Thursday, November 19, 2009

Inside the Petersen House


On Wednesday I finally decided to go and visit The Petersen House Museum in Tempe. The outside of this house is decidedly very pretty but just wait until you see the interior. The house has been semi-remodeled but mostly restored to it's original condition. Although completely furnished none of the furniture is original to the house however it is true to the time.

The house was built back in 1892 and yet only three families lived there. When the Petersens passed it was willed to a relative but it was stipulated that the house could not be sold. An ASU art professor rented the house for some 18 years up until 1967 or around that time. It wasn't until the mid 80's that the house was given to the Tempe Historic Society and the restoration begun.

Upon entering you see how grand the house is by the foyer's look. The house was built specially for Mr. Petersen's wife. She was accustomed to living in a similar house back east and that's when a well known architect was commissioned to building it.

Although three different families lived there only the Petersen's used the master bedroom in the second floor. There is a huge amount of detail such as the picture rails, the wooden floors, the wall papered borders which to this day are still the original borders and there is even a mural that sits over the chimney that at one point was painted over it. It was discovered by chance while restoring the house and little by little it was cleaned. The parlor had a similar mural but that one could not be saved as it was heavily damaged.

I hope you enjoy the following tour throught this beautiful house.

The dinning room used to be where the parlor is until this was turned into the new dinning room.

This beautiful mural was painted over but recovered during the house restoration.

This is the master bedroom that was only used by the Petersens only, no one ever occupied it after they passed.

How's this for a refrigerator. I believe this is circa 1930s.

This is an original chandelier.



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5 comments:

Chely said...

Ahh, you finally went in! Cool. Did you go by yourself? It is interesting to find this kind of house in Arizona.

Thanks for the tour=)

Chely

Michelle said...

That's pretty cool! Reminds me of the little house I used where I got married.

Tiff went to this one place last year... I'll have to ask her what it was called. The tours are $5. Maybe we can go together and check it out one weekend.

I'll get the info.

Jose said...

Chely - I did go by myself and the lady took almost a whole hour describing the details of the house. This one was as pretty as the newer house at the Homestead Museum. They are supposed to totally light it up for Christmas as they do in Denmark and they'll open it at night for the public.

Michelle - There is the Rosson House and Mystery Castle and of course Saguaro Ranch. They also give tours there.

TaiOfMine said...

Hello,

The Petersen House is closing in mid-June and I was wondering if I could use some of your photos in a DVD slide show for the museum staff. Let me know at taiofmine@gmail.com.

Thanks. :)

Jose said...

I would love to see that DVD. Sure, go ahead and use the images for that purpose.

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