Tom Johnson and Gail Parfrey are no strangers to renovating homes. Together with the help of their contractor David Gackle, the couple has flipped more than 20 homes. They manage these homes as long-term or vacation rental properties. But the Cotton House in Lead was different.
Time had not been kind to the once elegant home built in 1901. When the couple decided to purchase the home from the city for $30,000 in 2018 it was a brick shell with missing floors and bare, stud walls.
In this Take A Moment, Tom Johnson and Gail Parfrey talk about what the home is today – not a long-term or short term rental, but a grand home they enjoy with friends and family. It is filled with original and custom replica woodwork and era appropriate antiques.
Tom Johnson: “Well, I’m certainly aware that any time that you bring something back from the dead so to speak and rejuvenate it and put some life back in it, it does inspire others to do the same thing, but I would certainly not want to think we should take any credit for that. There have been a lot of nice houses redone in Lead before we did this one.
A guy by the name of James Cotton built this house. The house was built in 1901. James Cotton came from Cornwall, England, he worked for Homestake for a period of time and he and a partner by the name of Andrews went into the whiskey distilling business. So, it was Cotton and Andrews Whiskey.”
Gail Parfrey: “Just a lot bigger project than we had ever done before. And honestly, we had never done an old project or an old house, so that was entirely new to us. Made it fun.
We thought we wanted what we call, “comfort furniture” at the time. That will change in due time. Probably find more old stuff or something that looks more fitting. The big pieces came from Texas. The smaller pieces we got from Deadwood. We just started looking and hauling it in and put it in place.”
Tom Johnson: “My favorite features are the original woodwork of this house. The woodwork that has been placed in this house is a replica of the original woodwork. We actually rebuilt all of the base and all of the trim and all of the windows and all of the doors, as they were.”
Gail Parfrey: “This right here behind is the best part of it. It was all just laying around in this house. I have no idea why it is still here. We were able to refinish it and get it to match up with everything. It is just fun to sit in here and look at this and think, “Oh boy, how did they do it back then?”
Tom Johnson: “This house is 120 years old and I’m real sure it will still be here a hundred and twenty years from now.”
