I've blogged about this in the past and I haven't done so for a while because things have gotten so ugly, divisive and acrimonious to where I have become utterly and totally fed up with the entire thing. To summarize: last March it became apparent to me that the house you see pictured here was threatened with demolition for a joint Kent State-City of Kent project. Recognizing that the house was of Greek Revival design, it occurred to me that the house may well be of 19th century vintage, and so in a Facebook discussion with other local historians, I brought up said house and wondered if anyone knew its story. To make a very long story short, it was discovered that the house played a significant role in our local history, but owing to the Great Recession, nobody had the money to invest in saving it, and so a small non-profit was formed by some of us local historic preservationists to save it. We spent some months looking exhaustively for a place for which to relocate it, and we were able to successfully locate a good spot that, unfortunately, has become a bone of contention between us and a group that, while they have never owned the land nor paid rent or insurance on it, claimed it because of 20 years of free use of it for their purposes. It has now gotten to the point of serious acrimony and our group and the City were just recently sued over this whole thing by the non-land owning non-profit who wants control of what is now land that our group owns that we purchased in October. It's gotten so ugly that I can only see one way out, and that's to sell the land that we bought in October, go back to the drawing board and see if one of the places we were forced to reject some months ago might yet be available through careful negotiations.
Even though the court found in our favor, I do not expect an end to all of the acrimony and bitterness from those who sued us. Rather, I expect that when we go to move the house on to the disputed land, that there will be civil disobedience from those who refuse to give up what has never been theirs in the first place. I just can't see the use of moving this historic house next door to a neighbor who has vowed to remain hostile to its presence there, which is what is motivating me to consider moving the house to a less controversial spot. I can't see fundraising being terribly easy knowing that we may need to place around the clock, 24/7 security guards on the house to prevent it from coming to harm from angry neighbors who refuse to accept the house going there. That could get terribly expensive and I just can't see anyone wanting to rent space in a house that requires that kind of intense security to prevent it from being harmed or damaged. It just seems to me that we can do better and find someplace less controversial, less toxic and easier to which to move the house. I think that people who before were against our moving the house to certain places might well be more amenable to reconsidering their earlier decisions, seeing how toxic this situation has become. That it has come to a lawsuit, however frivolous, means that this group of opponents are willing to stop at nothing to block our progress, and their attorney works pro bono, meaning that they can continue legal action ad infinitum as long as the guy is willing to do free legal work for them in exchange for getting his name in the newspapers. He is an ambitious sort who used to be a municipal judge until he ran afoul of his colleagues and was disciplined and had his law license suspended for 6 months. So now he's eager to regain a name for himself and he seems to think that if he can win this case of pushing us off land that we legally own that he can somehow gain a reputation of looking out for aggrieved parties who feel like they've been pushed around by bigger fish. Whatever. But it's just not worth the hassle anymore to deal with these people so I am strongly advocating moving the house to another spot that is less controversial, less toxic and less subject to damage from angry neighbors that will require round the clock security guards to protect it. Just not worth this kind of controversy and anguish anymore. Six long months of acrimony has convinced me that we were in serious error by choosing a spot that has so much attachment to it by a small band of hippies that apparently like to use it for drumming circles and other assorted uses. It's time to abandon that spot for someplace else. I hope that others will listen to me, but I seriously doubt it. The land we've purchased has become some sort of sacred cow for two warring groups and it's time for someone to slay that cow and be done with it. I'd rather it be us than them. We can sell the land to them at a profit and use it to buy something else better suited for the project. That's my wish, but then, I am only one person who discovered a hidden piece of local history that was going to be demolished and managed to find people to save it but who are putting this house at further danger by wanting to place it on a piece of land that has become so controversial as to make me decide that it's time to give up on it and move on. Let's hope that cooler heads prevail and that my voice is heard. But I rather doubt that it will. As usual.
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