A Home for the Holidays
The Marasco home in Lewes comfortably accommodates guests. During the holidays, one gets pride of place.
By Lynn R. Parks | Photographs by Carolyn Watson
From the Winter 2023 issue
Family lore has it that Amy Marasco only buys a house if she can see in her imagination where the Christmas tree will go. When she first saw the living room of her home on Park Avenue in Lewes, the real estate agent who accompanied her asked, “Do you know where the tree will go?” Amy replied, “Yes, I do!”
That was nearly four years ago. Marasco purchased the house in March 2020 and two years later, the property was included on the annual Holiday House Tour of Lewes, sponsored by the Lewes Historical Society. And the Christmas tree was exactly where she had envisioned it would be.
A former resident of Hillsboro, Va., where she owned the Fieldstone Farm Bed and Breakfast and served on the town council and as vice mayor, Marasco has owned property in Lewes for 20 years. When it came time to retire, she wanted a house that was larger than the one she had, to accommodate large family holiday gatherings. A master gardener, she also wanted room for flower and vegetable beds; the Park Avenue home sits on a quarter acre.
The oldest part of the home sits close to the street and was built in the early 1800s. About 20 years ago, Marasco says, the owners at the time renovated the structure and had a large wing added. They also built a garden cottage and put in a pool at the rear of the lot. Marasco had the pool converted from fresh to saltwater; she uses half of the cottage as guest quarters and the other half as a potting shed.
Marasco’s office is located in the front room, in what she suspects was a bedroom in the older section of the house. Walls are creamy-yellow and the trim, as it is throughout the house, is pewter gray. The floor there dates to the early 1800s.
The kitchen is also in the older section. This summer, workers replaced the terra-cotta tile floor with oak boards, painted the cabinets a lighter gray, installed decorative ceiling beams and put in an additional window, overlooking the side yard. The contractor for that project, as well as for earlier renovation work, was Bryan Cahall Construction of Goldsboro, Md.
The living room — location every year of that Christmas tree — is in the 20-year-old addition. On one side of the wood-burning fireplace sits the oldest piece of furniture in the house, a secretary desk that dates to the 1700s. A cabinet with dozens of drawers (and that at one time was used in an apothecary, or pharmacy) sits on the other side of the fireplace.
In the dining room, on display in an 1800s butler’s hutch, is Marasco’s collection of hand-painted Quimper faience, or tin-glazed pottery, made in Brittany, France. During the holidays, the white-oak table is set with Lenox china, in its classic Christmas pattern. Even after the holidays, Marasco is sure to have candles and cut flowers or a blooming plant on the table.
Upstairs are three bedrooms, including Marasco’s. When she bought the house, windows in the primary bedroom faced the street. On the same visit to the house when she identified where the Christmas tree would go, she decided that those windows had to go. “I immediately said, ‘This room doesn’t make any sense,’” she recalls. “I knew right away that that would be a major renovation.”
Now, a bank of windows overlooks the backyard and its several gardens.
“I turned my bedroom into a quiet respite,” she says.
Marasco starts decorating for Christmas the week after Thanksgiving. Outside, each window as well as the front door will have a wreath, and greenery will be draped around the door and along the picket fence.
She hasn’t yet decided how she will use the orange slices that she dries in the oven, how many apple and magnolia leaf cones she will make for table decorations or whether the cones will include limes, lemons and oranges. But as for the Christmas tree, she knows exactly where it will go.