The stately two-story white home and its grounds will be one of two homes and a garden featured Saturday on the Chester spring tour of homes.

Also on the tour is the Hamrick house, 150 York St., and the two-and-a-half acre garden of the Longview house -- according to its current owner, some may know it as the Abell or Glenn house, at 151 Lancaster St.

The tour also will feature the grand re-opening of the Old English Artisan center in downtown Chester, which features hand-crafted items for sale. The center was closed for several years after the building next to it caught fire.

This year the tour has collaborated with the Chester County Extension Service and added a Friday barbecue sale with a gardening lunch and learn session at the Market Building, said extension agent Robin Currence. The extension service will sell barbecue beginning at 11 a.m. and the lunch and learn will start at 11:30 a.m.

Every 30 minutes, between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., a different gardening topic and speaker will be featured. Topics include taking care of your yard for spring and summer, topiary, roses and herbs and fire ant management. The barbecue sale will continue until 7 p.m. Friday.

On Saturday morning the spring tour of historic homes and gardens will begin. The Southern colonial-style Ayers home was recently purchased by Ayers' great-niece, Chester native and Pulitzer-nominated poet Vivian Ayers Allen.

Allen has worked for the past year establishing the house as Chester's first Heritage house non-profit museum, containing a collection of original artwork by famous artists such as Walter Williams and Ed Dwight, one of NASA's first black astronaut trainees.

Dwight's sculpture is in the home's grand foyer, which features a massive staircase and other artwork. Both parlors contain paintings and photographs Allen has collected during her years working in museum services.

Some of the photographs in Allen's collection include presidential-style photos of NASA astronauts, a picture Allen took of Michael Jordan and his father and photos of Allen's famous daughters, actress, choreographer and television director and producer Debbie Allen and actress Phylicia Ayers Allen Rashad, who starred in "The Cosby Show."

Other artwork is displayed throughout the rest of the home's ground floor. The upstairs, where Allen lives, will not be included in the tour.

Allen said it is unusual for such a home to have been built by an African-American man during the late 1800s. "He was born only three years after slaves were freed," she said.

Allen has memories of playing in the home's back yard as a child. She has turned the yard into a peaceful garden area containing a koi pond with a curved bridge. A brick path, lined with varieties of blooming flowers, leads to a bench canopied by flowering trees, where Allen frequently relaxes.

As Allen approached the pond, she called out to the fish and suddenly a school of bright orange koi emerged, scurrying around awaiting their daily feeding. Allen also has befriended a robin who nervously lingers on the ground close by as his garden is invaded by strangers.

Tour proceeds will benefit the promotion of Chester downtown merchants, the artisan center and the Potting Shed and Garden Club's breezeway Park on Gadsden Street, said Pat Dennis with the Chester Downtown Development Association.

Funds from the barbecue and lunch and learn benefit all Chester County Extension Service programs, including 4-H, horticulture and food and nutrition. The event is sponsored by the Chester County Extension Service, the Potting Shed Garden Club and the downtown association.

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