The key to the charm of an old house is the stories contained in its walls. Elm Grove, on Martintown Road, has a few to choose from.
Homeowners JoAnn and Forrest McKie are quick to deny being experts about the history of the 1842 home.
The McKies moved into the home in 1977. It is a family heirloom, she said.
The history greets visitors on the front porch where a patched bullet hole is in one of the original double-front doors.
The story goes that after the Civil War, robbers attempted to relieve owner Thomas McKie of some of his wealth. They fired a shot through the front door.
"(The robber) climbed under the house and came in this window," JoAnn said, pointing to an original window in the dining room.
Thomas McKie shot and killed the man, she said.
The massive front doors open to a hallway and a curved staircase that wraps around the hallway to the second floor.
"This is a real unusual staircase," JoAnn said.
It was designed to aid in heating and cooling the house, she said. When the front doors and matching double back doors were opened at the same time, air traveled through the hallway and up through the stairwell, the ceiling of which curves toward the upstairs hallway.
By today's standards, it didn't help. The McKies installed three heating and air units to keep the house comfortable. They also enclosed the back porch and turned it into a sun room.
"That did more to help than anything else," she said.
The air now meets a glass wall where the balcony was located. When the McKies' two daughters were small, JoAnn worried for their safety. She saved the materials from the original bannister in case someone in the future wants to re-install it.
The home's original kitchen was not inside the house, but in a barn behind the house. The barn still stands, but the McKies have no plans to renovate it, JoAnn said.
The story JoAnn is quick to tell is about how the couple lived in the only two acceptable rooms for two months after they moved in.
Five renters shared the house when Forrest and JoAnn took possession in 1977. She said the house was covered in fleas, and the plaster was beginning to crack on some of the walls.
"We started off in the living room and the kitchen," she said. "We had to go next door to bathe and cook."
Forrest lived in the house until he was 10, she said. After that, it was his grandparents' home and he lived next door.
"When he grew up they called this the big house," JoAnn said.
JoAnn called the renovation of Elm Grove a journey, but said it's not one she cares to repeat.
"We had to move from room to room and now we're just done," she said.
This is part of a series featuring historic homes and buildings of North Augusta.
Reach Lisa Kaylor at lisa.kaylor@northaugustatoday.com.
