By Deb Gau

dgau@marshallindependent.com

MARSHALL – For more than 20 years, the Lyon County Historical Society has been celebrating the holidays by sharing the Marshall area’s historic homes holiday decorations with the public. Later this month, four more homes will be on display as part of the Society’s Holiday Home Tour.

“It should be an exciting home tour,” said Nicole DeBoer, one of the organizers of this year’s tour, which is on Nov. 30.

“We have a good diversity of ages of homes,” as well as decorating styles, DeBoer said. “We try to do a little bit of a mix, from historical to modern.”

The four homes featured this year will be the Meulebroeck home on North 3rd Street, the Matt and Jamie Wendorff home on A Street, the Ryan and Ann Schlenner home on Viking Drive, and the Randy and Sima Wewetzer home on Westwood Drive.

“Each one has got a different flavor,” said tour organizer Kathy Lozinski.

Historical Society members are hoping that people will come to enjoy the tour.

“This is our major fundraiser of the year,” DeBoer said. While the Historical Society will sometimes have fundraisers geared toward a specific project or museum exhibit, DeBoer said the Holiday Home Tour helps provide general support for the Historical Society.

Providing some of the historical interest on the tour will be the Brad and Gina Meulebroeck home. The house, which the Meulebroecks bought from Brian and Sandy Hoffman last year, dates back to the early 1930s. It has some striking features like a grand staircase and original woodwork, like built-in cabinets and pocket doors in the formal dining room.

“A lot of (the decor) was here when we moved in,” Gina Meulebroeck said. “I grew up down the street from this house,” she said, so it was something of a dream to get to see it from the inside, let alone live there.

There have been some updates made to the house, Meulebroeck said. A servant’s room on the main floor has been turned into a craft room, and a massive upstairs bathroom has been divided into a master bath and a smaller, separate bathroom.

The Matt and Jamie Wendorff home on A Street also has a little bit of history to it. The house was built in 1950, and the Wendorffs are only the third family to live in it since it was built.

“It’s exciting,” to be part of the tour, Jamie Wendorff said.

The house came with features like fireplaces that Jamie Wendorff says the whole family enjoys, but the Wendorffs have also added their own touches. Some of the newer features are a redecorated breezeway between the house and the garage, and a bar in the den with a unique backstory.

“We had this huge black walnut tree in the back yard,” Wendorff said. The tree survived severe storms in July 2011, only to be taken down by the city a year later. But the Wendorffs saved a slab of wood cut from the trunk, “And Matt finished it, and made it into the top of the bar.”

There’ll be plenty of holiday spirit on display at the Ryan and Ann Schlenner home on Viking Drive. The Schlenner family already has 16 Christmas trees of different sizes set up around their house, and Ann Schlenner said they’re not done decorating yet.

“This is my holiday. Everyone has their holiday,” Schlenner said. Being part of the Holiday Home Tour was a chance to try something new, and share some Christmas cheer with guests, she said. “I was honored. It’s something we’ve never done before.”

Along with all the traditional lights and greenery, family is a big part of the Schlenners’ holiday decorations. There are ornaments with portraits of the Schlenners’ four children, and each child has his or her own small Christmas tree, decorated with special ornaments. Gabriella, Jocelyn, Ahnya and Magnus Schlenner were adopted from Russia, Korea, Ethiopia, and China, respectively, and some of the ornaments on their trees are reminders of their heritage. Magnus pointed out one of his favorites – a tree topper shaped like a panda.

One home on the tour will be a standout for its unique decor, organizers said. Randy and Sima Wewetzer’s home on Westwood Drive features lots of colorful artwork created by Sima.

“She has transformed that house into kind of a gallery,” DeBoer said.

Along with paintings, updated furniture and chandeliers that Wewetzer made herself, one of the standout features in the house is a 3-D wall mural that she sculpted and painted in bright yellows, reds and blues.

“This is the story of ‘He loves me, he loves me not,'” Wewetzer said. The central figure in the mural is a woman plucking petals from a flower as she plays the game. Wewetzer said the mural took about a year to complete.

“I used clay, and these are made from dough,” she said, pointing to sculpted and painted flowers accenting the mural.

The basement level of the house includes a gallery of Wewetzer’s paintings, as well as space she uses as a studio.

Wewetzer said she was happy to be part of the home tour. “You get to meet new people,” she said of the experience.

The Holiday Home Tour starts at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 30. Tickets are available for a donation of $20 each, and are at the Lyon County Historical Museum and Marshall Hy-Vee.