Category Archives: Restoration news

John Updike Society member Carole Sherr, who was a friend of Linda Updike’s, recently visited the house at 117 Philadelphia Ave. to check on the progress. R. J. Doerr has been reinstalling decorative corbels at the top of the building—decorative … Continue reading →

Thanks to a $380,000 donation from The Robert and Adele Schiff Family Foundation and $10,000 from the PECO Foundation, work has resumed on The John Updike Childhood Home restoration. Bob Doerr and his crew are now able to finish up the two remaining … Continue reading →

Dave Silcox recently toured The John Updike Childhood Home and took a few pictures of the restoration-in-progress. Below are shots of the dining room, upstairs hallway (with newly extended wall, as described by Updike), and Updike’s bedroom showing the original … Continue reading →

The R. J. Doerr Co., who have been meticulously restoring The John Updike Childhood Home based on Updike’s descriptions and evidence inside the house, are at the point where all of the walls are being primed in preparation for painting … Continue reading →

Recently John Updike Society president Jim Plath and his adult son, Brian, drove to Wabash College (Indiana) to pick up the Kevin Schehr collection of John Updike and deliver it to The John Updike Childhood Home. While there, they did … Continue reading →

Workers from R. J. Doerr are set up for some serious work in the parlor of The John Updike Childhood Home (top) and living room (top middle). They have already reinstalled a dining room door that had been converted into … Continue reading →

Since beginning to examine the house for “footprints” and signs of what The John Updike Childhood Home looked like prior to 1945—when the Updikes left the house at 117 Philadelphia Ave. to move to the Plowville farmhouse—historic restoration expert R.J. Doerr … Continue reading →