Grande dame

CEDAR RAPIDS - She has been one of the grandest ladies of Grande Avenue Southeast for these past 92 years.

A three-story brick house situated regally on a sloping terrace, she was built in 1922 by Dr. Wencil Naibert, a dentist, and after two more physician-owners, is ironically today still owned by a retired orthodontist, Dr. William (Bill) DeKock and his wife, Margie.

Not that the home is all elegance with a 'don't touch” air: Indeed, it has had a robust share of lively youngsters growing up in it through the years, including the DeKocks' two sons and daughter, now adults.

As with any lady of advancing age, the house needed attention throughout the years. The DeKocks have given her a 'face-lift” - tuckpointing her stately brown bricks, adding soaring white pillars to the porch, and installing black wrought-iron fencing with brick posts that announce the near-acre grounds.

Inside, they have overhauled her 'innards,” too. It now has five bedrooms (down from six), three full baths and two half-baths (up from one bath), all perfect accommodations for three visiting children and six grandchildren.

Standing in a marble foyer, one looks through arched doorways to see the impressionist colors of the generous 25-foot-by-16-foot living room, centered by a white paneled fireplace. Then one glances into a dining room with a walnut Queen Anne table and buffet, a room measuring a comfortable 15-by-15 feet. Other doorways lead to Margie's den/study and to a pristine kitchen where the DeKocks laid a random-planked oak floor, which then leads to a dinette/buffet area.

Antiques, reproductions and vintage family pieces provide a pleasing mix throughout the rooms.

On the second floor are the expanded master bedroom and marble-walled/floored bathroom plus two guest bedrooms, along with Bill's spacious office. The third level houses two more bedrooms and a bath. The lower fourth level has a rec room where Bill proudly displays his complete collection of Sports Illustrated beginning with the first edition of Aug. 16, 1954. Here also are a pool table, wet bar/kitchenette, half-bath and laundry/sewing area.

The home's classic roof is the original flat red tile. The yard includes a large brick patio in back, a basketball/volleyball court and room to play football. A privacy fence encloses all.

Three furnaces and condensers furnish heating/cooling in zones to the near 5,000 square-foot home on four levels, and there's a 75-gallon water heater.

Margie chose traditional decor to reflect the home's architecture. Colors are largely soft and muted; off-white carpeting runs throughout the house with few exceptions. She doesn't use a cleaning service. She did when working as a teacher, but does the cleaning herself now. 'I'm Swedish and the Swedish are all hard workers,” she says, smiling broadly.

The home's four floors unfold so seamlessly and integrate into the outdoors so well that it seems the house was always that way. But the couple, both 76, have worked almost unceasingly since buying it in 1968, changing, expanding, improving, until it is now a tribute to the past while being a commodious compliment to the present.

Margie grew up in Iowa City where her father, Mason Ladd, was dean of the College of Law at the University of Iowa.

'Our home was built in 1901 in the historic part of Iowa City ... To me, old homes are very welcoming and have lots of space,” she says.

Her childhood home was located between Grant Wood's Iowa City home and that of Mauricio Lasansky, the famed UI printmaker. The couple now display works from both artists.

The DeKocks paid $40,000 for the house 46 years ago. Bill figures they have spent around $400,000 since then bringing it up-to-date and making it the handsome - and 21st century-comfortable - home it is today.

Changes include two additions, which took large chunks of that $400,000. One was the 30-foot-by-22-foot family room overlooking the backyard. It has skylights and ends in a huge glass-roofed bay window that surveys the patio and rolling lawn. A tiled gas fireplace, TV, custom bordered rug and comfortable furniture. It is Bill's favorite room.

'I like the skylights that allow the sunlight in. The morning is when I read the paper here and,” says the avid sports fan, 'at night I watch TV and the Iowa Hawkeyes.”

The other sizable addition was Bill's second-floor study where a spiral staircase accesses the first floor. He has his computer in the 22-foot-by-11-foot space, convenient for his extensive communications as a founder and current secretary-general of the World Federation of Orthodontists.

The remodeling/expanding was a daunting job at first. The kitchen was their first project. They tackled changes over the span of decades, closing excess doorways, taking out walls, finishing off the basement and third floor, adding columns and fencing in front, putting in the family room and study, adding a third stall to the brick garage, doing the landscaping, installing intercom, irrigation and security systems - and replacing all the windows with thermopane combinations.

'That cut our heating (cooling) bills in half,” says Bill.

Margie's favorite room is the living room. 'I read in there and practice my bagpipes,” she says, recalling her four years in the Scottish Highlanders during her UI days.

What do they hope for the house in the decades to come? 'This house has been cared for and loved for nearly a century,” says Margie. 'Hopefully, generations to come will enjoy this home and care for it as much as our family and the previous owners have.”