Jack Kendall, left, and James Puglisi stand on the porch of their historic home in Shepherdstown. Courtesy photo

One of the more popular drive-by historic homes in Shepherdstown is at 207 East German Street – the one with the elaborate Halloween and Christmas decorations. A gauge of the decorations’ popularity is the official count (a hand held counter is used) of trick-or-treaters that reached 854 last year – an all-time high. To enjoy the Halloween spectacle, friends join the owners, Jim “Pug” Puglisi and Jack Kendall, on the front porch of their 1869 Italianate style home. The home, also known as the Reynolds House, was named for town doctor John Reynolds, who constructed the home and served as mayor during the height of the Civil War.

“When we started with Halloween, few homes in town were decorating, particularly at the scale we did. We expanded Christmas lights during the pandemic so that people would know we weren’t just interested in the supernatural,” mused Puglisi.

When they purchased the home in 2006, the last thing Puglisi and Kendall were thinking about was holiday decorations.

“We knew we wanted a home in West Virginia. We gravitated to Shepherdstown, ranked the top 10 homes that attracted us and ended up buying the number 10 home on our list, because of its availability,” Kendall said.

What they purchased was a preservation project that would take 18 months to complete.

Perhaps a penchant for details in their careers prepared them for what was ahead. Kendall, who grew up on a farm in Capon Bridge, was an attorney for the Department of Energy, including working in petroleum regulation and energy pricing. Puglisi, from the Bethel Park area of Pittsburgh, was a civil engineer in the private sector and then the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The two met at a party in the late 1990s in Washington, D.C., where Puglisi overheard Kendall mention Morgantown, where they had both attended West Virginia University.

Vision was needed to look beyond hanging wires, fallen plaster, mold, vines creeping through windows and a tree growing from the roof with roots protruding into the interior. D.C. preservation architect and Shepherdstown neighbor David Kemnitzer guided them through the work, which included wiring, plumbing, replastering, updated bathrooms and a two-story rear side porch demolition, to create a kitchen on the first floor and a study on the second. The house has heart-pine flooring, 9.5-foot ceilings, nine fireplaces and decorative moldings throughout.

Soon after they moved into the house, a man visiting from New York City with local family connections walked by and told Puglisi and Kendall that he had a photo of the neighborhood with an inscription that it was taken in 1868, undoubtedly from the stone tower (1798) of the Christ Reformed United Church of Christ. The photo shows a Cape Cod style home on the property, with several outbuildings. The foundational stone of their home indicates construction in 1869, so while we don’t know when the Cape Cod was constructed, it must have been demolished in the 1868-1869 time period. We know from Sanborn maps that the outbuildings were demolished between 1915 and the early 1930s.

Dr. John Reynolds had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1841, then served as town doctor into the 1880s. He purchased the property for $490 in 1855, soon after his marriage to Katherine Withrow. Dr. Reynolds served as mayor from 1860 through 1862; for context, the Battle of Antietam was on Sept. 17, 1862, with the Battle of Shepherdstown in the days that followed.

Katherine Reynolds earned her own prominence, including leading a fundraising drive that culminated in a building being erected in 1889 that was connected to the rear of McMurran Hall. The building, which contained an auditorium and stage, was used as the Town Hall from 1897 to 1912, when it was given to the Shepherd College. Shepherd named it Reynolds Hall in her honor in 1929 — 12 years after her death.

Puglisi and Kendall also created a lush landscape that has been featured many times on the Back Alley Garden Tour & Tea — the garden tour side of which Puglisi has helped coordinate in recent years. To line the garden beds, Puglisi excavated stones remaining from the foundations of the demolished outbuildings. Near the rear is a large spruce tree, whose spreading canopy has created an outdoor space for hiding from the world.

Puglisi and Kendall deserve great credit for rescuing and restoring an important post-Civil War era home, built by one of the town’s most prominent residents, as well as for providing the community with great pleasure through viewing the surrounding landscape and holiday decorations that town residents and visitors anticipate and enjoy each year.

Historic Shepherdstown board member Greg Coble wrote this column, with research and editorial assistance of fellow board members Marellen Aherne and Terry Fulton. Historic Shepherdstown is a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving Shepherdstown’s unique architectural character and building public understanding of the town’s distinctive history, through its museum and other programs. Become a member at https://historicshepherdstown.com.