So you bought a historic home

'Winter White House'

President John F. Kennedy wrote his inaugural address at this 14,500-square foot mansion, called the "Winter White House" during his term.

Castle's renovation project, which included adding two bathrooms to the now-15-bath home, required 300 inspections.

Shown here is the balcony overlooking the front courtyard.

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Writing on the drawer

Castle, a millionaire merchant banker by age 28, already owned three residences before he acquired the furnished Kennedy estate as his primary residence. He likes to show off Kennedy's narrow bed, with its carved Gothic oak headboard, and a walk-in closet drawer labeled in the careful script of matriarch Rose Kennedy "black underwear."

"The bulk of historic houses in America are preserved by virtue of the private individuals who own them,'' says Tom Mayes, deputy general counsel at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "They feel the connection that place brings.''

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JFK's parents

American financier and ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy and his wife, Rose, are shown in this February 1940 photo in Palm Beach.

Castle, 71, says souvenir hunters frequently showed up during his $6 million renovation of the 11-bedroom mansion, "put chunks of brick in their car and drove away.'' He also had to cope with strict demands from local officials.

"We had an inspection every day,'' he says.

One inspection failed, he says, because a screw near an electrical connection "was one-eighth of an inch out of alignment.'' Another time, preservation officials limited the height of the new indoor/outdoor spiral staircase that Castle was building to enjoy a better ocean view.

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On the grounds

President Kennedy stands with Abraham A. Ribicoff, right, the former governor of Connecticut, outside the Kennedy family's home in Palm Beach in November 1960. Ribicoff was Kennedy's secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Kennedy interviewed most Cabinet candidates in the library of the stark-white Mediterranean compound, and he swam in the Olympic-size pool the weekend before his 1963 assassination. In 1991, the compound was the scene of an alleged rape by William Kennedy Smith, a nephew of JFK's who was ultimately acquitted.

The Kennedys sold the property in 1995, and Palm Beach declared part of the mansion a landmark after Castle bought it. This designation typically limits a homeowner's ability to make exterior changes. Castle had to agree not to alter a 60-foot portion of the wall where the president occasionally gave news conferences.

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President Wilson's Tudor

Robert Carr, CEO of Heartland Payment Systems Inc., spent 51 months restoring President Woodrow Wilson's 1896 Tudor in Princeton, N.J.

Wilson and his wife, Ellen, lived here from 1896 to 1902, before he became Princeton University president.

Except for a new solarium, the three-story residence's exterior looks as it did 110 years ago. Carr even pulled up the concrete circle driveway and replaced it with the type of red stones that the Wilsons used.

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'Labor of love'

Restoring the Wilson residence turned into a lengthy labor of love for Carr, a longtime U.S. history buff who bought it in 2003 for about $2.1 million.

The dining room, shown here, looks onto the west-facing backyard.

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Lecture hall

While a Princeton University professor, Wilson often held lectures in the foyer where Carr stands.

The pocket doors, with their stained-glass inserts, were part of the original house.

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Rebuilt room

To restore the foyer to its original condition, contractors disassembled, structurally reinforced and reassembled the room using the same individual pieces of vertical-grain fir.

The house had remained vacant for two years and had 19 owners since the Wilsons left.

"There was very little preserved," Carr says.

Carr wanted to recapture much of the house's original character and update its amenities. He consulted Wilson's correspondence about the home's construction. The renovation cost more than $7 million and lasted until spring 2007.

"There was no budget and no time restrictions,'' Carr says. "It seemed like the right thing to do as the custodian of a bit of history."

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Going back

Wilson is shown in the home in this 1915 photo.

Despite his attention to detail in the renovation, Carr says he worries about Princeton's proposed creation of a historic district that would cover the Wilson home.

"People tell you if you can paint your house,'' he says. "It may not help the resale value.''

He and other disgruntled owners wrote a letter protesting that the district would "significantly chill the market for owning and investing in these homes.''

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Tourist attraction

Chuck Callan makes his way up the yard to his house in Grand View-on-Hudson, N.Y. The house once belonged to the feminist crusader and author Betty Friedan.

Callan, a senior vice president at Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc., and his family have lived in the house for eight years. He says tourists often stop in the driveway to take pictures of the house.

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Dining room

The six-bedroom house, built around 1868, overlooks the Hudson River.

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Living room

Friedan moved in with her husband and three children in 1958. There, she wrote about the "feminine mystique" that kept educated women in domestic isolation. She worked in longhand on yellow legal pads at a living-room desk or table in the octagonal dining room.

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Kitchen

Callan paid $1.63 million in 2005 to buy the Friedan home, in part to inspire his four daughters to become capable women "standing on their own two feet,'' he says.

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Groundbreaking author

Betty Friedan helped launch the feminist movement with her 1963 book "The Feminine Mystique." The weekend after her death in 2006, nearly 100 Friedan fans turned up at her former residence in Grand View-on-Hudson.

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