Real Estate & Home

The Mitchell home was built in 1913 and has been in the Mitchell family since the 1930s.

Dr. Cheryl Leuthaeuser’s office is in a home built in 1841, according to a plaque that hangs on the side.

The Shult-Melkey garden, designed by Master Gardener Brenda Shult, features a green retreat behind a Richfield century home.

The Hoza home features a split rail fence with wood brought from West Virginia. The home was built in the 1830s.

Photos: Ken Crisafi

RICHFIELD — Three historic homes and an extensive garden will be open to the public for the third annual Richfield Town Trust Historic Home & Garden Tour.

The June 13 event, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., will allow attendees access into the historically inspired garden and homes, two of which are more than 150 years old.

The tour is a fund-raiser for the Town Trust, which uses the proceeds from ticket sales to fund grants to homeowners and businesses.

“Both merchants and residents write up what they want to improve to keep with the ambiance of the town with exterior or interior projects,” said Juanita Taylor, a Richfield resident who coordinates the tour. “They put up half the money, and the Town Trust puts up the other half.”

The first year of the tour about 75 people attended. The next year attendance increased to 125, Taylor said.

“We’re growing,” Taylor said. “We’re building up a clientele and enjoying that we’ve had such positive feedback from folks.”

The tour gives visitors a unique take on history, Taylor added.

“What makes the tour a little more unique is that each docent has a script we have written with the homeowners’ help and research from the Richfield Historical Society,” she said. “We give facts about the history of the home, and as people come through, we personalize it. It makes it a very personal tour.”

This year’s tour features the following:

• The Hoza home was built in the early 1930s and was the first frame house in the northwest corner of the township. It’s an example of early New England saltbox architecture. The story-and-a-half home features low, sloping ceilings upstairs. The Hoza family, the current occupants, have done extensive remodeling and have converted the rear of the house into a kitchen and family room with a wood-burning parlor stove.

“The setting is so beautiful,” Taylor said. “They have about 3 acres in the back, a stream and forest. It is lovely.”

Inside the home, Tom Hoza’s collection of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia is kept in the Lincoln Room.

• The Mitchell home was built in 1913 and purchased by an ancestor of the current owner in the 1930s. At that time, it had no indoor plumbing. The Arts and Crafts-style bungalow features a stone foundation, fireplace, natural woodwork and paneling, built-in cabinetry and a porch. The property also includes a barn and outhouse, the latter of which is now used for storage, according to Taylor.

• The office of Dr. Cheryl Leuthaeuser serves as an example of a century home that has been renovated to house a business. Built in the 1840s, the one-and-a-half story home is in the New England Colonial vernacular style. It’s believed that John Payne built the home, as it contains many of his trademarks, such as a sand block foundation, low eaves, a rectangular shape, hand-hewn siding and an outside cellar door.

Dr. Leuthaeuser purchased the home in 2007 and a year later was a Town Trust grant recipient for her landscaping.

Also on the tour is the Shult-Melkey garden, which surrounds another century home. Owner Brenda Shult, a Master Gardener, designed the garden, which was on the 2008 Summit County Master Gardeners Tour. The property formerly was the site of an apple orchard.

Taylor said Shult was inspired by landscape architect Gertrude Jekyll’s writing in creating the garden, which features hellebores and phlox, among other plantings.

Headquarters for the tour is Richfield Fellowship Hall, 3903 Broadview Road. Tour-goers should pick up tickets there, as well as directions to the homes and garden. The hall also will be the site to pick up an optional boxed lunch, which can be ordered in advance for $5, as well as tickets for a Chinese raffle and plant swap. Complimentary tea and cookies also will be available at the hall throughout the day.

Tickets for the tour are $10 in advance, with checks made payable to Richfield Town Trust and sent to 4300 W. Streetsboro Road, Richfield, OH 44286. If ordering lunch, indicate preference of a ham and cheese, turkey and cheese or vegetarian croissant.

Tickets also are available for the tour at Fellowship Hall the day of the tour for $12.

For more information, call (330) 659-4750 or e-mail kls1650@roadrunner.com.