Haven: Queen Village trio has a family history

The trio of Colonials in Queen Village is as charming as a storybook illustration.

Indeed, the transformation of the once-tumbledown dwellings is a family saga.

Ann Foringer now lives in one of the end houses with husband Scott and daughter, Mai, 17. Previously, the structure was occupied by Ann's parents, Homer and Helen Rhule, who bought it in the mid-1980s.

"My father was offered a job in Center City, and my parents decided to relocate" from Westfield, N.J., Ann said. "Mother wanted to restore a house - the older the better."

The Rhules were in their 60s and looked forward to the convenience of city living as they aged, their daughter said.

The house, built about 1738, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Stucco stripped from the façade exposed brick, which had to be repointed according to register requisites. Windows were replaced with historically accurate reproductions. Inside the house, the Rhules discovered original beams above dropped ceilings and seven fireplaces hidden behind walls.

They dug out the dirt crawl space and created a brick-floored basement. On that lower level, they installed a kitchen with a breakfast nook and a dumbwaiter, a storage and laundry room, and a powder room. The open space near the staircase would later become Scott Foringer's home office. (He's an insurance adjuster.)

Upstairs, the Rhules installed wide-plank wood flooring. In the front parlor, Helen Rhule surrounded the fireplace with vintage blue-and-white Delft tiles. Walls were painted white; wood trim, blue. An 18th-century mantel for the living room's fireplace was found in an ancestral cabin in central Pennsylvania.

The second floor was divided into two bedrooms, a dressing room, and two baths. Another bedroom in the dormer on the third floor is now Mai's retreat.

In the guest bedroom, Ann Foringer displays items from her mother's trove of vintage clothing, including a bustle belonging to a great-great-grandmother.

Three years after buying their home, the Rhules purchased two adjacent houses. And one night, Ann said, "after too many glasses of wine," the family decided to convert those two houses, which they were restoring, into a bed-and-breakfast.

Ann and her brother, Ray, operated the Shippen Way Inn from 1990 until a year or so after their father's death in 2005. When the inn closed, the Foringers sold their house in Pennsport and moved to the Rhules' home. (Helen Rhule lived in one of the two houses that comprised the inn until her death in 2012.)

After relocating to Queen Village, the Foringers repainted the rooms, keeping the same color scheme. The blue and white match the Willow ware and flow blue china Ann collected or inherited from her mother. The pieces are displayed over the parlor fireplace and in Helen Rhule's blue-and-yellow corner cupboard.

Sunlight from a French door leading to the garden reflects off cranberry glass arranged on shelves in the dining room.

The taller of two 18th-century grandfather clocks in the living room was purchased by the Rhules in Lancaster County. Scott Foringer bought the smaller clock in Scotland.

Numerous framed samplers stitched by Ann or her mother line the walls. Two samplers behind glass are antiques.

The house is a treasure trove of period furnishings.

"Scott lets me decorate," Ann said.

"It's cluttered, but we like it," he said.

Wall art also includes watercolor family portraits painted by Scott's mother, Romaine. Among them are images of Scott at age 3 and of Ann at 19, shortly before her marriage to him 40 years ago in June.

Scott's work area features a rolltop desk for his computer. Besides creating the home office when they moved in, the Foringers remodeled the kitchen.

"My mother wasn't much of a cook; I am," Ann said.

The porcelain farm sink seems appropriate in a Colonial house. "It's from Ikea," Ann said.

Risers on the circular staircase to the basement are stenciled with cats that Helen Rhule painted.

"She was a cat-lover, too," Ann said. (The Foringers have three, plus a blue merle collie.)

As long as she can manage the steps, Ann said, she hopes to remain in her beloved multi-level home.

"They're good exercise," she said.