House of the week: A restored 1905 Dutch Colonial in East Oak Lane for $750,000

Kelly McShain Tyree, the oldest of nine children in an Irish Catholic family, grew up in a 300-year-old building in East Oak Lane that had once been a Colonial tavern.

Her mother was an artist/historian who “instilled in us a love of architecture,” she said, and the family became civic leaders in a 10-by-10-block section of the neighborhood. Dad was from a long line of builders.

So McShain Tyree, an actor turned real estate agent, had mixed feelings when a neighborhood family decided they could no longer maintain their 1905 Dutch Colonial and asked her to put it on the market.

McShain Tyree knew it would be an easy sale to an investor or “flipper” who would restore it as a conventional house or perhaps raze it and replace it. And she and family members saw this as an unfortunate loss of history.

“It had beautiful bones,” she said. “We wanted to preserve its soul. I told them, ‘Give me a week.’ ”

McShain Tyree and several other family members took ownership of the home, and her younger brother, master carpenter Devitt McShain, stepped in to take charge of the restoration project himself.

And this month, three years later, the work is complete.

The five-bedroom, 3½-bath home is on four levels and has 3,716 square feet.

The restoration includes a showcasing of the gambrel roof line, the addition of a back deck, and collapsing porch planks reconditioned and stained dark walnut for a wainscoting project in the third-floor bath.

The front porch solarium opens into the living room and dining room with French doors. There is a wine cellar on the lower level and a garden room in the back of the home.

Four of the bedrooms are on the second level, including the primary bedroom.

The upper level has one bedroom, a media room, family room, wet bar, vaulted ceilings, and a rebuilt Palladian window.

There are new plumbing and electrical systems and updated HVAC.

The house is listed by Kelly McShain Tyree of Elfant-Wissahickon-Chestnut Hill for $750,000.