May 21, 2003
Return of tower makes dream come true
Bonnie Sobbry restores showcase Victorian home on Sixth Street to former glory
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
The lift of a construction crane was the culmination of decades of dreaming for Bonnie Sobbry: restoring the tower on her showcase Victorian home on Sixth Street.
Wednesday afternoon, as friends, neighbors and curious passerby gathered to watch, workers from Collier Brother's Construction took off the roof of the truncated tower space, hoisted the new tower in place and replaced the roof on top.
With these actions, the Rufli House, as it was known for years, regained its former glory.
"It is just a thrill, I've gone up in it every chance I get," said Sobbry, a self-employed property manager. "I love this house and felt that I owed it, both to it and my children's father, to complete our dream and restore this beautiful lady."
Sobbry and her late husband, Robert Francis Huff, purchased the property in 1964. A young couple with a growing family, they were determined to restore the tower. A year later, her husband, a medical professional at Osteopathic Hospital, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He died in 1972 leaving Sobbry with two young boys to raise; she put their dream on hold, but never forgot it.
"We didn't get to fulfill that dream together so I have tried to do it on my own," Sobbry said.
During the intervening years, she extensively renovated the house inside and out. Legions of friends and family members have helped during this process. Sobbry fondly recalls many of her sons' friends lending a hand as junior high and high school students.
"This house holds a lot of memories for a lot of people," she noted. "This is the only home my children have ever lived in and next July, I'll have been in this house 40 years; I can't ever move."
George Gregory of Traverse City stopped by Wednesday afternoon to watch the proceedings. Gregory grew up next door to the Ruflis House and recalls playing in the tower as a young boy in the early 1940s. He lived on Sixth Street until 1959 and is thrilled to see the tower restored.
"It was great stuff, you could see everywhere, all the way to the Bay in the fall," he recalled. "The Ruflis let their kids bring their friends over, there were parties and it was just fun."
"I can't say enough about Bonnie doing this," Gregory said.
Sobbry has spent years gathering information on the home's history. She began specifically compiling data about a future tower restoration in 1980 and obtained approval for the project years before construction began. When interest rates dropped, she decided to take the plunge.
"One man's deer blind is another woman's tower," Sobbry has quipped when teased about the impractical nature of the project.
"It has just been fun to finally see it done," she said. "I was surprised at the size because on paper it is hard to see. But the size is accurate."
Former residents of the home and neighborhood helped in her historical research quest. Fellow Sixth Street resident Dick Whiting told her the tower came down in the early 1950s, probably for maintenance reasons.
"He said he used to come up weekends from downstate and the tower was always there and he came up one weekend and boom, it was gone," she said.
Gregory gave her some photos recently and ten years ago former resident Jake Rufli stopped by during the National Cherry Festival. He told her many stories of the home and later sent her a video containing 8mm movies his family had taken while living there.
"He told me his mother had bumped out the living room to make room for the grand piano, I had always wondered about that," said Sobbry, who plans to share both the photos and the video with the Grand Traverse Pioneer and Historical Society. "I have an in-home office in what was the dining room and he said he could almost smell the wet wool snow pants that used to sit on the radiator when he was a kid."
Sobbry also said the video shows a two-story carriage house, unlike the one-story building there now. This discrepancy sparked a new idea.
"That may be my next project," she said.