CLINTON—The Villas near Liberty Village are advertised as a retirement community.  Dick Tuggle’s Villa is gracious and spacious, with treasured family pieces as tasteful accents.  If you’ve ever wondered what those homes were like, this one will be open during the DeWitt County Restoration Association’s Summer Tour of Homes Sunday, August 6, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The main living area is wide open, with the living room morphing into a large kitchen and dining area and a wide arch leading to the sunroom.  French doors open into the office, where Dick has put his treasured roll-top and had matching oak shelves and cabinets built along one wall, as well as a large matching two-drawer oak file cabinet.  His love of farming is featured in the room’s accents.

The television sits on a shallow, wide old wooden toolbox rescued from the family barn.  It has multiple side-by-side wooden drawers.  The old pie safe in the sunroom is wide open to display family keepsakes:  the quilts his mother made, his dress blues from his time in the Navy from 1945-47, along with a picture of his graduating class (1943).  He was class president, by the way. 

Another set of French doors lead into his huge bedroom, which has a full bath, and he has a guest room with twin beds, with another full bath nearby.  The two-car garage has room for a workbench, a standing toolbox and lots of storage.

When Dick was ready to sell his country home about seven years ago, he’d decided he wanted one of the new Villas.  His is wheelchair accessible through the garage, and all the hallways and doors are wide to accommodate a wheelchair (which he does not use, but could if he needed to someday).  Everything is on one level.

Besides putting in a pantry cabinet to match the existing kitchen cabinets, he added a deck and awnings on the west side, making the place just the way he wanted it.

Tickets to the tour of four buildings and two gardens are $10 and will be available next week at the Chamber of Commerce, Graves Stationers and Brady Realty.