Ohio To Lose Shaker House
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | June 10, 2008
The Shaker-built Bethany Hall was the largest brick structure in Ohio when it was completed in 1846. Marble Hall is next door.
Credit: Western Shaker Study Group
One of the oldest Shaker structures in Ohio, a four-story house built in 1846, will be demolished this summer.
"We've reached [that] conclusion, and it's been a difficult conclusion," says Don Gilmore, president and CEO of Otterbein Homes, Inc., which has owned Bethany Hall since 1912.
Located in Lebanon, the former Union Village was once home to the Midwest's biggest population of Shakers. When completed in 1846, it was the largest brick building in Ohio.
Otterbein's board of trustees voted last month to "deconstruct" the building and donate salvaged materials to Shaker dwellings. According to Gilmore, only 20 percent of the building is original. Other portions were lost during renovations in the 1950s and 1970s.
"There's nothing in that building in terms of walls and stairwells that resembles how the Shakers lived. It's been totally reconfigured," Gilmore says.
But some ask why the building can't be saved and revitalized as an arts center or employee dormitory. "They're doing this [demolition] because it's not going to be cost-efficient to redo for the specific use they're looking for," says Thomas Palmer, executive director of Preservation Ohio. "There's so little left in Ohio from that period ... there are a number of other uses for this building."
Otterbein has been studying the building since 1995 and estimates that it would cost more than $6 million to renovate it into 18 apartments for its elderly residents. That figure does not include expected asbestos removal costs.
"They say they've been talking about [renovation] since 1995, but the first we heard of it was this spring," says Martha Boice, past chair of the Western Shaker Study Group, which Gilmore has consulted to help place salvaged materials from Bethany Hall. Our main thrust was to ask [Otterbein's board] for six months' time to work on an alternative plan, and they went ahead and voted on May 19."
Gilmore says his company will maintain its other Shaker property, the nearby Marble Hall, which is currently a museum. "It's a signature building for our campus."
Boice, who had planned to retire at Otterbein but has changed her mind because of the impending demolition, invites the public to a meeting with Otterbein on July 11. "I haven't given up yet."
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Comments
Submitted by Andy at: February 17, 2010
Announced today they were tearing it down. Someone should stop them!
Submitted by WestieMom at: May 22, 2009
Is the Shaker building staying or going?
Submitted by JWriter at: June 12, 2008
How sad, when other places such as in New England, Hancock and Sabbath Day Lake, have turned their Shaker buildings into museums and popular architectural and historical tourist sites, that greed and lack of respect doom this historic building.
Submitted by Jerry A. McCoy at: June 12, 2008
Certainly there must be a 19th century archival image of this structure that could be placed next to a current photo of the building on this web page so the public can determine how "original" it is?