Today, Berks-Mont News featured an article on the restoration of The John Updike Childhood Home, written by Emily Thiel, editor of The Southern Berks News and Community Engagement Editor for Berks-Mont Newspapers:
The outside of The John Updike Childhood Home has been recently painted, and with a break in the weather volunteers from Habitat for Humanity of Berks County and Bellman’s Church got together to strip wallpaper from the living room and downstairs hallways and to remove newer floor tiles that had been added when the house was converted to a business.
Habitat’s Russell Poper, Director of Construction for the Updike project, had much good news to report: they removed half of the tiles downstairs without causing damage to the original flooring, and they were able to locate a clean “footprint” on the floor showing the shape and exact placement of the original room divider. The Society will try to rebuild the house as it was when Updike lived there, and that means putting back the living room divider, re-establishing the wall and door in Updike’s bedroom that led to a “black 
room,” and eventually reconstructing a grape arbor that dominated the side of the house.
Poper also said the group discovered a drawing of a rifle on the foyer wall when they stripped off the wallpaper. It could be Updike’s, since we know he was allowed to draw on the upstairs hallway walls, or it could be something the Hunters (who bought the house later) tried and abandoned. Needless to say, we’ll be investigating! Anyone with information about the drawing should contact curator Maria Mogford: mmogford@alb.edu. Pictured above are the volunteers working this past weekend in the living room, and the rifle they uncovered in the foyer.
The John Updike Society is grateful to the volunteers who’ve been helping to turn the house into a community showpiece.
The John Updike Society has received a $20,000 donation from the PECO Foundation, a charitable trust based in New York City, “to help support the John Updike Society’s project to preserve the Updike family house.”
H. Roemer McPhee, who is on the board, is a huge Updike fan—not just familiar with all the novels and short stories, but able to quote from them. This past summer he toured the house and Shillington-Plowville sites with his mother, Updike Society president James Plath, and John Updike Childhood Home curator Maria Mogford. And he saw firsthand the work that needed to be done.
Last year the PECO Foundation contributed $3000 but upped their donation this year to help with much-needed house repairs and restoration, which are expected to cost some $300,000.
The contribution looms even larger than that, because it’s the first major donation other than ones received from The Robert and Adele Schiff Family Foundation, whose generosity enabled the society to buy the house and begin the restoration. “It paves the way for other major donors to climb onboard and together create a literary landmark that can be appreciated for many generations to come,” Mogford said.
Mogford said that the exterior of the house has been painted this fall, and that work inside will begin again in the spring and continue throughout summer of 2014, in anticipation of being at least “presentable” for the Third Biennial John Updike Society Conference to be held the first week in October of 2014. That conference, like the first, will be hosted by Alvernia University.
Albright College, where curator Maria Mogford teaches, ran a profile of her and the house restoration-in-progress. Here’s the link.
The John Updike Childhood Home at 117 Philadelphia Ave., Shillington, Pa., is getting a badly needed exterior paint job. The exterior had been neglected for many years prior to the Society’s purchase of the home, and compared to other buildings in the neighborhood it was looking quite shabby—with lead paint peeling off in big chunks, right down to the brick.
Although the scraping, preparation, and painting is costly and the Society is still in need of donations, the board voted to move forward based on a substantial gift from the Robert and Adele Schiff Family Foundation and a commitment from the PECO Foundation.
The work is being done by a Shillington company: Bilger Construction, affiliated with PuroClean Emergency Restoration Service, also of Shillington. The house will be repainted white, as it appeared for the bulk of the time that the Updikes lived there.
In an Art Attack feature for Philly.com, Nathaniel Popkin writes about the restoration-in-progress of The John Updike Childhood Home at 117 Philadelphia Ave. in Shillington, Pa.
Thus far, Habitat volunteers coordinated by Tim Daley under the direction of site manager Russell Poper have taken out built-ins that compromised the integrity of the house and are in the process of removing wallpaper and tile flooring that were added in later years. The goal is to restore the house to what it might have looked like in the early 1940s, when young Updike lived there. That includes replanting a horse chestnut tree in the front yard, replacing wrought iron with intricate wood railings on the upper porch, and rebuilding a grape arbor that provided shade for the side porch. Continue reading
We’re still considering bids for the exterior repairs and painting, and Habitat volunteers have only just begun tearing out non-period carpeting and such, but already The John Updike Childhood Home is on people’s radar.
On the Flavorwire website Jason Diamond posted a fun story with photos, “50 Places Every Literary Fan Should Visit,” which included the Updike house. It should inspire quite a few pilgrimages, both to Shillington and elsewhere. There’s lots of information here, too. I for one did not realize that Tennessee Williams lived in the campus windmill at SUNY-Stony Brook Southampton campus.
Pictured is The Algonquin Hotel, which Updike visited on a number of occasions, as evidenced by the previous post.
On Monday, June 10, Shillington realtor Conrad Vanino received The John Updike Society’s second Distinguished Service Award—an 8×10” plaque thanking him “for his invaluable help acquiring and converting The John Updike Childhood Home into a museum.”
Vanino (pictured below with society co-founder Dave Silcox and curator Maria Mogford) helped the society go through proper channels and worked pro bono. He continues to serve the society behind the scenes, maintaining a lock box on the property so work crews can enter and checking on the house several times per day. Vanino is also in the process of looking for a suitable tenant for the annex added by Dr. Hunter, who lived in the house after the Updikes. The society has divided the annex so that three rooms of the building used for patient exams can be rented as office space to help cover the expenses of maintaining the house. The doctor’s office will be used as a gift shop, and the waiting room will be the educational room, for watching videos or for class presentations.
Vanino is a lifelong resident of the Shillington area who has served on Borough Council for over 30 years and is also on the board of the Shillington Lions Club and the board of Crime Alert Berks. He is a member of the Shillington Business Association and a graduate of Governor Mifflin High School. Like many Shillington youngsters, he learned to swim in the pond that provided the water supply for the poorhouse Updike wrote about, just blocks away from the house at 117 Philadelphia Avenue.
If you haven’t renewed your membership in The John Updike Society by paying your 2013 dues—and only a fifth of current members have done so—please send a check made payable to The John Updike Society to James Plath, 1504 Paddington Dr., Bloomington, IL 61704. Dues are $25/year, $20 for grad students and retirees.
At a time when money is needed to move forward with the renovation of The John Updike Childhood Home at 117 Philadelphia Ave. in Shillington, member donations are now approaching $1000. Thanks to Bruce Moyer, Kathleen Olson, Gerald Connors, Livia Lloyd-Hawkins, Alan and Maureen Phipps, Steve Malcolm, Don Greiner, Jay Althouse, Kevin Schehr, Janice Fodor, Ward Briggs, Richard L. Chafey, and Mark Roosevelt for their generosity and for helping us get a nice start on raising the money ($10,000) needed to scrape, repair, and paint the outside of the brick building.
The John Updike Society is a 501 c 3 organization, and everyone who makes a donation will receive a letter of thanks and acknowledgment that can be used for tax purposes.
What’s new at the house? The single-story annex has just been remodeled, so now the Society can find a tenant to lease the three rooms formerly used as patient examination rooms by Dr. Hunter, who bought the house from the Updikes. Pictured is the doctor’s former office just off the front entrance to the original part of the house, which will be used as a gift shop for The John Updike Childhood Home. A still-operational x-ray viewing screen was left on the wall of one exam room as a reminder of the contributions that the Hunter family made to the house where Updike said his “artistic eggs were hatched.”
Donations are starting to come in for The John Updike Childhood Home in Shillington, Pa.
In 2012, the Society received significant monetary donations from the Robert and Adele Schiff Family Foundation and the PECO Foundation, the latter of which came as a result of the generosity of Constance and H. Roemer McPhee.
In 2012 we also received a folder of Updike-related newspaper and magazine clippings from Mrs. Grace Hunter, who lived in the house after the Updikes, and a 1969 Playboy featuring an Updike story and a photo of Updike from his senior year in high school from Miss Shirley Kachel, of Mohnton, Pa.
This year, thus far we have received a donation of 34 Updike first editions and five Updike-related books from Richard Nielsen, of Bloomington, Ill., along with a folder of Updike-related clippings.
We are grateful for their help as we continue the process of converting the house into a literary landmark that will have exhibits and items to help tell the story of Updike’s life and works, so that future generations can appreciate him as we do.