When Marcia Dorsey announced the restoration of an 1800s-era house in the Carondelet neighborhood, she tweeted the news under the handle @MioNonnisCasa: “Hello I’m fun, inspiring, 160 years old (very least), loved by many, and on the way back!”
The little stone house, located at 124 E. Steins, was much loved by Dorsey’s grandmother, Nazarena Derussy Cogo, who lived in a larger house, now demolished, on the same lot.
“The stone houses reminded my grandmother of her home in Italy,” says Dorsey. “Four of her six children and their spouses lived in the small stone house at different times. That was a happy time for her.”
Dorsey lived with her parents in Nonni’s house from her birth through the second grade. She recalls the flower-beds full of bright zinnias and four o’clocks. “Flowers were her passion, and cooking,” says Dorsey. “I still remember her polenta, how she made ravioli on the metal-topped kitchen table, and her sauces. She left her home and the man she loved in Osoppo, in northern Italy. She came to a foreign country. She spoke no English and knew no one.”
Although many Italians settled on The Hill, Dorsey’s grandparents moved to East Steins Street in 1943. “Italians too poor to live on The Hill lived here,” Dorsey says. “My grandmother found friends she could talk to. I walked to St. Boniface School. My mother and my aunts all worked at Kipp’s Candies. This was once a busy community.”
But over time, the businesses on South Broadway disappeared and the area declined. Marcia and Tim Dorsey, parents of Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey, hope that the restoration of the stone house, and then of others, will fuel renewed interest in the neighborhood. They’d like to see artists settle in; this fall, they’ll open an art gallery with rotating exhibits inside the stone house. In the meantime, they are lavishing attention on the little house. They hired stonemason Lee Lindsey of Stone Works to restore the 18-inch-thick walls, and woodworker David Moore to build the doors, windows, and floors.
“Tim found the Civil War–era windows,” says Moore. “I discovered red oak lumber from an old barn for the floors.”
Michael Kanyuck of Distinctive Design & Construction, recreated the floor joists and beams consisting of wood cut timbers from a factory dating to the 1880s, and lighting designer Randy Burkett used modern technology to imbue a candlelit effect and design the gallery lighting. Now, the little stone house glows, once again, with a golden light in tribute to a woman who loved her family and her community.
