From the aged bricks on the pathway to the sturdy cypress columns peeking through a canopy of 150-year-old trees, a visit to Dewberry is a walk through history.
The plantation home south of Tyler was built in 1852 by Col. John Dewberry, a Georgia native who moved to Smith County in 1835. The property passed to the Edwards family of Kansas in 1908.
Ninety years later, Tyler attorney Andy Bergfeld bought the property and has spent the past several years researching and restoring the home, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Bergfeld has consulted regularly with the U.S. Department of Interior on changes made to the house.
Although he has spent his own time, money and energy on the restoration project, Bergfeld said Dewberry is a piece of Texas history that should be protected and respected by all.
“It’s not about me,” Bergfeld said. “It’s about whether I can pull this off so that 150 years from now, people can come here and see what life was like back then.”
Dewberry opened to the public on Jan. 1 and is the first restored plantation home on the way to the more lavish homes in Louisiana plantation country.
Dewberry, a veteran of the War of 1812, built the first cotton gin in the county. He developed a good relationship with the Cherokee Nation and was appointed by the newly formed Texas Legislature to help draw the county lines and locate the county seat.
He built his 2-story home, large by the day’s standards, on 22,000 acres that straddled Smith and Cherokee counties. He started construction in 1852 and completed it two years later.
The main house was called “Myrtle-Vale” because of the large crape myrtle trees leading up to the home. The same trees are still standing. The home has retained much of its original handiwork. The bricks leading up to the house are original and the cypress beams date back to 1852.
Inside the stately home, original burnished, pine-wood floors gleam and light streams in through the tall windows in every room.
The Dewberry home is constructed in the Greek Revival style, which means that the structure is symmetrical.
Bergfeld considers it his duty to be historically accurate in his renovation of the home. For example, the walls in the parlor have been papered in an 1840s reproduction of a design found in a Virginia home of the same era.
Although the home still needs furniture, paintings and a few other touches, it looks largely as it would have on the day Dewberry completed it.
It’s a far cry from its condition in the late 1990s. Photos taken when Bergfeld bought the property show a dilapidated home shrouded in overgrown trees and weeds.
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At the time, he said, there were 14 stray cats and eight stray dogs living under the house.