The Patriot News
Sunday, December 15, 2002
By Pat Seaman

Sometimes there's no place like home when it comes to
finding your dream house.

A Lebanon County native and her husband, a California architect, are working on theirs in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country.

     Kip and Cyja Kelly, who currently live in Los Angeles, bought a stone farmhouse built in 1766 on land originally purchased from William Penn's son.
     The 12-plus-acre property at 2370 W. Oak St., just outside the city of Lebanon, borders Snitz Creek. It is known locally as The Kreider Farm, and stood empty for about eight years until the Kellys came along.
     They purchased it from the late John and Pat Gerdes, who never lived in the farmhouse built by John and Rebecca (Kettering) Kreider.
     No one but a Kreider has ever lived in this house, said Cyja (pronounced Ki-ya) Kelly. The Cedar Crest High School graduate met her husband while working in the Los Angeles area.
     The couple foresee a lot of hard work transforming the Kreider homestead into a comfortable living space for themselves and their children, Eero, 5, Jaxon, 4, and Isabella, 8 months.
     Although the original log farmhouse was built in 1766, the summer kitchen with a brick oven was constructed as early as 1744. A limestone addition to the main house and a barn were completed around 1850.
     The property includes a large bank barn with a 50-foot ceramic-tiled silo, five weather-beaten outbuildings, among them a summer kitchen, pig barn and corn crib. The Kellys have already replaced the heating system, transformed several bathrooms, installed custom-made kitchen cabinets and are preserving an original log wall uncovered between the entrance foyer and what will be the dining room.
     Mrs. Kelly envisions a large swimming pool with the old summer kitchen in back as a guesthouse. Her husband sees the old crib barn transformed into the East Coast headquarters for his architectural firm, Nest Architecture Inc.
     I have a thriving business in L.A.," Kip said, "so our goal is to get enough work here so that I can stay here, but still go back to L.A. once a month or so."
     He already has one job in the local area as architect for the new Marty's Music Store and studio under construction on U.S. Route 422 in Annville.
     So, why did the family decide to trade the hustle and bustle of Southern California for the peace and quiet of Lebanon County?
     Kip Kelly said they had no plans for moving east until Valentine's Day 1999, when they were visiting his wife's parents, Pete and Phyllis Silldorff of Lebanon.
     "Cyja was looking through the real estate section of the newspaper and saw an ad for an old stone farmhouse that was for sale," he recalled.
     "This is what I want for Valentine's Day," she jokingly told her husband.
     "Well, let's go look at it," he said. "The doors were unlocked so we went in the house ... we were shining flashlights all over and looking around."
     "It was kind of creaky, but I was enamored," he confessed. "I went inside the barn and it just blew me away, it was so vast, I just couldn't believe it."
     Kip said what really caught his eye was"the openness and peacefulness" of the area.
     "In California our entire house is about the size of this room," said Cyja referring to the living room, which is about 15 by 20 feet.
     According to Kip, the house is a classic Pennsylvania Dutch log farmhouse built in the 4-over-4 style (four rooms over four rooms) with no hallway. Later, the Kreiders added a 4-over-4 addition providing eight rooms.
     The Kellys have combined and enlarged some rooms and added a hallway. The upstairs now has four bedrooms, a master bath, guest bath and children's bath.
     For the bathrooms, the new owners have selected countertops made from Pennsylvania blue stone, a heavy thick bluish-gray slatelike material purchased in Lake Como.
     The children's bath features ceramic tiled walls designed to look like an early 1900s Amish quilt in shades of green, blue and burgundy. The guest bath features stone walls and has been nicknamed "the cave bathroom."
     The master bath, done in creamy shades, boasts a large Jacuzzi tub in one corner. "We had to cut a hole in the floor to get it up to the second floor," Cyja laughed, explaining the stairway was too narrow.
     New cupboards, custom-built in a rich, deep cherry wood at the former Books Planing Mill in Cleona, stand tall on one side of the kitchen/family room. A commercial-size Viking stove takes celebrity status in the center.
     A root cellar with whitewashed walls and ceiling with a Germanic curved archway is destined to become a wine cellar. "It's perfect because it's always cold," said Cyja Kelly.
     A square cut out on one wall in the root cellar was once the entrance to an underground tunnel that led to another stone house on the north side of Oak Street.
     "That was in case you wanted to get away from Indians," Kip said, adding that much of the tunnel caved in when Oak Street was widened years ago.
     They plan to preserve an exposed log wall uncovered between the dining room and entrance foyer. They'll also retain the "Indian door," so called because Indians could be kept at bay by removing a peg on the bottom and sliding a plank up to cover the door window.
     Original shutters found intact in the cellar have been painted a cream color and trimmed in Cyja's favorite color, aubergine.
     "When you own a home, you're never finished," said Kip. "But we figure it will take about six months to get the house done enough to live in and then another six months to do the summer kitchen."
     Having grown up in the San Fernando Valley in a typical 1960s house, Kip said he's always had a passion for older homes.
     "I gravitate to them," he said noting he's found a lot of his clients in California prefer an older, more solid house.
     His philosophy as an architect is based on what he was taught at Berkeley: "You can't even start formulating an idea until you thoroughly understand the person or people who will live in the house. You have to please them aesthetically and make it functional."
     As far as his latest, most personal endeavor goes,"It's been wonderful getting to know this old house. This truly is early American architecture. And this house is a great laboratory to combine early American architecture with my concepts."
     The Kelly farm is one of the final 30 homes under consideration for a book on farmhouses to be published by Taunton's, publishers of Fine Homebuilding Magazine. They'll find out in January if theirs was one of the chosen. For private or group tours, call Pete Silldorff at 273-4103 or contact Kip Kelly at Nestarchitecture.com.