Bellevue house tour highlights neighborhood's 'authentic sense of place'

Participants in Bellevue’s sixth Live-Worship-Shop House Tour will experience more than just eight local homes, ranging from cozy bungalows to stately mansions.

At each stop, they’ll be offered samples from a local restaurant, bakery or other food purveyors. Each homeowner on the Oct. 15 tour also has chosen a scented candle from PSquare Scents in Bellevue to complement the home’s special features.

It all adds up to an experience that reflects the best of the local community, according to tour chairperson Susan Stabnau.

“Across America, people choose to live, work and play in historic, well-established, walkable neighborhoods,” she said. “Residents move to places like Bellevue because they desire to live somewhere distinctive and unique with an authentic sense of place.”

Many homes in the small community are older and have interesting architectural details and histories. Featured homes are in various states of construction — from properties set for major remodels to others already lovingly restored.

Stabnau and her husband, Roger Powell, will open the doors of their home, a three-story, Colonial Revival residence on Summit Avenue. With a green stucco exterior, the 4,500-square-foot residence dates to about 1905.

Prior to purchasing the home in 2009, Stabnau and her family lived across from it on the dead-end, brick street. She often found herself looking out her window and imagining what she, as an interior designer, could do with it.

On a large, sloping lot with a stacked stone wall, shaded by a locust tree, she said, “It was just a beautiful, beautiful house. As an interior designer, it was one of those houses you look at and say, it has so much potential.”

Saying it had potential was also saying that it needed work — but it also had the space she wanted for a home office for her business, Susan Stabnau Interiors.

“My heart was pounding out of my chest when I heard it was for sale,” Stabnau said.

The house had great bones, along with nine fireplaces and 12 rooms, including five bedrooms, two full baths, a powder room and “the obligatory Pittsburgh potty” — and room on the third floor for two spacious offices.

What it needed, according to the inspector, was “everything.” That meant new stucco, roof, ceilings, plumbing and electric, two furnaces, an air conditioning system and landscaping.

“The back porch was falling off,” Stabnau said. “Every ceiling, every wall, every closet, was wallpapered.”

Taking the wallpaper off revealed raw plaster walls that needed repairs. The floors also needed refinishing.

“It was a labor of love,” Stabnau said.

Telling a story

When designing spaces for clients, Stabnau said, she likes to create an aesthetic that reflects their tastes and lifestyles — a philosophy that she applied to her own home.

“I tend to like things with soul, things that have had previous lives,” she said. Her furnishings and decorative items often come from estate sales or resale outlets.

“I like to put them together in a way that tells a story,” she said. “The tour-goers will get a sense of who we are and what we like” — which is a relaxed lifestyle that includes frequent hosting of friends and neighbors.

Each word in the tripartite tour name illustrates a special aspect of Bellevue, said Theresa Gallick, tour publicity chair.

“Worship” is for Bellevue’s many beautiful historic churches, including Christ the King Church, 10 N. Fremont Ave., where tour-goers will register and which will be open for them to explore.

“Shop” is to emphasize not only the businesses supplying food, but the whole of Bellevue’s “lovely walkable retail corridor filled with mom-and-pop shops and one-of-a-kind restaurants and food shops,” Gallick said.

For “Live,” she said, “Certainly Susan and Roger’s home … represents Bellevue living at its finest. The home is gorgeous, and Susan and Roger are two of the nicest and most community-oriented people in Bellevue.”

Their home is definitely worth the price of admission, Gallick added.

“You can point a camera anywhere in the house and get a magazine-worthy shot,” she said.

Hours for the self-guided tour are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets are $30 in advance at bonafidebellevue.com, or $35 at registration on tour day.

Proceeds benefit the tour sponsor, Bona Fide Bellevue, a nonprofit community development organization that promotes the community to bring in new residents and businesses. It also sponsors clean-up days, oversees a farmers market, offers educational programming and participates in other events and projects.