Historic Home Tour

Marshall Michigan

Phil & Casey Nager Home
126 West Prospect Street

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A house not seen on the tour since 1984 is the home of Phil and Casey Nager at 126 West Prospect Street. This Princess Anne style home, built in 1898, was built by Dr. Starr Church and his bride, Cora Stuart. Dr. Church’s father owned the home that is now occupied by Sherman Realtors.

The house was originally built with just four rooms on each floor and int the 1920's the kitchen and sleeping porch were added. The house was built with running water, a bathroom, electricity, combination of gas and electric lighting, phone lines and central heating. Changes to the house include adding the French doors and the narrow-strip oak flooring in the 1920's and the original light fixtures were removed.

The major change the Nagers have made to the home is moving the kitchen from what had originally been the dining room to the back of the house. They found parts and pieces of the original kitchen cupboards in the carriage house and used them to build the kitchen worktables and replace woodwork. Some minor changes include the picket fence, replacing the porch and garage foundations, replacing aluminum storms with wood storm windows and endless painting.

Information people may want to know about the house: the plaster walls are original except in the dining room; only the entrance hall is oak...everything else was either poplar or southern yellow pine painted; although the fireplace originally was wood-burning the owners installed a gas burner for safety reasons; almost all the door/window hardware is original and the frieze in the front hall is stenciling, using a design copied from lampshades the owners found. Casey started the project just before the 1984 Home Tour and will finally finish it for the 2006 Home Tour!

Family antiques to look for in the home include the dining room buffet, high chair, child’s rocker, adult’s rocker, violin, cello, barrister bookcase, china and antique tools. You’ll also see some photographs taken by their daughter, jessica (an archeologist and professor at DePauw University) while studying in Europe and the Middle East; model ships collected by Phil; and bunnies collected by Casey.