Trending
Built in the late 1800s at the corner of Ephraim Cutler and Seventh streets, Cisler Terrace hasn’t changed while the area around it has grown to include Marietta Middle School, multiple stores and restaurants and the Marietta Family YMCA.
When Laurie and Jesse Ada moved into the 5,000-square-foot, 13-room brick home at the end of 1996, they knew a lot of work needed to be done. The home had been sitting empty for several years after then-owner Lillian Cisler moved into the Arbors.
“We restored it the whole year of 1997,” said Laurie. “Everything had been abandoned for six years.”
Ada said the home had been boarded up for those six years, but she heard that children going to and from Marietta Middle School had not been kind to it.
“They threw bricks into the windows, so they boarded them up,” she said. “They didn’t lock the basement door and they got in and had a fire on the kitchen floor. They also kicked a couple doors down. Fortunately, they didn’t do too much damage.”
The doors and floors are all original in the house and Ada said a lot of work went into bringing the home back to its former glory.
“My whole thought was restoration, not remodel,” she said. “I saw the potential and how beautiful the house was.”
All-new plumbing and electric was put into the home.
“There was very little electricity upstairs,” said Ada.
Wallpaper was put in the entryway in layers and a double parlor now serves as a sitting room and 3,000-book library.
Animals both domestic and wild had inhabited the upstairs, creating more work for the Adas in their endeavor.
“(Lillian’s) cat had scratched the entire door frame (in an upstairs bedroom),” she said, adding that there were bite marks at the top of some door frames.
Work was done to strip the wood back to its original finish-all the doors, door frames and floors.
“The floors were all painted black,” Ada said. “The floors were not a (direct) feature of the house…Because the rooms didn’t have (access to) sunlight, the hardwood had mold on it and the walls were wet, but they’re still here.”
The home was built in 1886 by Thomas Cisler, the son of German immigrants and founder of the Thomas Cisler & Son brickyard.
“We’re only the second family to own the home,” Ada said.
Thomas’ son, also Thomas, and Lillian, his daughter, were also owners of the home, leading to three generations of Cislers living there, according to local historian Kurt Ludwig.
Ludwig said the brickyard was an asset to the area and the younger Thomas took over operations before it closed.
“It ceased operating during the World War I years,” said Ludwig. “Then in the 1920s the community came together to build a new high school. Thomas reopened the brickyard and made the bricks for the new high school. When they finished, he closed the brickyard for good. It was around 1950 that he died.”
The brickyard was blown down in a cyclone, then burned down at least twice.
The home was the site of the then-oldest running Bach Society and even an astronomy-oriented society.
“It was the oldest-running Bach Society in the world at the time,” said Marietta Councilman Harley Noland. “(Lillian) played a pipe organ at it. Her father opened the meetings, even when he was dead; she had a recording of him.”
The home had the first indoor bathroom in the area.
“They were the first in 1886 to have plumbing; they have the first bathroom,” Ada said. “They were a very prominent family and at least one president was here.”
Ada said upkeep on the home is not what many might think; it’s not expensive or very time consuming.
“I think that’s a false idea,” she said. “Any house needs maintenance. The slate roof has been here for 130 years, and with new roofs, how long do they last? It’s been 20 years that we’ve been here…It’s classic. We (did work) 20 years ago and this will be good; it’s a classic, historical style so it’s never outdated.”
The plan is to stay in the classical home that the family loves.
“My husband especially enjoys the privacy,” said Ada. “We have a little over an acre here in town and we’re close to everything. We have our privacy, yet we’re smack dab in town.”