By Brian McBride

Associate Editor

The Kissimmee Community Redevelopment Agency unveiled its new office and museum to the public March 17, a refurbished historic home that Manager Gail Hamilton hopes will inspire other rehabilitation projects and serve as a teaching tool for Kissimmee’s past.

The 3,000-square-foot, two-story Folk-Victorian house at 804 Bryan St. in downtown Kissimmee, called the Bryan House, is a five-year, $1.2 million project that sits near the Osceola County Courthouse and administration building.

The house, built in the early 1900s, was fully restored from the hardwood floors to the fireplaces. The new agency office, which moved from a site on Monument Avenue, opened its doors to the public March 17 to offer a glimpse of the finished project. The grand opening drew a crowd that wanted to see history come to life.

“I think they did a very good job,” Kissimmee Mayor Jim Swan said. “Anytime you can retain and restore a historic building, it’s a good thing.”

The CRA hired a historic preservation consultant, The Durable Restoration Company, a national building restoration company, which completed the job. State grants and money budgeted by the agency funded the work.

“They literally took every board off the building and examined it to see if we could use it and put it back as it was 100 years ago,” Hamilton said. “Their painstaking attention to detail was absolutely amazing.”

So much so that the agency submitted the final product to compete in the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation’s restoration contest and is awaiting final results.

But when the project started five years ago, the house was in rough shape. Parts of the roof and porches had been damaged by Hurricane Charley in 2004.

“I was nervous we wouldn’t get to do an accurate restoration because of the damage to the home,” Hamilton said.

But because it was such a successful project, Hamilton hoped the desire for others in the area to do renovation work would be contagious. One of the goals of the agency is to get people living downtown to take advantage of the area’s shops and restaurants.

“My hope is that people who have an old home (in the downtown area) can come and look at what we are doing here and (it will) inspire them,” Hamilton said.

The agency has several different grants it can offer to help restore homes.

“The CRA really wants to encourage the rebuilding of historic homes in the district,” Hamilton said. “As the CRA, we look at what makes Kissimmee unique. Our historical assets are one of the things that set us apart from other communities.”

A special feature of the agency’s new building is the first-floor museum. Visitors can find a variety of artifacts from a phonograph to dated love letters that were found during the restoration work in a box embedded in the wall of the home. It wasn’t known to whom the letters were written, CRA officials said.

The museum is open to the public from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. during the week.

Can the house also add a shot to the unity of the downtown area? Hamilton said she wants to set up a program called “Thursday Afternoon on the Porch.” It would be where local residents could possibly hear a guest speaker or just sit and talk with a beverage in hand, while enjoying a Florida breeze, she said.

“If we promote this great sense of community, the whole downtown district will be better for it,” she added.

The home had actually been in Kissimmee resident Bonnie Jean Johnston’s family for more than six decades before it was sold just before Hurricane Charley hit the county. The parents of Bonnie Jean’s late husband, Ray Johnston, acquired the 3,000-square-foot house in the 1940s and sold it to their son and daughter-in-law in the early 1960s. The house had actually been converted into apartments before the restoration.

Johnston, who was at the opening, said she was impressed by the final product, marveling at the restored floors and fireplaces.

“I’m really proud of it,” she said. “There’s nothing really I would do different.”

Anyone who has any historic artifacts who would like to showcase them in the museum, should call Hamilton at the Community Redevelopment Agency at 407-518-2587.

“We would be thrilled to display it in the museum,” she said.