Karen Heid prepares one of her nutcrackers for display.

Karen Heid’s nutcrackers were among the first treasures unpacked as Christmas and the Shandon, Hollywood, and Rose Hill holiday home tour approached.

The South Gregg Street home she and her husband Zack Kelehear refurbished earlier this year is one of seven homes that will be open for this year’s December 4 tour.

“Part of the nutcracker collection has already gone to the older children, but there are plenty more,” said Heid, as she repaired one that has lost its limb.

Kelehear gestured to the framed poster series lining their mud–room wall. The vibrant posters have promoted The Nutcracker ballet production in Dalton, GA, where Heid lived before coming to Columbia to join USC’s art faculty last year.

“For years she has created a piece of original art the ballet company has used as the main element for its poster,” Kelehear explained. “They have become collectors’ items in Dalton. The ballet company keeps the original.”

Like the wall on which the nutcracker posters are on display, every wall in the couple’s home is virtual gallery space for original art. “Some of the pieces are my own art, some is the art of a few others, friends mostly,” said Heid who teaches art education at USC and majored in painting at the University of Tennessee.

Heid is putting finishing touches on an oversized ark, just one of the props she has reworked for this year’s Nutcracker production in Dalton in the workshop–studio Kelehear built behind the couple’s Hollywood Hills home. Kelehear is rigging the remote control that will enable the production crew to move the prop on cue.

“I have been involved for years in designing and building sets for the annual production in Dalton. Several of the props appear first as small, then larger in a later scene. I have re-worked both sizes.”

In the midst of her holiday preparations, Heid also had to factor in time for a return trip to Dalton to get the props back on stage before the curtain goes up on this year’s production of The Nutcracker.

Although the project–minded couple has been busy since moving into the neighborhood earlier this year, they were quick to say yes when asked to participate in the home tour.

Both are USC faculty members with full teaching loads. They did most of the dazzling re–do of their home themselves. And they parent two sets of children.

“It’s true. It’s our first year in the neighborhood, but we were touched when we learned that proceeds from the tour are used in the community. I know from art teacher Randall Clamp that A.C. Moore Elementary School is using some of the money they got from last year’s tour for art supplies,” Heid said.

“And I discovered that several administrators in these schools, A.C. Moore and Hand Middle School, are in the educational leadership track in the College of Education,” added Kelehear.” Kelehear joined the faculty in that college this fall.

The talented, gregarious couple joins six new neighbors, area schools, and St. John’s Episcopal Church next weekend for the annual Home for the Holiday tour. All sites will be open from 2 to 6 pm. Hand Middle School, Rosewood Elementary School, and Dreher High School will be joined by A.C. Moore Elementary School whose open house will feature arts and culture.

Advance tickets are available at The Gourmet Shop in Five Points, Britton’s on Devine Street, Cucina in the Vista, Golf Headquarters on Harbison Boulevard and Two Notch Road, Publix at Rosewood Center and Trenholm Plaza, Hair Doodles on Forest Drive, La Pizza Cucina at Fortune Square near Spring Valley, and Village Gourmet at Colonial Village near Dutch Square.

On the day of the tour tickets may be purchased at St. John’s Episcopal Church on Wheat Street.

The Shandon Neighborhood Council and the Hollywood–Rose Hill Neighborhood Association, along with Publix on Rosewood Drive, sponsor this tour. Proceeds benefit the four Richland One schools and other neighborhood projects.

For more information contact Sam Waldrep at 779-5343 or swaldrep@sc.rr.com.