Growing up in Tunkhannock, Denise Ebersole always wondered about the house on West Harrison Street.
“We would drive through, and you always pull up in front and you put the car in park, and you look up and you just stare,” she said. “It's just captivating. And we've always done that. And I see people do that all the time, and I'm not alone in that.”
Ebersole no longer has to wonder. She and her husband, Jon, purchased the Wyoming County home known as the Metcalf Mansion in April and immediately began stopping leaks and making plans. Through social media, she documents restoration progress, and the community has become captivated in learning about the home’s history and getting a glance inside.
Two tours this spring each had more than 400 visitors. The family will again offer free tours of the mansion on Saturday as part of the borough’s Founder’s Day celebration.
“We want everyone to feel comfortable and see behind that beautiful front door,” she said. “You just look at it, you just dream of, ‘Wow, what's going on in there?’ And we just opened the doors for them to flood in during our tours.”
Historic home
Henry Freeman Metcalf and his wife, Pamelia Benedict (sometimes "Camelia" in old newspaper articles) built the seven-bedroom, five-bathroom home in 1895.
A newspaper report about construction of the home describes it as the “finest one in town,” with buff brick on the outside and poplar and white oak inside. Bricks for the Queen-Anne style home arrived via the Susquehanna River, Ebersole said she learned.
The prominent businessman was vice president of Wyoming National Bank and as a hobby, operated what would be called the Metcalf Museum. The Metcalfs added a two-story addition for his collection of artifacts in approximately 1920. When the home began to overflow with relics, he built a two-story museum next door.
The building included firearms, clocks, coins, Native American artifacts, bound copies of old newspapers and signatures of Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis and Civil War generals. The first piano brought to Wyoming County also had a home in the museum. In a 1936 article, the piano was already 150 years old.
Metcalf became a charter member of the Wyoming County Historical Society and hosted students at the museum.
His 1946 obituary calls the museum the “largest private historical collection in Pennsylvania.” The artifacts are long-gone, and the museum is now a private residence next door.
Later, the mansion continued to be a single-family home and more than 20 years ago, opened as a bed and breakfast. The home had been vacant for at least several years before the Ebersoles purchased it.
Extensive restoration
The Ebersoles decided to move from Lancaster to Tunkhannock in 2020. Soon after, they bought a home on Warren Street and turned it into a short-term rental property.
Denise, a counselor and professor, and Jon, a Medicare consultant, found a love for restoration and local history.
“We just hope that we can be able to share this with the community,” Jon Ebersole said. “Our first goal was to save it from, you know, all the damage being done… the roof caving in, and the porch. So we kind of bought it, just trying to save it.”
Plastic children’s pools sat on the floor, collecting rainwater from the leaky roof. Plywood covered some windows, and hardware – from door hinges and doorknobs, to cabinet pulls and the house numbers next to the front door – had been stripped.
So far, the Ebersoles have put on a new roof, began to stabilize the front porch and cut down overgrown landscaping. They’ve filled eight dumpsters so far.
The more than 2-acre property, two blocks north of Route 6, borders Swale Brook. On a warm afternoon this week their children, Andrew, 10, and Anina, 8, explored the home and later relaxed on the front porch on the hot and humid day. A slight breeze provided a little relief.
Denise Ebersole hopes to one day have people gather on the porch.
“We want it to be beautiful. We're just dreaming of what it could be, and that's helping us get through the mess right now, of what it currently looks like,” she said. “But over time, if you don't care for things, this is what happens.”
The Ebersoles don’t plan on moving to the home, but instead would like to host events at the mansion – pending borough approval – or make it a bed and breakfast or short-term rental property.
Community interest
The home is one of many buildings on the Historic Tunkhannock Walking Tour. Early settlers of the borough worked in lumbering, shad fishing and farming, according to the tour. The 1869 construction of the first rail line through Tunkhannock helped the town flourish, with much of the downtown business district – and the Metcalf Mansion – built in the last three decades of the 19th century.
The mansion’s renovation has brought renewed interest and attention to the property, with people reminiscing about prior visits there or even childhood dreams of being princesses and the mansion being their castle.
Community members have offered more than memories. Some of the furniture and photographs, even a mantle to replace one that was stripped from the home, came from generous residents.
A fern plant showed up on the porch one day. So did a teacup with an anonymous note stating the gifter bought the cup at a yard sale at the home in the early 2000s. A couple who had previously been given a large urn from the front yard recently donated it back.
Descendents of the Metcalfs have also visited the home, reminiscing about Christmas morning in the museum room or taking wedding photos on the grand staircase.
Jeramie Cannella, Denise Ebersole’s brother, is leading the restoration efforts by serving as contractor and designer. With the mansion just a couple blocks from Tunkhannock schools, he remembers seeing the home each day on the way to class.
“I just think it's part of everyone's history. When I look back and see the amount of people … the life that went through this house, it's amazing. I can't wait to bring it back so that this next generation of people and beyond can enjoy it too. That's what we want, ultimately,” he said. “We have a lot of old construction here that's worthy of saving. And I know they said that Tunkhannock was one of those towns that was like a ‘Hallmark town,’ and I see that it really is. It is that cute. There's a lot to discover in the back streets.”
Saturday's tour of the home at 50 W. Harrison St. is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
