House of Richter

Call it a storybook cottage, or maybe a mirror on the growth of a family and its community, but after 124 years it remains ...

THE HOUSE OF RICHTER

Story by David Moore Photos by Monica Martin

Upon moving back to Cullman in 2005, it wasn’t long before John Richter took his new wife, Tiffany, to visit his grandmother, Evelyn Richter. She lived just west of town in a two-story, stone farmhouse her grandfather-in-law built in 1898.

Tiffany was taken with the house.

“I have always liked historic homes,” she says. “I thought it was a storybook cottage.”

After Evelyn died at age 93 in 2008, the house’s storybook quality was further enhanced for Tiffany. She and John were able to buy the cottage. It became their home.

“We carried on the tradition of Richters owning the house.” With a laugh she adds, “We had a baby nine months later. It’s a good house. We’re keeping it in the family.”

Her husband – the Rev. Dr. John Richter, senior pastor at St. John’s Evangelical Protestant Church since 2014 – doesn’t fully embrace Tiffany’s romanticized “storybook” description.

“We are similar, but we are very different people,” he grins. “I’d say the house is a part of the story of our family and part of the story of our community. It reflects, in some respect, the building and growth of Cullman. And it reflects who we are as a family. Where we spend our time shapes our view of the world, right?”

Storybook, mirror or historic ledger, the house was built by John’s great-great grandfather, Wilhelm Friedrich Richter, born in 1837 in Militsch, Germany (now Milicz, Poland). Quite the character, family history shows Wilhelm to be the seventh son of a well-to-do seventh son, a rarity that earned him a gold coin from the state at his birth, the king as his godfather and, later, an educational exposure to theology, natural science and architecture.

Wilhelm was a farm inspector for a knight in Russia and volunteer in the German army before migrating to Buffalo, N.Y., in 1859 to find a fortune among the bounties of the U.S. But with pre-Civil War tensions boiling, he returned to Germany and married in 1860.

After the blood and dust of war settled, Wilhelm moved with his wife and growing family back to the Buffalo

area, went briefly into business in 1876 but soon joined the ranks of Germans lured to Cullman by its founder, Col. Johann Cullmann. Capitalizing in part on train travelers, Wilhelm built Richter’s Hotel and Saloon across from the fledging town’s L&N depot. Family lore credits him with helping Cullmann recruit wives for the town’s bachelors.

It was 1897 when Wilhelm bought land southwest of what’s now the U.S. 278 interchange at I-65. By the end of the next year he’d built his stone house there.

Wilhelm’s son added the front porch in the 1920s. Others made expansions in the 1930s and ’70s. Wilhelm’s grandson, John William Richter Sr., and his wife, Evelyn – known for decades for her authentic German strudel – lived there after they married in 1935. Johnny Richter grew up in the house and today lives on family property across the creek, where John – Tiffany’s husband – grew up, along with his sisters, Lisa (married to Mike Mullaney of Goat Island Brewing) and Lori (married to Dr. Tom Oliver of Urgent Care Center).

“We spent our childhood in and around this house,” John says. “We have a table that folds down from the wall. I ate hotdogs there with my grandfather. You can have memories that run a lifetime in a place like this.”

It’s a widespread irony that people’s life courses are mapped more with non-intentions than intentions. John never intended to live in an ancestral house full of early memories; never intended to pastor the church in which he grew up. He did, at least, initially intend to teach. “I always felt I’d have a career in teaching and be involved on some serious level with the church,” he says. “That was the plan.” Graduating from Cullman High in 1991, he attended Wallace State

Community College. He loved studying history under Nancy

Reichwein, who helped him land a scholarship to the University of

Alabama at Birmingham. After earning a bachelor’s degree in history, John debated between a master’s in either religious studies or history, eventually splitting the difference and specializing in southern religious history at Ole Miss. But a 1996 mission trip to Poland proved pivotal.

“I was still thinking of a career in teaching, but after that I wanted a deeper engagement in the Bible and theology,” he says. God seemed to be calling, albeit rather subtly.

So he earned a second master’s, this one in divinity at Pepperdine University in Malibu while working for room and board as a beach bungalow handyman amidst the rich and famous. But after three years he knew he didn’t care to live in a place as big as LA.

John’s meandering search led him to teach Bible and religion at a Christian prep school in Baton Rouge. The work was enjoyable, and he was ordained during that time, but by 2003 he knew teaching high school was not his calling. He needed to regroup. So at

Under the upstairs western window sill is the etched date “1898” and “W. Richter.” He built the house with 24-inch thick walls of stone gathered from the farm.

While the house is filled with family-steeped old furniture, the Richters bought Tiffany’s baby grand piano, above, in more recent years. Sitting on the living room sofa are John and Tiffany with Vella and John Isaac on the floor. Above them are photos of Wilhelm and Juliana and their family in front of the Richter house. The furniture dates to 1910 and belonged to grandmother Evelyn’s father, O.F. Richter, from another line of Richters in Cullman. Photo by David Moore.

Evelyn and John Richter added the den, top left, in the 1960s. The dining room, top right, was the kitchen when the house was built. Today’s kitchen was added in the 1920-30s. John and Tiffany installed new floors and counters, modern appliances and painted the existing cabinetry, above right. The kitchen includes a breakfast bar that opens into the den. The old pump organ, far right, belonged to Tiffany’s grandparents, while she and John found the old baby stroller upstairs in the house. They are unsure whose it was, but it fits with house. Also upstairs, John enjoys painting in his studio, right.

age 30 he did what many do – quit his job and moved back in with his parents.

Shortly before returning to Cullman, John visited a sister church of St. John’s in New Braunfels, Texas, with a student from nearby Texas State University pursuing her master’s in choral. Talk about unintended.

“We were set up,” Tiffany laughs. “It was a blind date.”

Her father, Terry Stone, was an Assembly of God minister. Her mother, Debbie, who assisted with Terry’s ministry, was a musician. In fact, the entire family was musical. Tiffany played piano and sang. Her brother played drums. Terry played piano and bass, while Debbie sang and taught piano.

The family traveled to play at revivals and singings. They also traveled because the Assembly of God reassigns its ministers. Tiffany hails from Oklahoma but lived in nine cities in eight states from Colorado to Tennessee.

“You just don’t know what you’re going to get,” she says of their assignments. “And we had a variety!”

After graduating high school, Tiffany started Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, OK. Speaking of unfulfilled intentions …

“Funny thing,” she says, “I started college as mass comm major to do broadcasting.”

One thing that got in the way – and it was a positive – Tiffany was hired at age 18 by The Arnolds, a southern gospel group that performed across the Southeast. Besides touring heavily, she recorded a few records with the group. It was great but hindered college. After five years she was only a junior.

“I thought to myself, ‘What am I doing? I sing.’” So she left the group, left mass communications, changed her major and earned a degree in music education.

She taught music a few years in Muskogee, OK., then moved to San Markus, Texas, and went to Texas State University where she mastered in choral. It was then, in 2003, that the unintended happened – that blind date with the guy from Cullman.

Their takes vary on how that date played out, but this is Tiffany’s: “It was great! He fell immediately in love with me.”

The catch was that John lived over six hours away in Baton Rouge. They emailed back and forth for a while and were about to call it quits when … “He came to visit me, and from then on, that was it.”

They married in 2005. Tiffany moved to Cullman and soon visited John’s grandmother Evelyn at her storybook cottage.

“We’d come out every Sunday,” Tiffany says. “That’s what everybody in the family did. She’d make desserts. We’d talk and read the paper. There’d be 10 or 15 of us there.”

She was fascinated with the house, its character and eccentricities, such as the two holes cut long ago into the floors of the two upstairs bedrooms and covered with grates that, in the winter, at least theoretically, initially allowed heat from the fireplace in the parlor to rise and warm them.

Meanwhile, Tiffany had been hired as the vocal music director at Wallace State, where John has since become an adjunct professor of religion.

Shortly after John returned to Cullman, then senior pastor Robert “Bob” Kurtz invited him to join the staff on a part-time basis at the church where he’d grown up. A year later, John got a full-time position.

It was fall 2008 when Tiffany and John moved into the two-story, storybook farm cottage that had been in the family for 110 years.

John had started a four-year, doctorate of ministry program at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, studying mostly at home and spending several weeks annually on campus. When Pastor Bob retired in 2012, John was named interim senior pastor. The congregation voted in 2014 to make him senior pastor, and his unintended, meandering and subtle calling came into focus.

The Richters’ daughter, Vella, was born in 2009. John Isaac followed in 2012. Initially the kids slept downstairs because of the steep, narrow steps to the second floor bedrooms, but about five years ago, John and Tiffany installed an upstairs bathroom – as well as heat and air there – and moved them to the second floor.

The Richters enjoy entertaining family, friends and, even once, the church congregation. Fourth of Julys bring at least 16 folks over, while Christmas might draw a crowd of 25-30.

“It’s a great place for that,” Tiffany says. “We have plenty of room.”

Any funny stories about the house?

“It isn’t really funny,” she says, “but we were talking recently about all of the people who have died here.”

Sometimes, she continues, they hear things, too. Nothing bad. Nothing scary … except for one night, dark and stormy.

Everyone was asleep when Tiffany awoke, thinking she heard something from the kids’ front bedroom, but she checked and all was quiet. She went to the kitchen, opened the door to the refrigerator … and that’s when she plainly heard: “Momma.”

“I said ‘yes,’ closed the refrigerator door and looked over to see which one of the kids needed something – but no one was standing there,” Tiffany says. “That’s the only time I’ve been like ... oooooh! I crawled back in bed and prayed a few minutes. It took me a while to go back to sleep.

“But we tend to think this is a happy home and lot of happy lives came through here. You can tell. There is just a good feeling here.”

Next year, the house turns 125 years old.

“We will probably have some kind of family gathering to commemorate it,” John says. “Maybe a weekend of parties to hit all the bases – family, friends, church, etc.”

Meanwhile, a few house projects rear vaguely on the horizon.

“We’re getting ready to paint the outside, where trim needs to be replaced,” says the practical one.

“And put up shutters!” adds Tiffany. “John says we’re going to wait on that … I say, ‘No, we’re not.’”

Several sheds/barns on the property might someday get some attention. But that’s an intention that might or might not happen.

But, as it always has, the house will be home for a family of Richters. And also a place for gatherings.

“We do like to host people and share in the history of this place,” Tiffany says, “whether it’s the house or an old barn and farm equipment.”

Storybook, mirror or historic ledger, it is the house of Richter. And that’s by intention.

Good Life Magazine

The backyard includes a root cellar and smokehouse repurposed as a grilling and outdoor eating area, center. Beyond that is the pool. John says his uncle used to sell soft drinks to workers building I-65 in the 1960s. In appreciation, they dug a large swimming pool hole for him. The family initially lined the hole with unfinished cement. “It was literally a cement pond,” Tiffany laughs. A few years ago, she and John updated it with a liner.