A tragic house fire

The historic 1829 Federal style Poe House that sits between Kent and Ravenna caught fire yesterday and today's newspaper said that the house was being declared a "total loss". I desperately hope that the house can somehow be salvaged and restored. the photo seems to indicate that the basic structure of the house is sound. The roof is intact and the exterior looks sound. The interior has probably been gutted, no surprise, given that the wood framing is close to 200 years old, but that can be dealt with accordingly as long as the brick exterior is intact. I am seriously hoping that this home can somehow be saved. I am assuming that it had been carved up into apartments because, according to the Count Auditor's office web site, it was not owner occupied. I'd love to contact the owners, whose names, address and phone number I have looked up, but right now would not be a good time to do that. They're probably too overwhelmed by the losses incurred to be able to be spoken to about their plans for the house. Still, it's probably one of the last Federal style homes still standing in our area, and the loss of it would be tragic. I've loved this house my entire life, admired it every time I drove by it. I am thinking that these continued losses of historic structures is calling for the creation of a County-wide Historic Preservation Society. Maybe I should call a meeting and see if there is interest out there. The purpose of it would be to find ways to save and restore old structures and to research the histories of old buildings to find out their stories and to work on advocacy issues as well. We would find out who the local contractors are, what their specialties are and what they charge for their work. We could become a clearing house for information about historic preservation and feature regular speakers on historic preservation subjects. We'd need to find a place to meet and people to organize things. That is entirely within the realm of being a doable thing. I guess I just need to screw up the courage to get this thing started. I just don't consider myself to be leader material. I'm not very good at mission statements or that sort of thing. I'd need a lot of help to get something like this going. But its time has come, and it needs to happen now. So I guess I should put floaters out there to gauge interest and go from there. We'll see.