Century homes with "improvements" galore

I am house hunting soon (San Antonio, TX) and there are a lot of century home options in my area but a common theme I'm seeing is the dreaded words "recently updated!", with the original character stripped out and it now looks like a sterile psych ward inside. Can I consider a home like this and restore what once was? If so, how do I go about that? Has anyone done this? I'm having a difficult time finding homes that haven't had their character destroyed, even those from the 30s and 40s have this problem. TIA.