A new home simultaneously can feel unexplored and yet familiar. Such was the case when Greg and Hannah Rodocker first visited their current residence. Stepping up the short flight of stairs onto the porch and crossing the threshold inside, Hannah realized this was the house for them. Not only that, but it offered a bit of déjà vu.
“It just reminded me so much of my childhood home,” she says.
The brick Tudor Revival is tucked into a curve on Newburgh Road among a spate of lush, tree-lined East Side properties. The residential architecture in varied time periods is known to make passersby slow in admiration. This home — painted a taupe and adorned in wood trim — was built in 1929 by the Ennekings, a family of local jewelers. And yet, the house felt so much like Hannah’s childhood home in Kentucky.
“I grew up in the highlands in Louisville, and our house then was probably built in the 1920s, too,” Hannah says. “Both homes have the same peaked roof feature, narrow windows, and the Tudor style. My friends from Louisville would even comment that this new home looks just like my old house in Louisville.”
There were other signs this property was meant to be. The pottery adorning the Evansville home’s interiors was by M.A. Hadley, the same brand that once decorated Hannah’s childhood home. As a bonus, the home’s azalea bushes bloom around the time of Louisville’s Kentucky Derby each May.
The couple just couldn’t pass up on the home. At the time of purchase in 2004, Greg and Hannah — a family medicine physician and an Evansville Parks Foundation board member, respectively — were in the process of expanding their family. Eventually they would have three children, and so the space this eight-room home could afford was another selling point. The first floor of the house includes an enclosed sun porch, dining room, kitchen, half bath, music room, and living room. The upstairs features three bedrooms and one full bath, so later the family finished the basement and added to it another bedroom and full bathroom.
Even the backyard was something to marvel at, with its in-ground swimming pool, separate seating area near the back, and a two-car garage with workspace.
“Our property is on a very narrow plot of land,” Hannah says, “but we have a very deep backyard. It really just feels like it’s a nice private oasis back there.”
Quickly, the couple decided to revitalize the home with various renovation projects. But the point of these was not to make the home modern feeling — even if some of these projects rendered the old home like new. Instead, the couple wanted to highlight the older home’s charm and beauty.
“We wanted to keep the integrity of the house,” Greg says. “We bought an old house because we love an old house — not because we wanted to turn it into anything more modern.”
Thus, the couple restored what they could, but sometimes with a twist.
Since the home was built in an older style that preceded the open concept layout, the house felt enclosed with all its original walls, and prior owners had removed many of the room doors to broaden the space.
“We found the doors in the basement and turned them into pocket doors to keep the doors but retain the open feeling,” Greg says.
In the kitchen, the couple pulled up outdated linoleum flooring to discover beautiful original pine. The arched front door is original, found in the attic and restored as well. The wood trim over the doorways near the entryway was added by Kight Home Center.
The list of projects around the home continues. The house was originally covered in red brick, for example, but the couple decided to paint it. At the same time, they decided to remove the home’s original breakfast nook.
“We knew we needed to open up the kitchen a bit more,” Hannah says, “but it was certainly sad to remove something original to the home. You just don’t see those in people’s homes anymore.”
Yet all these adjustments optimized the space and stayed true to the home’s age and era, highlighting and celebrating its roots. The walls are poplar, for example, but stained a dark walnut, and many of the floors are oak. The walls also are painted a soft cream color or wallpapered to fit the home’s original aesthetic. Running from room to room is a colorful collection of traditionally patterned rugs sourced from The Rug Merchant.
Finding new uses for old things has become one of the through lines running throughout their home.
“Our China cabinet was inherited from her grandparents,” Greg says. “The dining room table came from old barnwood that’s been refinished and polished up.”
The music room features an enviable record library and a vintage green vinyl armchair purchased from collector and antiques dealer Eddie Erickson.
“Many of our furniture is collected locally or inherited,” Greg says. “None of our decor is really matchy, matchy.”
Perhaps the most unique items in the house are the vintage fans of varying sizes. All the fans work and had been restored by Greg, a member of the American Fan Collections Association based in Noblesville, Indiana.
Fan Collections Association. He buys fans for a song, gets them running again, and stations them around the house to serve as functional art.
“He tinkers around with the fans,” Hannah laughs. “We have one in every room, and we use them. Why not? They work, and they are very attractive.”
What might have been a lot of work has paid off in the end.
“As much as I used to complain about not having the big bathrooms or the big closets in this older home — this home comes with smaller rooms and closet space — looking back on raising three kids and having all five of us together on the second floor — I just love that we shared that space with each other,” Hannah says.
Today, the pair of nearly-empty nesters — their youngest child is in high school and the only sibling still living at home — enjoys basking in the summer sun on the patio or taking breaks in their plant-lined sunroom. Surveying all they have done to enhance the property’s natural beauty while giving it touches of their own personalities, they feel a sense of contentment at how it all turned out.
“It’s good to think we made it through,” Hannah says.
