Reynolds House in downtown Cape Girardeau undergoing rehabilitation

A Cape Girardeau building that predates the Civil War is about to see a revival.

The Reynolds House, built in 1857 and located at 623 N. Main St., is undergoing a rehabilitation that contractor Brock Milam of Benton, Missouri, said will make the structure “like a new building.”

The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 and was designated as a local historic landmark in 1996 by city government.

“It will only receive work that’s necessary to preserve the structure and it will completely retain its historic integrity,” said Alyssa Phares, president of the board of directors of the James Reynolds House Foundation, which owns the building.

She said the rehabilitation of the building should be completed by the beginning of summer.

The Reynolds House is seen Wednesday in downtown Cape Girardeau.Jacob Wiegand

Phares said the building is going through a rehabilitation rather than a renovation. She said this is because the building will be put to a “new use that requires minimal change to the defining characteristics of the building.”

This, she said, is not preserving the building as it once was, but rather rehabbing the building so it can be used in the future.

The fireplaces, of which Milam said there is one in each room of the building, will be redone. But he said the fireplaces won’t be used.

Milam said while a new roof was put on the building 11 years ago, new electric, heating and cooling and plumbing are some of the additions this time around.

He said drywall will be added to the ceilings and the walls will be replastered. New floors throughout the building, including the porch, with the exception of one room of the house will also be installed, Milam said.

Contractor Brock Milam looks out an upstairs' window while showing some of the area under rehabilitation at the Reynolds House on Wednesday in Cape Girardeau.Jacob Wiegand

Phares said the interior floor plan will only be changed to accommodate a handicapped-accessible bathroom.

“It’s just a piece of work, of history, that has to be worked on,” Milam said. “It’s just a neat old building.”

The exterior of the property will receive the least amount of work, Phares said. Only materials that need to be removed and replaced, such as something that has rotted, will be removed, she said.

“It’s not going to look any different on the outside except for the fact that when we cleaned the brick obviously that whitewash paint came off,” she said. “But it was most likely not whitewash painted when it was originally constructed. It would have been the red brick that you see now.”

Although the James Reynolds House Foundation is a not-for-profit and already had some funding, she said the money for the rehabilitation came from an anonymous donor who has an “invested interest in the historic properties in Cape Girardeau” and more specifically in the Reynolds House.

Contractor Brock Milam of Benton, Missouri, shows some of the area under rehabilitation at the Reynolds House on Wednesday at 623 N. Main St. in Cape Girardeau.Jacob Wiegand

Upon completion of the rehabilitation, Phares said the idea is to have the building be an exhibit space for history and preservation-related projects as well as a community space for hosting small events, especially for the Red Star district.

Steven Hoffman, professor in the Department of History and Anthropology at Southeast Missouri State University and a coordinator of the university’s historic preservation program, described the structure’s rehabilitation as an “overnight success that was years in the making.”

Hoffman said the process of getting to this point with the Reynolds House has taken some time. But he said the property was in a place where it was not at risk of deteriorating while plans were being made for its future.

The Reynolds House was added to the Cape Girardeau Historic Preservation Commission’s endangered buildings watch list in 2014 and was still on the list in 2018. Nominations for its 2019 endangered-buildings list are now being accepted.

Hoffman believes the people of Cape Girardeau are fortunate to have several historically significant properties.

The Reynolds House is seen Wednesday in downtown Cape Girardeau.Jacob Wiegand

“I think that no matter how you looked at things, that the Reynolds House would be in that short list of truly significant properties,” he said.

The building is in the style of earlier French colonial architecture with its sloped roof extending over a porch running across the entire front of the house.

Joseph Lansmon, a brick mason who built the Common Pleas Courthouse and other structures in Cape Girardeau, constructed the house according to plans drawn by Edwin Branch Deane, the architect of the Glenn House and other large homes in the city, according to previous reporting.

The original owner of the house, James Reynolds, operated a steam-powered flour mill that extended out over the Mississippi River just north of Broadway.

jwiegand@semissourian.com

Contractor Brock Milam stands near a fireplace while showing some of the area under rehabilitation at the Reynolds House on Wednesday in Cape Girardeau.Jacob Wiegand

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