FAIRHOPE — A farm house, a goat house, two Clay City tile cottages and a castle will all be part of Fairhope’s tour of homes Sunday, May 6 from 1 to 4 p.m.

The Fairhope Historic Preservation Committee is celebrating Fairhope’s diverse and unique homes and rich history in this year’s event. All proceeds go the promote the preservation of Fairhope’s historic neighborhoods.

The following residents will be showcasing homes this year:

· Becky Erickson, 361 Gaston Ave. This classical bungalow-style home was built circa 1948 of Clay City tile. Renovation was designed by Erikson’s son, Will — afresh interpretation of an older home without sacrificing original integrity. The home is filled with antiques and art.

· Paul and Nancy Fontenot, 252 S. Section St. This home, described as an Iowa Farmhouse-style due to its heavily pitched roof that easily shed the snow, has undergone restoration of the original structure along with new additions to meet the needs of a growing family. Bead board ceiling and wooden floors blend with old cypress doors, wooden windows and stained glass windows give the house an old world feeling

• Peter and Laurie Sikorowski, 404 Oak Ave. Built in the 1930s, the previous owners renovated the home following fire using Clay City tile. The current residents, both architects, created two intersecting roof lines that join the new part of the house with the old.

The couple’s additions keeps with the scale and original design of the house while redefining the non-descript cottage into a lovely Craftsman Style home. The Sikorowskis created a proper crawl space under the house and used the 850 wheelbarrows of dirt to create a raised garden

• Stephen and Suzanne Winston, 12629 2nd Ave., Magnolia Springs. This year’s “Lagniappe” home is one of the area’s original farmhouse cottages that dates back to circa 1903. Once an abandoned cottage on Gayfer Extension and Bishop Road and inhabited by goats, the Winstons moved the home to Magnolia Springs. It retains its original cedar shakes, heart pine floors and beaded board walls and ceilings. The home was restored using items found in the house such as the old fireplace mantle, farm sink and claw foot tub.

The original design of the house inspires many of the new homes in the Fruit and Nut district and the Bluffs.

• Dean and Pagan Mosher, 456 & 457 Oak Ave. Known as Fairhope’s story book castles, the original structure built in 1946 as a shop for Pagan Mosher’s father for his woodworking.

Structures are made from stone and have steeply peaked roofs and turrets, resembling a castle. Both structures built almost exclusively from recycled materials Every piece of wood within the houses has been hand carved or milled by Dean or his father-in-law.

Singer, guitarist, and songwriter, Justin Fobes will be performing during the tour on the lawn of the castle house, and the Wisteria Garden Club will be on hand there to sell refreshments.

Advance tickets are $10 and are available at Page and Palette. On the day of the tour, tickets will be $15 and available at the homes on the tour.

This year the Fairhope Historic Preservation Committee would like to highlight one of the city’s greatest accomplishments in urban planning that started off as a development disaster.

In the mid-1800s, a logging boom hit Baldwin County and long-leaf pines and hardwoods were clear-cut. When the ecosystem was destroyed, water runoff became a problem and created vast gullies across the county leading down to the bay.

The founders of Fairhope recognized the problem and worked to preserve and protect the gullies as a way to deal with runoff then and in the future. Today there is a large, watershed network that with the passage of time has become an ecosystem in and of itself with incredible capacity for absorption.