Historic home Lanz family respects beauty of their century-old house
MADISON – Almost 30 years ago, Gerald and Amelia Lanz bought their home at 309 Church Street. The Wikle-Lanz Home is one of Madison’s oldest dwellings.
“When we moved here, we were very young. Property seemed quite expensive, so we went for the fixer-upper. My husband couldn’t resist the one-acre yard either,” she said.
“Fixer-upper” is an understatement, Amelia added. “The house had sat empty for several years. The three Apperson sisters had lived here for many years. When they became quite elderly, they moved to Huntsville, viewing it as a move ‘into the city.'” The sisters returned to Church Street to spend their summers.
“This house was also home to Madison’s town physician Dr. Luther L. Wikle, who lived during the early 1900s and remained in the home for some forty years,” Amelia said. “Clearly, this place’s caretakers are slow to exit.”
The original structure remains intact, except the dining room. The Lanzes demolished the back maze of added-on rooms (including that dining room). “To repair didn’t make good sense and would have been beyond our means,” she said.
They completed an addition at the rear, including dining and kitchen/family rooms and upstairs children’s bedrooms. They salvaged many interior pieces. The Lanzes reused items, like doors and mantels, in the new structure.
“We also put heart pine floors in the new addition to match the original as closely as possible. The floors were milled from salvaged beams taken out of the old Huntsville Cotton Mill before destruction,” Amelia said. “Revitalizing this home was a major undertaking – a process that never stops.” The latest addition is their rear porch, a relaxing, back-yard refuge.
Amelia described her clapboard house’s architecture as “like a low Victorian, not too fancy, more of a farmhouse quality.” The house has approximately 3,200 square feet.
“I don’t have a decorating theme per se, other than to respect the home’s history. In an old house, things are never perfect, but that’s part of the beauty,” she said.
Many of their antiques were inherited. Holding sentimental value, the secretary in the entry hall was in Amelia’s childhood home. The dining room’s sugar chest came from Amelia’s great aunt’s farmhouse in rural Tennessee – “a place I often visited as a child,” she said.
Over time, their yard “has transitioned from an awesome playground to more of a country garden style. We still retain the original outdoor toilet facilities in the backyard … always an interesting topic of conversation,” Amelia said.
Out back, Gerald grows several species of bamboo, requiring maintenance but providing a beautiful screen and a harvesting ground for locals who appreciate bamboo shoots. Like their home, gardening is traditional with roses, ivy, boxwoods, dogwoods, azaleas and hydrangeas.
During 30 years, the Lanzes have experienced “the neighborhood usher in a new cycle. Our last original neighbor died this summer at 97 years. We’ve gone from new kids on the block to the old folks,” Amelia said.
Their late neighbors told interesting anecdotes to the Lanzes, like how Church Street was “paved” with dirt, and people rode their horses to town, or how the postman would tie his horse to their old shed.
“We’ve always enjoyed the sense of community that seems to come along with living in the historic district,” Amelia said. “Plus, we get easy parking to all parades and street fairs.”
Amelia (Dr. Amy Lanz) works at the University of Alabama in Huntsville as a clinical assistant professor in nursing and coordinator of curriculum and instruction for the Traditional Baccalaureate Program. Gerald Lanz has worked for Teledyne Brown as a mechanical design engineer for many years.
The Lanzes have one son, Clay, and one daughter, Anna Lanz Holland, married to Jamieson Holland. “Maybe we’ll see a third generation in this home one day,” Amelia said.
