Neil Ingram has stepped back in time, buying an old Southern plantation house that he owned and lived in 30 years ago.

Most everything in this house with two-story white pillars off Hopkins Road in Chesterfield County, vacant now for four years, is the same as he left it.

What's more, he bought it for not much more than he sold it for in 1983.

The 6-inch azaleas that Ingram bought for 95 cents apiece three decades ago consume a garden bed. A huge magnolia tree takes over a portion of the backyard.

The crown molding he put up three decades ago is still there. So is the country wallpaper in red, blue and beige prints.

Wide trim around arched doorways is original, natural oak. Seven fireplaces are intact. Tall windows encase wavy glass from when the house was built 100 or so years ago.

The heart pine floors don't creak, despite the age of the house and years of neglect.

The county says the house at 5436 Hopkins Road was built in 1908, but it could have been as early as 1890, Ingram said.

Edgewood was built at the edge of the woods, hence its name. Sitting on about 1.4 acres at the front of a subdivision named after it, it is enclosed with a wrought-iron fence.

Vinyl siding that an interim owner put up has been torn down, leaving pockmarks that will be filled on the exterior planks.

The ceiling has a few cracks, apparently from a tree that fell nearby when Hurricane Isabel blew through in 2003.

Still, the house is eerily similar, except for a bad kitchen remodel, Ingram said.

A renovation and addition contractor, Ingram owns Stuart Components Inc. He said it will take about 10 months to renovate the house.

"It's a privilege to restore the house back the way it was," he said. "And to do it not once, but twice."

He asked the previous owners if he could see the house again -- 30 years later. When they saw the passion he had for it, they agreed to sell.

"He was at the right place at the right time," said the previous owner, Daniel George, who sold the house to Ingram for $225,000.

George and his brother, owners of George Brothers Construction Inc., had planned to restore the house. But it didn't make good business sense, because the house needed $150,000 worth of work, he said.

"I'm glad Neil got the house," George said. "Only someone with a heart could take care of it."

George said he had an offer from someone else for $275,000. "But I had a verbal contract with Neil. Money is not everything," he said.

Ingram first lived in the house for four years with his first wife and their three children. They got divorced and sold the house.

He remarried. All of the children -- five including his and hers -- want to come home, at least for the holidays, he said. Their daughter, Callie, 19, wants to be married there.

"We're empty nesters and supposed be thinking about retiring, but here we are gearing up with this huge house," said Ingram's wife, Cheryl.

The house is more than 5,000 square feet.

The couple downsized three years ago when they built a 3,600-square-foot house in Birkdale off Winterpock in the Woodlake area of Chesterfield.

"It's a great house; we're all settled in," Cheryl said.

Her first reaction when she first saw Edgewood was a definitive "no."

"First I thought 'No, I will never live here,'" Cheryl said. "But wait until you see the inside. It says, 'Welcome, welcome.'"

The front door opens to a spacious foyer with 4-foot raised paneling and solid oak acorn cornices. A chandelier hangs from the second-floor ceiling.

All the wallpaper will go, Cheryl said. The rooms will be painted in pastels. She will go to Caravati's Salvage Yard in South Richmond to look for doorknobs and other finds that would fit the house. A brass chandelier will be replaced with crystal.

"It needs to be modern but in the time period of the house," she said. "Silk drapes would be nice."

A master suite will be added to one side and a three-car garage on the other. The kitchen will open to a new sunroom.

The deal is the Ingrams will redo the house. It will be put on the market along with the one they live in now. They will live in the one that doesnt sell. "You know what I'll be using to decorate for Christmas," Cheryl said, pointing to the magnolia tree.

Contact Carol Hazard at (804) 775-8023 or chazard@timesdispatch.com.