For 42 years, John and Beverly Sinning lived in a three-story house — the family home of Seth J. Temple, a leading architect during the early 1900s — in Davenport’s historic McClellan Heights subdivision.

The Sinnings raised four children, worked in their yard, enjoyed their vantage point for the Quad-City Times Bix 7 turnaround and just generally loved their neighborhood.

But a couple of years ago, they were ready to downsize and move to a place that would be easier to navigate as they aged. They weren’t thrilled with the prospect of leaving the old part of town to move to a brand-new condo on the outskirts, though.

“We love living in Davenport,” Beverly Sinning says. “We love the gentrification of neighborhoods, intergenerational neighborhoods. We like to see dogs and kids walking nearby.”

Serendipitously, they heard about a developer who had bought a house in another part of McClellan Heights, torn it down and was readying the two lots it sat on for the construction of two new homes, sometimes referred to as “in-fill” homes because they “fill in” space.

The Sinnings learned that Craig Windmiller of Windmiller Design & Development Co. intended to build the two spec homes that would blend architecturally with those around it, one in the Craftsman style and one called English cottage.

They struck a deal in September and the Sinnings moved into the Craftsman-style home. The cottage-style home next to theirs has just been finished and is for sale at $628,500.

Change is uncommon

The homes are rare examples of new houses being built in an old, hilly, wooded neighborhood that remains desirable and sought-after about 100 years after a globetrotting entrepreneur created home sites out of a former Civil War military training camp.

As Beverly Sinning said, “construction attracted an awful lot of attention because things (in the Heights) don’t change very much.”

In recent years, there have been restorations, and homeowners have added garages and additions — usually not visible from the street — that incorporate spacious new kitchens, family rooms and master bedroom suites.

But entire new homes are unusual because most of the lots were developed long ago and the handful that remain are too small or too steep to be practical, or they are are owned by people who do not wish to subdivide them, Windmiller said.

He learned of the Kenwood property that eventually became the building site when the homeowner called to see whether he would be interested in buying the house — which was deteriorated and had structural problems — as a “tear-down.”

Preservation group gave OK

Windmiller was interested, but when he applied for a demolition permit, he found that because all of McClellan Heights is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, he had to get permission from the city’s Historic Preservation Commission.

Being on the national register “automatically triggers a review,” commission member Fritz Miller explained.

In addition, the commission had to review Windmiller’s designs for the new homes. Its members did not want out-of-place “McMansions” built there.

But as it turned out, the commission readily approved his plans, both the demolition and new development. In addition to not being in the best of shape, the original home, built in 1917, had been considerably altered through the years with a large addition in back and a porch in the front. It was “not even close” to what it looked like originally, Windmiller said.

Miller said the commission “couldn’t have been more pleased” with what Windmiller proposed to build in its place.

Not that building was easy.

The property drops off very steeply toward a ravine in back, and Windmiller moved some dirt from one lot to the other, sort of evening them out, and rebuilt a massive retaining wall.

He also worked around existing trees.

Inside, the houses incorporate the room flow and features one would expect to find in a new high-end home.

Outside, though, the designs are from the early 1900s, including uncommon details such as brick ornamentation in the chimney and a “swooped” roofline. In addition, they are made to look like 1 1/2-story homes even though they are really ranch homes in the sense that all of the main living space and bedrooms are on the first floor.

Heights was a Civil War training camp

What is McClellan Heights?

It is the hilly, wooded residential area of Davenport between Jersey Ridge Road and the Bettendorf city limits (Fernwood Avenue), bordered by Middle Road/East Street on the north and East River Drive/East 11th Street on the south.

And it might have been the site of Iowa’s first state park except for entrepreneur Charles S. Reed. Over a four- year period beginning in the late 1890s, he tracked down the heirs to the property in the United States and Europe and succeeded in buying the 214-acre tract for $500,000 in 1903.

Reed formed the Camp McClellan Land & Improvement Co., with agents Ruhl & Wernetin to sell lots. And he convinced the Davenport City Council to withdraw a lawsuit preventing him from extending sewer and water mains to the subdivision.

The homes range from modest bungalows to some of the finest mansions in the Quad-Cities on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River, where they were built by industrial tycoons.

Architectural styles run the gamut, too, from Mediterranean, Tudor and Craftsman to Greek Revival and Colonial. Many were designed by leading architects of their day; most were built between 1905 and 1940.

In developing the property, the original terrain was left largely intact, with roads following the natural curvatures of the hills instead of a grid system. Because of that, it’s easy to get lost in the Heights.

The neighborhood has long been a bastion for Davenport’s old guard. Many descendants of original families live in the neighborhood.

The area’s history is hallowed.

It had been the site of Camp McClellan, a Union Army training camp named after Gen. George B. McClellan, the onetime Union Army commander. It was here that 45 of 48 regiments raised in Iowa during the Civil War trained for battle.

It also contained a stockade where nearly 300 Indians involved in uprisings in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa were imprisoned from 1863 to 1866.

About the time Reed secured the tract, a move was afoot to preserve the old camp and turn the area into Iowa’s first state park. Leading the proposal was John H. MacBride, a conservationist and chairman of the botany department at the University of Iowa.

Reed wasn’t about to give up the property he had secured, although the entrepreneur said he was willing to sell a three-block, 40-acre tract actually occupied by the troops (the oval block between Ridgewood and Hillcrest avenues and McClellan Boulevard). He even proposed construction of a 50-foot-high monument.

But the monument was never built, and the state park dream faded as teams of horses continued grading the first roads in the Heights.

A small plaque commemorating the area’s Civil War heritage stands today in Lindsay Park in an area that was once a parade field.

— Compiled from Quad-City Times files

ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS

Craftsman: The exterior of the Craftsman-style house owned by John and Beverly Sinning has 2½-inch lap siding and shake shingles, both made of low-maintenance vinyl, and tapered brick columns.

“It’s hard to taper brick,” builder Craig Windmiller says with understatement. The masons used strings as a guide and had to cut every second or third brick to achieve the correct slant.

English cottage: This house has a three-car garage, but there are only two doors. “A third door would have ruined the look of the home,” Windmiller said.

The front is a mix of synthetic stucco and brick with flagstone insets. The brick is a hand-molded distorted type called “Pasadena clinker” because it was used on the iconic American Arts & Crafts-style Gamble house in Pasadena, Calif., Windmiller said.

The chimney has two notches, and while most of it is covered with the stucco finish, it is inset with several bricks.

Among the architectural features inside is a marble sink top that was fashioned from material salvaged during remodeling at the Kahl Building in downtown Davenport.

A black metal railing on the deck features round medallions patterned after an existing railing in the neighborhood.