Jennings park staffers lay out plans for newly acquired Old Stone House
BRADY TWP — After years of Wil Taylor wishing Jennings Environmental Education Center managed the nearby Old Stone House — a reconstructed 1820s‑era tavern turned museum and Butler County landmark — it finally happened Sept. 3.
Management of the house transferred to Jennings, which just involved shifting administrative responsibility for the facility and the 72 acres around it from Slippery Rock University to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
Taylor, manager of Jennings, said work restoring the building will probably be “shoestring” for a year or two, but Jennings will have the backing of DCNR and the friends group that contributes to Butler County state parks, the Moraine, McConnells Mill and Jennings Commission, also known as 3MJC.
“We are not going in with a blank check, we are going in with assess, tell me how much it costs and then we'll see what we need to do with that,” Taylor said Wednesday, Sept. 16, the day he placed dehumidifiers in the Old Stone House. “It’s a big project, we’re going to have to do fundraising.”
The Old Stone House was built in 1963 to serve a museum, after the original structure from the 1820s suffered a near-total collapse. After reconstruction, it was owned by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and operated by the Pennsylvania Historic Museum Commission.
After the building was transferred to Jennings and the DCNR, the historical and museum commission took inventory of the items inside it, since they may be significant artifacts, Taylor said. Jennings will continue to maintain the collection of historical items within the house that are owned by the museum commission, according to the DCNR.
Although the house was officially transferred to Jennings last month, and because it was a transfer between two state agencies, there was no cost for the state park service to acquire the building. Taylor said the transfer was in the works for several years before becoming official, and park staff had already begun coming up with ideas for programs to host at the Old Stone House.
Miranda Crotsley, program coordinator at Jennings, has “hit the ground running” in coming up with future programs for it. She has also helped organize volunteer committees that each have a different area of focus around the house. The “Old Stone House Interest Group,” which now has about 50 to 60 people signed up, includes an outdoor committee and a collections committee, Crotsley said.
“From that larger list of folks, there are some in the working groups now meeting on their own, we’re organizing some of the meetings and getting things rolling,” she said.
And Crotsley has also looked at other recreations of historical sites that could be models for Jennings’ plan for the house.
“We saw some great models at other taverns about how they operate, every tavern was different, and we learned a lot of great lessons; and we are kind of piecing that together now,” Crotsley said.
Even though a reopened Old Stone House is still likely at least a year away, Crotsley said she and Taylor would like to see it be more interactive than some of the other models they looked at.
“We definitely want to make it a more immersive space, so a lot of the things in this room now are artifacts, things from that time frame,” Crotsley said. “Making sure that some areas that do have really nice artifacts are off-limits to that sitting and touching, but we have lots of places where you can actually feel what it’s like to sit on a rope bed, to lay down on a rope bed, what it’s like to sit at a table and have a meal.”
The building still has many items fitting to its recreated time period, rope bed included. Most, if not all, of these items have to be cleaned and refurbished before use. But as part of the transfer, Slippery Rock University agreed to replace the deteriorated roof and demolish several structures on the property that were not worth salvaging, the DCNR said.
But the volunteers with 3MJC have already identified physical projects to take on, namely, the spring house, which is a few yards away from the Old Stone House. Taylor said the spring house, which is also next to a brick oven that is still functional, was used as a water source in the days the stone house tavern was operating, and it could be used now to demonstrate how people used to use springs to keep things cool. He added that the spring house was constructed at the same time that the Old Stone House was reconstructed, 1963.
Members of 3MJC have taken to this project, according to Crotsley.
“3MJC is interested in raising money to do the reconstruction there, the repair of the spring house,” she said. “We’ve been calling it ‘Save the Spring House.’”
The Jennings administrators, as well as an official with the DCNR, said they hope to host the first public event at the Old Stone House in December, though portions of the facility may still be closed to the public at that point.
Even if it opens for one or more events, the park and DCNR will likely identify infrastructure projects, including improvements to accessibility, according to the DCNR. Taylor said there are three floors to the house that all need to be cleaned and evacuated of rodents and pests, and damage needs to be repaired.
Taylor already has hopes to link the Old Stone House to another property managed by Jennings, the Foltz School House, a one-room school that is a half mile from the tavern that was refurbished to be able to host tours a few years ago. He said alumni of the Foltz School have told him there used to be a trail from the school to the tavern, and the park may make an accessible trail that takes pedestrians between the two historic sites.
“We already have an existing trail, North Country Trail runs through Jennings, crosses Route 8 and runs behind our Foltz School and continues onto the property we just acquired and spits you out … behind the stone house,” Taylor said. “So it’s going to be really nice to be able to access to properties easily, as well as give people accessible access to walk between here and the school house.”
Crotsley said people interested in helping with the Old Stone House can contact Jennings at 724-794-6011.
