The Burchfields
At around 8 p.m. one night, Eva Burchfield called her husband Bruce to check in. Dinner was ready, and Bruce was still not home.
“She’s like, ‘where are you guys? Dinner’s ready and you’re late,’” Bruce said. “I was like, ‘we’re holding up the front of the house, not now.’”
He meant that literally. The front of the Burchfield’s fixer-upper was actually leaning. Water had crept in between the bricks and the turret window and froze, popping it off the house. Bruce was holding it up, desperately trying to save the structure.
“Those were the moments where I’m like, ‘what did we do?’” Bruce said.
In 2022, the Harrisburg couple embarked on a year-and-a-half-long renovation project at the dilapidated corner house on Kelker Street that would become their home. The project was more of an undertaking than the couple ever thought, even testing the perseverance of Bruce, a professional architect.
However, the Burchfields needed more space for themselves and their two young kids and wanted a home that would keep them in their tight-knit community. They were also suckers for a good historic property and saw renovating a blighted building as a way to make a positive impact on their neighborhood.
When the couple saw the chance to take a crack at the 1900-era house just down the block from the small home that they shared with Eva’s parents, they took it. They just didn’t realize quite how much work they were in for. They needed to gut the house if they ever wanted to restore it to its former glory.
“Next thing you know, all the walls were pulled off, windows were literally just hanging and swinging,” Bruce said. “I started taking them out one by one, and I remember Eva came up to the top of the steps and started looking around and was like, ‘all there is, is holes in this house.’”
Eva admitted, while she was excited about the renovation, she just couldn’t see Bruce’s vision at first.
“I couldn’t imagine it becoming a home because it was just bare walls with holes,” Eva said. “What did we do and how did we end up in this situation? I couldn’t see it.”
But eventually she did see it, and others caught the vision as well.
Harrisburg resident Adrian Selkowitz was out and about in the neighborhood with his son when he stumbled across the work on the Kelker Street house, a project already several months in.
It just so happened that Selkowitz’s film production company, Cowboy Bear Ninja, was on the hunt for a historic renovation project to document for an episode of the television show, “In With the Old,” which is broadcast through the Magnolia Network.
Bruce and Eva considered and decided it would be the perfect way to showcase the city they love, while also showing people—you can do this too.
The next day, Selkowitz was there with his team and cameras to follow the process.
They filmed for much of the year that the reconstruction project took to complete, delivered the episode to the Magnolia Network in the spring of 2024, and the episode aired on television earlier this year.
“It was challenging, but totally worth it, to give a full image on what really happened and to show Harrisburg was just totally worth it,” Eva said.
Same Canvas, New Story
The project was a whirlwind and a team effort, and, from Bruce’s point of view, it required spreadsheets. From the contractors to the film crew to the trips to Philly to source historic doors and trips to Amish country for woodwork, everything had to be coordinated.
“Bruce, probably because he’s an architect, already had a pretty detailed schedule,” Selkowitz said. “We created a shared spreadsheet and came up with a color-coding system. And then, you know, schedules are always shifting.”
But there were also the quieter moments, like when Eva’s father dedicatedly scraped the fireplace and mantel, chipping away for hours, then days, at years of paint that concealed beautiful wood, or when the couple worked with an architectural conservator to clean the unique tile entryway.
While much of the interior of the house needed to be demolished, there were also many gems that remained as “the jewelry of the house,” as Bruce described them. There were the original front doors and hinges, upstairs stair railings and flooring. Other elements were lost or worn from time, but the Burchfields recreated them to match up—like the downstairs stair railing, the baseboards and newel posts.
“That idea of the stories that are layered over, but it’s still the same canvas, really resonated when we were renovating this because we kept thinking of all the previous families and stories that were in these walls, but we were going to write our own story,” Bruce said. “That’s what gave us hope. We could still use the canvas, which was the shell of the house, but our goal was to make this home ours so that we could write our own story on it. But the cool thing is you still see the little traces of the old.”
The couple also met with local historian Ken Frew, who uncovered stories from the house’s past. The stories of former occupants holding parties in the house, from excerpts printed in the newspaper, stood out to the couple, as they also love to host.
“Looking at the history and now looking at it here, that’s exactly what we wanted to do, we wanted to host people,” Eva said. “We wanted it to be open and welcoming for everybody that we know and love.”
Getting to that point certainly wasn’t easy, as there were scorching hot summer days, plumbing snafus and lots of busy weeknights and weekends. Bruce still worked a full-time job throughout the project, and Eva ran her Broad Street Market stand, Evanilla Donut Shop, until the market fire forced her to close in July 2023.
“It was grueling,” Bruce said. “It really was nonstop.”
However, both Bruce and Eva agreed that it was worth it. All the work left them with a light and airy primary suite, beautiful kitchen with custom cabinetry and personalized rooms for the kids.
In the episode of “In With the Old,” viewers can see the full transformation, from a gutted property, to a bright, clean, yet homey space. They can also hear from Bruce and Eva on the highs and lows of the process and see them discuss and make design decisions.
“It’s a lot to let a film crew into your life,” Selkowitz said. “There’s that extra layer that it adds of stress, and those two handled it with so much grace.”
For Selkowitz, who had filmed another episode of the show previously, working with the Burchfields was a treat, as he got to grow closer to his neighbors and friends through the process. He was also happy for the chance to give his hometown some national attention.
“When you live here and you do love your community and you know all the treasures, you know all the great things that are happening, you know all the amazing people, you do want to share that,” Selkowitz said.
Eva caught the home renovation bug and has already been nudging Bruce, trying to get him on board with another project. Bruce, on the other hand, is enjoying the less-chaotic life, for now, although he’s open to the idea in the future.
Both really want the best for their community and see the need for more houses in Harrisburg, like theirs, to be restored to their former glory.
“It’s heart-wrenching to see those beautiful homes gone or demolished or deserted. They’re irreplaceable. That’s what makes them unique,” Eva said. “We’re hoping to leave [our home] for a hundred more years for somebody else to enjoy.”
“Old Uptown Revival: The Heart of Harrisburg,” season six, episode seven of “In With the Old,” is available to watch on the Magnolia Network and can be found on several streaming platforms.
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