NORTH ABINGTON TWP. — You wouldn’t know by looking, but Barb and Dave Sanders had just returned from vacation the night before opening up their home for strangers to scrutinize.
“We got back at 9 o’clock last night,” Barb Sanders said, laughing. “The suitcases are hiding in the closet.”
Their mountain home, tucked into the hillside overlooking North Abington Road, was one of four stops during the annual Great House Tour of Waverly, a fundraiser for the Waverly Community House and a chance for anyone to check out some of the Abingtons’ stately abodes.
Dave Sanders, an architect, and his wife built their window-encrusted home on 38 acres in 2014. They had been a tour stop back then, but found folks still wondered what it looked like inside.
“If you open it up like this, then all those people get to see it all at once and it’s decorated very nicely when they do,” Barb Sanders said.
Homeowners get to show off their swanky digs, and retailers and interior designers display their designing chops by decorating.
Lisa Farrell, who owns the Waverly General Store, decked out the Sanders home with subtle tchotchkes, candles, table settings and lots of evergreen sprigs and boughs.
“They came in during the week when we weren’t even here to do the decorating,” Barb Sanders said. “They did a very nice job of just putting a few little things here and there rather than overwhelming the rooms.”
Architecture, rather than decor, was the name of the game at another stop, the home of James and Sharon Vipond on Lily Lake Road in Dalton. The couple bought the 1890 farmhouse in 1996 and later built an addition. Donna Nasser of Vie Events decorated their home, also opting for a light touch rather than gaudy trimmings.
In the family room, books on works by renowned architects Frank Lloyd Wright and Tadao Ando are stacked in floor-to ceiling bookcases. A loft playroom, where a 1,000-piece Santa Claus puzzle remained unfinished on a large glass-top table, peers over the family room.
Tour co-chairwoman Sue Houck greeted guests at the Viponds’. The event is part of the Waverly Community House, or Comm’s, Artisans’ Marketplace craft fair. Last year the tour brought out around 250 curious visitors, she said.
“It all benefits the Comm,” she said.
Other stops included the Waverly Country Club and another home on Birch Hill Road in Waverly Twp.
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