Christmas is a production at the historic Ryan Place home of Thomas and Susan Drake. You can start with the 11 Christmas trees inside and go from there. Perhaps surprisingly, the Drakes, who bought the home in 2001, didn’t have to add electrical capacity to handle Santa.

“Every room decorated,” Thomas Drake said.

The Drakes’ 4,510-square-foot home at 2530 Ryan Place Drive is one of five historic homes — plus Daggett Elementary School — on this year’s 40th annual Candlelight Christmas in Ryan Place tour, Dec. 7-8 in the south Fort Worth neighborhood. A VIP Experience package adds another three homes.

Tickets are available for $25 online until Nov. 29. After Nov. 29, tickets will be available for $30 online or during tour weekend at St. John’s Church, 2401 College Ave. The VIP Experience, available to just 40 people total — 20 people a day — is $200 and online only until sold out. Information and tickets are available here.

Proceeds from the tour support Ryan Place neighborhood historic preservation, infrastructure and fellowship initiatives.

It’s the third time the Drakes’ home has appeared on the tour, but the first time since the couple did a major renovation that enlarged and opened up the first-floor living spaces and the small kitchen.

The couple hired Brent Hull, of Hull Works, for master architectural plans and then Shayne Morrissey of Morrissey Home, to do the renovation. Work began on the first floor by adding a passageway between two living spaces, enlarging one, adding a rear-facing bay window and letting the space flow easily into the new kitchen.

“We’re trying to be respectful,” Thomas said of the renovation. “It’s an older home.”

The project was the latest the Drakes have undertaken on the home, a Georgian-inspired design built in 1917 by the Fort Worth architect Wiley Clarkson for John Ryan and his wife, Lucy. The two-story, with a full basement, sports a veneer of pale buff brick and a hip roof with green Ludowici tiles, according to a Ryan Place history of the home. 

Susan Drake has redone the rooms over the years, largely in jewel tones, and doing much of the work herself. “I painted every room in the house,” she said. “There was a lot of white.”