The Toledo Blade recently published a newspaper article on the Lathrop House in Sylvania, Ohio. HDC was quoted in the article about their involvement in the rehabilitation of the house.
In 2006, HDC was commissioned by Toledo Metroparks to prepare construction documents to stabilize the Lathrop House using transportation enhancement funds from the Ohio Department of Transportation. The house had just been moved from its original site to a location within a city park to save it from demolition. At the request of the Ohio Historic Preservation Office (OHPO), HDC also prepared a historic structure report to guide the proposed rehabilitation of the property, which was completed in 2007. Upon OHPO’s approval of the report, HDC submitted construction documents to reinforce the first-floor structure, which consisted of tree limbs with bark still intact, rehabilitate the windows, replace the roof, and repair the siding to make the house weathertight.
The house was built in 1840 in the popular Greek Revival style of its time. In addition, HDC’s investigations revealed that what was assumed to be an addition was actually a separate older house, which had been repurposed and attached to the Lathrop House as an addition.
In 2014, the new basement was renovated into an Underground Railroad museum exhibit. Since then, visitors have been asking to tour the first and/or second floors, and in 2020 Heritage Sylvaniacommissioned HDC to update their 2007 Historic Structure Report to include the 2014 renovation and to recommend first and second floor rehabilitations, including the location of an elevator. Click here for a copy of the updated report.
Check out these before and after pictures of the house’s exterior renovations:
The Lathrop House under construction in 2008 (left) and the Lathrop House in 2020 (right)
