A 100- year-old house full of old stuff wasn't what Alex and Grant Besser were looking for when, just a couple of months ago, they signed the contract agreeing to pay $1.1 million to make it theirs. But that's what they got.

They also got a good deal. In the 572 days that the 1109 Pine St. house languished on the market, the price dropped nine times and nearly in half from the $1.89 million for which it first listed in 2009. Lesser homebuyers would have been put been off by its age, the dilapidated shed in the back, and the impressive level of Depression-era hoarding that filled many of the house's rooms. But the Bessers were no strangers to renovation. Their former California home was a mid-century renovation.

"Our goal was to find a family home for ourselves and three boys in the Whittier neighborhood," Alex Besser said. They did just that. The home is located on the edge of the nearby Mapleton Hill historic district.

Moving in right away was impossible. In March 2011, there were three weeks of weeding out rooms filled floor to ceiling with stuff - sorting the good stuff from the bad - which left them dirty and tired. Then it seemed, even to the Bessers, that no one who had lived at the home had tossed anything out for 100 years.

"It was a Depression-era mentality. I've found every size nail. I've found a coffee container of rubber washers," she said.

The work continued, with multiple fillings of enormous dumpsters to clear the place out, removal of a boiler the size of a Volkswagen, and a seven-month excavation/renovation.

The family minded this all less than might be expected. That's not only because this 110-year-old lady reminiscent of Edwardian Vernacular style "found" them, but because of what they found: antique pipes, tools, collections of old cameras, Colorado license plates from the '30s, '40s and '50s, antique clocks, beautifully aged leather suitcases filled with newspaper articles and professional family photos, brass beds, Life magazines from the '40s and '50s, antique light fixtures, vintage furniture, stoves, letters, scrap metal, and pipes.

Anyone who moves into a previously occupied home has questions about who lived there before and what they were like. Here was something beyond an historic renovation. Here were answers.

For the Bessers and their hundred-year old lady, the questions began with a lawyer named James Bonn, who sold them the house, then surprised them by leaving nearly everything behind.

Good news house
While Joel Smiley, the Besser's general contractor, has worked on 12 historic homes in Boulder, every one is special.

"I've had love affairs with a bunch of old places," he said. When he talked about 1109 Pine St.'s thick first-floor walls, the embedded 2-by-10 fir floor joists, 11/2-inch front porch tongue-and-groove floor boards (making it so easy because of their girth to shimmy, block and repair), it was clear that Smiley had fallen in love again. Thoughtful construction and quality materials were part of this home's beginning. The house has "a visionary quality to it," he said.

"It struck me on the first walkthrough that this was an incredibly well-built house and that it had made it through without major renovations and remodels that often cut up these homes," Smiley said.

Uncommon finds were in store for Smiley, too. At a time when the United States was converting from gas to electric lighting, an owner had put in wiring, but also had installed gas piping for combo light devices, perhaps not trusting the new technology. "It's archeology as much as it is construction," he said. All these things led him to nickname it the "good news" house.

The study of the home's owners was fascinating to Besser. She's kept a blog at http://beingboulder.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html to record what she's pieced together.

Why James Bonn wouldn't carry away even his father's files - files that contained a letter from J. Edgar Hoover - became clear when she discovered that Bonn hadn't grown up in the house. After his parents divorced, Bonn stayed with his stepfather and mother. His father, James Corriell, once an editorial page editor for the Daily Camera, married again late in life to Elizabeth Kirby, an only child who inherited the house from her parents about 1980. Kirby and Corriell never had children together but lived at 1109 Pine St. until they both died in 1995.

Corriell was a pipe collector, an amateur photographer and journalist who, after a 40-year career, appeared to have packed and stowed in the basement five large boxes containing all the letters anyone had ever sent him, including one from J. Edgar Hoover, and never looked at them again.

Going back through history, before Corriell and his pipes, there was the Kirby family, Leonard and Bessie, (the parents of Elizabeth) who lived there from about 1926 to 1980. Leonard owned Prep Cash grocery at 1646 Pearl St. The store carried, according to the stationery found, "staples and fancy groceries." Leonard appeared to have been a tinkerer, who was responsible for the contents of the 12-by-12 tool room the Bessers found in the basement packed with antique tools, pumping fixtures, light fixtures, packaging, and window treatments.

The house came into the Kirby family by way of Bessie (her maiden name was Hammond), who was one of three Hammond daughters. After both of their parents, William and Mary Elizabeth Hammond, had passed away, the daughters inherited the home in 1925. Bessie married Leonard Kirby and bought the other sisters' shares of the house. Besser found out a lot about the Hammond's history from leather antique suitcases, which contained documents and photos. William Hammond was the manager of a Woolworth store.

Still moving back through time, the Hammonds moved to Boulder from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, for Mary Elizabeth's health. She had tuberculosis and bought the house from its original owners in 1919. Montford Whiteley, Boulder mayor from 1899 to 1905, and his wife, Mena, were the original owners of the house. It was built in 1901.

The architectural firm Redding and Son, who designed the Boulderado, also designed the 1109 Pine Street house.

Most questions answered today
Bonn, the only living heir, inherited the house and moved in with his new bride in 1995. They divorced in 2009, and the Bessers bought it March 18, 2011.

The Bessers have obtained a landmark-alteration certification so that they can work on the house. Besser, a stay-a-home mom with a degree in political science, is also seeking a Colorado tax credit for historic preservation that would provide up to $50,000 in credits that could be spread out over 10 years.

Today, the vintage clutter is gone, and most of Besser's questions about the house and its former occupants have been answered. Still, she wonders about a couple of things.

In the 1900s, people went to studios for family portraits. They didn't take photos of themselves having tea in the parlor, or ones that showed how their dinner tables were laid out for special occasions. "The private lives of these people are still unknown to me. They're still a mystery," she said.

Besser has a very practical question, too. Elizabeth Kirby was the only child to grow up in the house, a girl born in 1932 who very likely walked softly over the well-polished floors.

"It's fascinating to me that the house never experienced the heavy footfalls of rambunctious boys," Besser said. The house is well built. She knows that, but will it hold up to her three?