By Jeremy Brown

More than two years after a fire swept through the second floor of Stow’s Heritage House, the historic building will be torn down and reconstructed.

“Nobody would go in there and just renovate it; they wanted to start from scratch. So, that’s when they decided to go ahead and demolish it,” Stow Historical Society President Bryan Menke said. “The contractor we’re looking at now will dismantle it, set it aside, rebuild it and rebuild from the structure what we can save. What we’re going to do is, we're going to gut it, and then save all the timbers we can, fix the foundation, fix the floor, and then put the timbers back up and do what we can and put it back up.”

Disassembly in preparation for the reconstruction will begin in March or April.

In the early morning hours of Oct. 15, 2023, a fire started on the second floor of the Heritage House at 5120 Young Rd., destroying most of the contents. That included a historic piano, antique tools, the contents of a bedroom and several historic artifacts, although some of the clothes in a closet were saved, as was a pump organ. 

The cause of the fire is still undetermined. Stow Fire Chief Mark Stone said he’s unsure how the fire started, but thinks it was likely started by electrical wires.

About a third of the building’s roof was compromised, and the fire burned through the north gable end wall, leaving the upstairs susceptible to the weather. Menke tarped the roof, hoping to save the structure from weather damage, but the tarp blew off the following year, leaving the roof open. The weather caused further damage to the structure.

Menke said it’s imperative to save the Heritage House, as it is the first and most historic building at Heritage Reserve Park. The Stow Historical Society previously used the house for several events and gatherings, including a Christmas party, weekly tours during a Sunday open house and, in the fall, the society invited fourth graders from various schools to visit and learn about Stow's history. After the house is reconstructed, it will serve in its former capacity.

The Heritage House was built in 1838 as a stagecoach house and sat on the north east corner of Fish Creek Road and Graham Road. Back then, a traveller posted a sign at the intersection that said, “Oregon -- 1000 miles,” and from then on, the intersection became known as Oregon Corners. (The sign was misleading, as the true mileage to Oregon is over 2,000 miles.)

Due to road development and other improvements at the intersection, the house was moved to its current location at Heritage Reserve Park in the 1970s. 

Menke hopes the building will be completely reconstructed in time for the organization’s September festival.

“Our goal is to have it done by this September for the Harvest Festival, the last weekend of September; that’s our goal,” Menke said. 

The new building will be restored to its former state, but instead of baseboard electrical heating, it will be equipped with a furnace, and there will be air conditioning installed to help keep the contents temperature controlled.

The Stow Historical Society has raised about 90% of the funds needed to get the project finished, which came from insurance claim compensation and a GoFundMe page started by the historical society. The organization has also applied for state grants to finish the project.

Menke said the total final valuation is close to the fire report quote, at or near $300,000 for the total cost.

The fire report counts the total property and content loss at $300,000; $150,000 for building loss, $50,000 for content loss and a $100,000 valuation of the full contents of the structure. The final valuation was decided by the city’s insurance company. 

“In a building that is that old, it’s really hard to give a good property value,” Stone said. “When we do these valuations, they are just a gross, to get an idea of what it was, and then typically the insurance companies step in and they determine the true value of a building. It was quite a loss.”

The Heritage House is owned and insured through the city, as are all the buildings on the site, and the contents of the buildings are owned by the Stow Historical Society, which added an extra level of complexity and time to the insurance claim process. 

With the help of the fire department, the Stow Historical Society members plan to go into the Heritage House and extract any remaining relics, so they can begin the demolition and rebuild process.

Mayor John Pribonic said the Heritage House, along with the other structures at Heritage Reserve Park, represents an important detail about Stow’s history.

“We have an excellent historical room at the library, but this [Heritage Reserve Park] is really cool, where you get to touch and feel what it was like back in those times,” Pribonic said.  “That’s why it’s important to get this rebuilt, so people can know what our history is.”