Welcome to the Roff Home blog — my living and evolving documentation of the renovation and restoration of this historic Victorian Italianate home in Watseka, Illinois. Several prominent residents of Watseka have called this place home over the past 140 years. Some have been important to the history of Watseka, while others could be argued to be important to the history of the country.
The original owners were prominent Spiritualists, who in 1878 were the focus of a notorious episode that became known as “The Watseka Wonder: America’s first documented case of spiritual possession.” Back in Victorian America, beliefs in seances and spirits loomed large in the collective imagination, and the story of what happened in this home became a national phenomenon.
Later owners were a little more down to earth, and included a prominent founder of the town, a Civil War veteran and his family, a supposedly corrupt federal judge who faked his own death to escape an angry public, and a cultured woman I would consider an early feminist, major landowner, violinist, world traveler, and even accomplished aviator.
However, despite its high-profile residents, the last major renovation of the home had been in 1940, and time had not been kind. Making matters worse, no one had inhabited the home from 1999-2005, and existing problems were compounded by the five years the home sat empty.
In the winter of 2004-2005, I began discussions with the then owners. I asked the typical, and not so typical, questions: Under what conditions would they sell the home? For how much? What kind of shape was it in? And, considering the stories of seances and spirits, was the home haunted?
There answers were not sugar-coated. The home needed significant work. No one had lived there for five years. And they believed that some strange things had happened over the years, but they were unwilling to go into much detail about them.
As part of the process, I sent out a building inspector. His report on the home gave failing grades to nearly everything: A 100-year-old electrical system had to be replaced. The 1940s-era plumbing was probably failing. The five layers of shingles were causing the roof to bow in from the weight. The red barn paint that covered the exterior brick was flaking and peeling. Exterior mortar below the paint was so worn away that it poured out of the walls like sand. Holes in the roof allowed water to flow down the interior walls of the home during rain storms, damaging everything in its path. Plaster inside the home collapsed off the walls in sheets. The 1940s era paint peeled like potato chips off the interior walls. The floors were damaged from years of water and wear. A weather-beaten porch had become the home to — and toilet for — a family of seven racoons. And termites were chewing parts of the home and its garages to bits.
So, like a fool, I tossed the inspector’s report aside and made an offer on the home. With a handshake, a certified check, and some due diligence by my lawyer, the Roff Home was mine!