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Duveneck House to Live On 

BY SIGMAN BYRD
Kentucky Post Staff Writer 
     
The house in Covington where master portrait artist Frank Duveneck spent his youth and painted some of his finest early works is going to be restored.
              
The restoration will be by Gregory Berberich, Covington craftsman, using the house at 1226 Greenup street as a place of business.

THE BUSINESS designation will be "The Duveneck House." It will engage in custom picture framing, the sale of art supplies and art restorations.

Eventually a large ground-floor room which Duveneck used as a rear studio will become an art gallery, said Berberich.

FORMERLY associated with the Bernie Paint Division of Lowe Bros., Covington, Berberich said he had acquired the property from Harry Humpert, hardware dealer.

"I'm going to do the restoration on a shoestring," Berberich said. "I can't afford to do everything at once.

"BY THAT, I mean I won't finish it in six months, but I hope it won't take me 10 years." 

The two-story building, on a narrow lot, is faced with asphalt siding. Berberich recollects in his youth the front of the house was faced with beveled wood blocks, and sided with weatherboarding.

"IN ANY event," he said, "Im going to remove the asphalt and hope to find the beveled blocks underneath.

For the present Berberich's business will occupy the lower four rooms and studio, while the upper floor remains occupied by tenants as living quarters.

"SOME DAY," the new occupant said, "I hope the gallery will be an active place, possibly with art shows and perhaps classes.

"But for the present, I have a lot of orders for picture frames that I must fill."

Frank Duveneck was born Francis Decker, in a room over his father's cobbler shop on Scott street, Covington, on Oct. 9, 1848.
      
HIS FATHER, Bernard Decker, died less than a year after the child's birth. His mother then married "Squire" Joseph Duveneck, a grocer, and Frank grew to manhood believing that Joseph was his natural father.
 
It was while living in the house on Greenup street that Frank Duveneck painted two of his best-loved works, "Little Match Girl" and "Boy with Skein of Yarn." 

[[image]]
STAFF PHOTO BY JIM BAILEY
Restoring the Duveneck House, Gregory Berberich finds original clapboards under new siding.