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He told them that Alameda had two houses nearly identical to theirs-with the front sleeping porches intact. But one day an older gentleman knocked on the door, introducing himself as a lifelong resident of Alameda, aneighborhood nearby. Jerod and Maria weren’t even sure that this house really was the one in the old newspaper ad. Inside, the dining room and kitchen had plywood ceilings dropped to 8′, walls were painted an unsettling lime color, floral linoleum had been laid on oak floors, and fluorescent lighting hung overhead. The flat-roofed porch was held up by 4×4 posts and the façade was covered in disproportionate aluminum siding. Decorative rafter tails had been cut back to the roofline (probably secondary to rot that resulted from neglect). An open sleeping porch had been removed, along with side pergolas and overhanging eaves. A 1960s remodeling had rendered it virtually unrecognizable from its picture in a 1913 newspaper ad. It wasn’t surprising, however, that there hadn’t been much interest in the house before the Fitzgeralds saw it. The dining room winks at the past with an interpretive wallpaper from Juju Papers. Box-beam ceilings and generous mouldings hinted at the house’s past as a model home.

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With two full storeys, it had four bedrooms and a generous attic, plenty of space for their three boys. When the couple found the 1913 Craftsman in Portland’s Irvington neighborhood, a National Register Historic District, they were thrilled. The restoration bug didn’t hit him, though, until he met his wife, Maria-a real-estate agent with an eye for neglected, historic houses with potential.

Working on old houses alongside his father, Jerod Fitzgerald grew up learning about carpentry.