Sam and Laura Buchanan sit on the side porch of their blue house on Cherry Street.(Melanie Duncan Thortis The Vicksburg Post)

[8/31/03]Sam and Laura Buchanan’s big blue house on Cherry Street is a love story, and they don’t want it to end.

For years, until about two years ago, the house at the street’s intersection with Halls Ferry Road and Harris Street had been light gray. The nearly 100-year-old house easily blended in with the stately wood, stone and brick homes in the neighborhood a block from Drummond.

Then Mrs. Buchanan had heart bypass surgery, and she needed nurses to visit. The problem was, because of the intersection’s configuration, the health workers had trouble finding the right address.

Sam Buchanan said he’d make the house stand out. And that he did.

When the painter visited the Buchanans’ house, he showed them samples of different shades of blue.

“We told him we wanted the brightest blue he had,” Sam Buchanan said. He remembers his first reaction to the new paint job.

“I thought it was real pretty and attractive,” he said. “We just wanted to set it apart from everything else.”

Now the City of Vicksburg is asking for state and federal approval for the area along Drummond and Cherry streets, including where the Buchanans live, to be added to the National Registry of Historic Places. The designation would allow for a federal tax credit for businesses and rental property to make renovations in the area.

That’s fine with the Buchanans, so long as the designation doesn’t affect their big blue house.

“We’re not anti-history or anti-anything,” said Mrs. Buchanan. “We just want to be left alone.”

Nancy Bell, the executive director of the Vicksburg Foundation for Historic Preservation, said being listed on the National Register would have no adverse effects on any property.

It will instill pride, she said, and may offer them a chance at federal tax breaks when renovations are made to the properties. And property owners won’t have to do anything that they wouldn’t normally do.

With talk of putting parts of their neighborhood on the National Register of Historic Places, the Buchanans said they would agree to support the action only if they’re assured it won’t affect their blue house.

When Laura Buchanan talked about the story behind the paint job, she smiled a big smile.

“I say it’s our love story,” she said, looking in her husband’s direction. “He didn’t want me to get hurt.”

And blue was the logical choice since “he loves blue and I do, too,” Mrs. Buchanan said.

They’ve been living in the house for about 33 years, but it was built in 1906. Walking through the rooms and hallways, the whole house breathes with memories from their lives. The hallway upstairs has a certificate signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and authorizing Mrs. Buchanan’s mother to become the postmaster in Lorman in 1942. In a hallway downstairs, family pictures date back about a century. Buchanan has a bell collection he’s gathered over years, and it includes many given to him by his children and grandchildren.

Laura Buchanan said she loves history, especially, tracing family roots. Displayed in their living room is a certificate she received for completing a genealogy course.

They said they love their house, and don’t won’t anyone telling them what to do with it. That includes telling them what color to paint it. It’s already the way they like it.

Even when a woman walking past the house suggested it would look better if the trim were a different hue, she stood her ground.

“She had no connection to anything,” Mrs. Buchanan said. “She was just being nosy.”

Laura Buchanan said she doesn’t think being on the National Register will make a difference.

“I’m not against it if they let it alone,” Sam Buchanan said.