Last weekend This Old House did what it does best – it came back to life again – not as the VanHaute house or the McCloskey house – but as the Ryck House.
Beau and Leesa Ryck were married on the corner of Chestnut and Third on Saturday, October 24th, surrounded by friends, family and the rich history of this 1890s Victorian. A new family emerged from within these walls and a new chapter began.
Over the last year I’ve had the distinct honor of getting to know Leesa and follow her beautiful stewardship of the home that meant so much to me. I’ve seen her and Beau honor the home’s history while beginning to restore the structure to its former glory. Leesa has dug into archives and newspapers to learn everything she could about the many chapters of its story, tirelessly putting together the pieces of its history. She’s literally dug out lost treasure from behind the fireplace too (like my First Communion crucifix, lost in 1995).
Beau and Leesa wasted no time getting to work on the house. My husband and I got to visit them last spring – it was surreal to enter the house as a guest and not a resident, but their warmth and charity welcomed us with open arms. At the time they were preparing to tear down the plaster ceiling and replace the knob and tube wiring. Not long after they were able to open the side porch, having acquired all of the missing pillars that had been used for set design and prom picture backdrops at the local high school. They began furnishing the home with antiques, polishing light fixtures, and making it their own. They encountered issues that needed repair, investing in the bones of the house when focusing on the design would have been much more fun. Restoration is no easy task. It requires patience, vision, and a commitment to beauty that many in our fast-paced world lack.
It’s been almost four years since my mom passed away and I often find myself thinking about how much she would have loved Leesa and Beau. Their hospitality, their joie de vivre, and their appreciation for the beauty of a life well lived are things they share. My mom understood the importance of passing on truths that last, of teaching her children what is good and beautiful and worth holding onto. She built something that has endured beyond her own lifetime, and so much of that legacy was cultivated within these walls. I think she would be so pleased to see the care Beau and Leesa have taken with the house, and the life they intend to build there.
I recall one of my early conversations with Leesa, when she told me how excited she was to raise a family in this house, surrounded by so much history. She wanted to teach her children that “just because a window sticks doesn’t mean it needs to be replaced, and that not everything needs to be perfectly sterile all the time.”
I was struck by those words. In our throwaway culture we’re so quick to notice a flaw and replace the mechanism. We love the idea of “craftsmanship” but have no patience for the imperfections that come from it. We do this with people too, dismissing the beauty and dignity of the person in search of something pristine and lifeless.
My mom never made a pristine house – she made a home, one that was full of life, where people were welcomed and loved. And perhaps that is part of what this house taught me: that the things we love are rarely perfect, and that the beauty of a life is found not in the absence of imperfections, but in the love that fills it.
We don’t know what the Rycks’ story is going to look like – we don’t know any of the specifics of the joy and sorrow they may encounter in the years to come – the sickness and the health, the good times and bad. But isn’t that the beautiful thing about marriage – that we choose love anyway?
Words cannot express our gratitude for Beau and Leesa, for the honor and dignity they have given this old house, and for the future they plan there. They have filled its walls with love and life again, and for that we couldn’t be more grateful.
To the Rycks and the chapter that now unfolds within these walls. May you be showered with blessings beyond measure in this house you make a home.
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