.

You can see they really cared a lot in the materials they used and putting it together.

Marcelle: Interestingly enough too, that earthquake that we had in December, nothing even fell.

We had neighbors just down the way and all their glassware broke, but we had a little bit more of a crack in the ceiling for character, but we were fine.

Did anything even drop?

Steve: No, just one thing popped out of the cabinet and that was it, so it's really solidly built.

Rose: And sturdy and it's just-- Steve: And very sturdy, yeah.

Steve: Right through here is our dining room, one of our favorite rooms.

We love the windows and we love the doors, especially.

Rose: Oh, I see.

Steve: The beveled glass doors are a real masterpiece here.

Rose: Wonderful.

Steve: We love the, is it, wall sconces?

Rose: Mm-hm.

Are those original?

Steve: They all are original.

Most--all the rooms have these sconces in it.

Original chandelier.

We love to keep everything as original as we can.

Steve: And in here is our primary bedroom.

Nice and bright, sunny.

We got the morning sun through these windows.

Rose: Very spacious.

Steve: The thing we like: our two closets in one room.

Walk-in closets.

It's really amazing for a house like this to have walk-in closets.

The ones I remember, you can barely turn around in, but these are really walk-in closets.

Rose: I really also like how there are these nice little skeleton keys.

Steve: The keys still lock them and every place has the glass door knobs, which are true to this era.

Rose: Great.

Marcelle: But I don't think the outside matches the inside.

I think that the inside is supposed to be very elegant and so when you see it from the outside, it looks like it's Mediterranean, but inside it's a whole-- just this big surprise.

You know, that it's just so beautifully done.

Rose: Like this Mediterranean villa.

Marcelle: Right.

Steve: Yeah.

Marcelle: And the character.

You can't recreate the feel of an older home.

It has a spirit, almost.

Rose: Steve, Marcelle, thank you so much for opening your home to us, and sharing your stories.

Marcelle: You're welcome.

Steve: You're welcome.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Rose: So far, we've seen beautiful homes of different eras.

This next gem is a stunning example of streamline moderne that's not where you'd expect.

Let's meet with Wendy and Chuck and hear what they've done to restore the space for others to enjoy.

Rose: So where are we?

Wendy Petty: We are in the upper lobby of the Eureka Theater.

Rose: Oh.

♪♪♪ Wendy: Okay, so we are now stepping in to what I like to fondly call the bar vestibule.

Rose: Ohh, oh wow.

Wendy: And in this room is our built-in cocktail bar.

♪♪♪ Wendy: And this is the main living room, which is my favorite room.

And we've spent a lot of time researching colors and scraping and matching and it turned out fabulous.

To me, the funnest surprise was finding that paint in the red stripe.

Rose: That's a nice little detailed touch there.

Wendy: And of course, in this room, all the light fixtures are original.

Rose: So what's this little area here?

Wendy: Just a conversation area.

And we tried to set up two of them, since the room is large enough to accommodate them.

Rose: Oh, wonderful, and it's right next to the-- Wendy: Cocktail bar.

One of my favorite little appointments of this room is this little bench right here.

Rose: How cute.

Wendy: And on the blue--the one page of blueprints we have for this apartment, it is labeled "cocktail bench," that is right next to the cocktail bar.

So I just love that.

Rose: That's very cute.

Wendy: Yeah.

Rose: Wendy, Chuck, thank you so much for allowing us in this space.

Chuck Petty: Thank you for having us on your show.

Wendy: Absolutely, thank you very much.

Rose: Could you tell us more about how you came across this apartment?

Chuck: Well, this apartment was always part of the theater and we became involved in the theater about 17 years ago as volunteers and it was tenanted at the time from long-term tenants so we didn't get in here very often.

But when the long-term tenants left, we had the opportunity to fix up the apartment and start using it for our own events.

Rose: What's the history behind this apartment?

Chuck: George M. Mann, who was a theater impresario, I guess, he came here from Philadelphia right after World War I and started managing all the local theaters.

He managed the Blue Lake, the Ferndale, the Arcata Minor Theatre, the oldest one in Humboldt County that's a movie theater.

But by the late '30s he was wanting to do some of his own theater, so he built the Arcata, the Fortuna, and then the Eureka Theater in '38 and '39, 1938, 1939.

This was his residence when he was up here because he owned theaters up and down the Redwood Highway.

When he came up to manage his North Coast theaters, he stayed in this apartment.

This was his residence.

Rose: What is it about the art deco period that you two appreciate?

Wendy: I love the clean lines and the simplicity of design.

Rose: What are your plans for this place?

Chuck: Well, we have signed up with an agency to manage it for us but we rent it as a B&B through the agency so we can get--make income for the theater restoration, but also we can block out time for the theater's own uses so we can have events here.

Wendy: Yeah, we can have private events here and fundraising events and little parties and whatever we want.

Chuck: We can share it with the community now.

Rose: Does this apartment have a personality for you?

Chuck: To me, it's like a swoopy, evening gowned 1930s actress.

It's very elegant to me.

I find this place lends itself to elegant parties, 'cause it's elegant all by itself.

Wendy: Feels like an uptown New York apartment.

Rose: Which is not normally found here.

Wendy: No, it is not.

Rose: It's been great hearing about its history.

Wendy, could you show us around?

Wendy: Absolutely.

♪♪♪ Wendy: Well, from here, let's go down the hall into the primary bedroom.

Wendy: And here it is.

Rose: Oh wow.

Wendy: It's a lovely room.

Nicely appointed.

Rose: What I really appreciate about this room is this light fixture up here, and this one is original too?

Wendy: Yes, it is.

Rose: I love how it looks like a mini chandelier.

So that the theme for the primary room is travel?

Wendy: Travel, vintage travel.

Rose: Are there going to be other themes for the other rooms?

Wendy: Yes, there will be.

♪♪♪ Wendy: And now we are stepping into our beautiful oval dining room.

Rose: Oh my oval.

Wendy: This room features a skylight that's also a light fixture.

Rose: Oh, wonderful.

Wendy: And the most unusual door we have ever seen.

It's a curved door that follows the curve of the wall.

Rose: That's great.

Wendy: And that leads into a large pantry.

Rose: Oh wow, they made really good use of the space.

Wendy: They really did.

And I just--I love the niches and the blue.

We found that color in here so we chose to do the blue stripe.

Rose: Wow.

Wendy: And so now, let's continue into our lovely restored kitchen.

Rose: Ahh, and these are-- Wendy: These are Big Chill appliances.

Rose: And they're not original?

Wendy: No, these are brand new.

Made to look vintage.

Rose: That's so great.

Wendy: And Chuck did the, you know, all the remodeling in here and put everything back as close as we could.

And something a little interesting about this.

A lot of people ask why is the refrigerator up on that platform.

Well, what is under here is one of the big steel girders that hold up the big monument and blade sign, so it has to be up on a platform because that's the support for that.

Rose: You can't take that out?

Wendy: Nope.

No, we cannot.

Well, let's take a quick peek into the sunroom.

Rose: All right.

Wendy: And here is our lovely sunroom.

All totally rebuilt.

Rose: Totally rebuilt?

So this was all open space before?

Wendy: It was all rotten and we had to replace everything.

So, the walls are new, electrical's new, windows are new, paint, and the sunroom leads to the deck.

Rose: The deck?

Ah.

Wendy: Which is a lovely space.

Rose: Oh wow.

Wendy: It's nice and protected from the weather out here, so we get a lot of sunshine and it's a lovely place to have a glass of wine.

Rose: Oh, wow, and it's two-tier, yeah?

Wendy: Mm-hm, yeah, two-tier.

Rose: Very nice.

Wendy: The last thing I wanna show you is the secret entrance.

Rose: Secret entrance?

I thought we already went through the secret entrance.

Wendy: Well, this is an exterior entrance.

And a lot of people don't even notice it from the street.

So one interesting thing of note, we're not 100% finished with the stairs but it had carpet on them and it--when we took the carpet off, it revealed this beautiful oak.

Rose: Yes.

♪♪♪ Wendy: And here we are.

The secret entrance that leads to the street and right next to the Eureka Theater.

Rose: Right next to the Eureka Theater, oh my gosh.

A movie lover's dream.

Wendy: A lot of people don't even know that's there.

Rose: That's great.

Well, this has been a wonderful tour.

Thank you, Wendy, for showing us around.

Wendy: Thank you, you're welcome, my pleasure.

♪♪♪ Rose: We hope you've enjoyed a glimpse of the architectural marvels here in Eureka, California.

The next time you're out and about, take a moment to appreciate the different styles and craftsmanship that make your neighborhood unique.

Thank you for joining us on "Beyond Victorian."

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