248 N. Main Street
One of the older homes in Oregon is the Queen Anne style house built in 1897 for Mr. and Mrs. (Mabel) L. B. Marvin. L.B. Marvin was then 23 and the eldest son of local hardware merchant, H. H. Marvin. The lot was purchased from his grandfather, Oregon pioneer, A. B. Marvin. By May 20th of 1897, C. B. Kellor and Rasmus Anderson were laying the foundation walls for the new house. By July 22nd the house was ready for window and door casings and its floor, and by August 26, the Marvins were at home in the house that the local paper called, “One of the finest in town.”
The Marvins lived at 248 N. Main until 1901 when they traded this house for another owned by Mabel Marvin’s father, M. R. Terwilliger. Terwilliger then rented the “Marvin” house to Franklin Gould. Gould added a summer kitchen to the back of the house 1902, then purchased it for $1800 and lived in it until 1906, when he sold the house to retired farmer, Sheldon Tusler and his wife. The Tuslers lived here until Mrs. Tusler’s death, and the house was afterwards occupied for many years by their daughter, Hattie Tusler Black.
Edward and Sally Jo Quamme purchased the house in 1985 and restored the interior and exterior of the home. Fortunately, the house was still in largely original condition and the restoration consisted mainly of redecorating in a historically appropriate fashion and updating the kitchen and bathrooms. The Quammes did most of the work and Mr. Quamme’s brother crafted the beautiful wood kitchen cabinets. The result of the renovation is one of Oregon’s most intact and best kept Queen Anne style houses.
After the Quamme’s, Kathie and Bruce Bahman owned the home for three years. Edward Lyon purchased the home in 2007. The entire landscape has been transformed into a garden. Lyon is the director of the Allen Centennial Gardens on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.