Historic Sunny Hill home open for tour Sunday afternoon

Thursday, May 19, 2011
Sunny Hill, home of Phil and Georgeanna Gick, will be open to the public on Sunday.

The historic Sunny Hill home of Phil and Georgeanna Gick and its ongoing renovation will be open to the public to tour Sunday afternoon as part of weekend events sponsored by the Heritage Preservation Society (HPS) of Putnam County.

The two-story brick home, an 1868 Italianate structure located at 911 E. Washington St., Greencastle, will be open to tour 1-5 p.m. Sunday.

Currently under extensive renovation, the historic home -- also known as the Richard M. Hazelett House and by later generations as the Kersey Music Store -- is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sunday's tour will be an opportunity to view the process of restoration from completed rooms to the chaos of renovation. Admission is $7 ($5 in advance at Eitel's Flowers, First Christian Church, First National Bank and the Putnam County Museum).

The current owners purchased the property for their retirement home in 1994, and are restoring the house as their residence and a bed-and-breakfast.

The Gicks were married in 1975 and following Phil's retirement from active duty in the U.S. Army in May 2006, their return to Greencastle was their 19th overall move. "We plan to make it our last," Phil said.

The home has lost some of its integrity through the removal of the verandas and its transition to apartments, said Phil Gick, who is president of the HPS. "However, there is ample written and photo documentation to accurately reconstruct the verandas, and the apartment alterations are mostly reversible," he added.

The roof, walls, cornice and brackets, and window caps are intact. Although slightly altered, the majority of the interior spaces are intact, as are the windows and doors, interior blinds, stairs, plaster, woodwork and flooring.

The Gicks plan to reconstruct the verandas, and restore the shortened windows. The home's interior flow and connection of spaces will be restored, including reconstructing the back stairs.

The owners have also been steadily purchasing adjacent properties in an effort to restore the original five acres of the homestead north of Washington Street. They presently own an additional 1.3 acres located north of the house.

They are the fifth family to have owned the property since the home was erected on it in 1868.

Meanwhile, in a related event, the Heritage Preservation Society has announced a 20 percent reduction in the cost of registering for the DIGS Seminar set for 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Saturday at the Putnam County Museum, 1105 N. Jackson St.

The cost reduction results in the morning session, featuring Scott Peters of Purdue University and Steph-anie Sheldon of Shrubworks, now costing $20. (Estimated retail value alone of the container planting to be made is $30 or more.)

Saturday's afternoon session at the museum, which will feature Joe Everhart of Sycamore Group and Phil Gick with a power-point presentation of the Sunny Hill restoration, will now cost $8. Cost of the full-day seminar is now $28. To register, persons may call 522-1430.

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  • Please advise when Bed and breakfast will be available to rent. I am a realitive of the Hazelett family. Mary Hazelett is my Great Grandmother. She married Jerome Coleman in the late 1800's, one of their son's, Paul Jerome Coleman is my grandfather. I have many family photo's and an orignal Mary Hazelett charcoal potrait in it's orginal frame that used to hang in one of the rooms at Sonneyhill.

    I would love to spend the night when available.

    Paul Coleman, Canton Michigan

    pcoleman57ford@aol.com

    -- Posted by paul coleman on Tue, May 31, 2011, at 5:51 PM
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