The Old Academy Building has stood on the corner of West Elm and South Main Street in Granville, Ohio for nearly two centuries. This “hidden jewel” with white siding and forest green shutters has served the community since 1833, jumping between owners and purposes.
The newest owners will be the Village of Granville and the Granville Community Foundation.
The Village Council voted on March 5 to authorize Village Manager Herb Koehler to work with the community foundation to buy the Old Academy Building from its current owner, the Granville Historical Society.
Since the early 1970s, The Granville Historical Society has owned the historic building and held society meetings there. However, with additions built onto the Historical Society Museum on East Broadway in the last decade, the society moved its meetings to the museum, and the number of events at the OAB [Old Academy Building] dwindled.
In its early years, The Old Academy Building housed the Granville Congregational Church’s Female Academy until 1863, when it became the home of the Welsh Congregational Church.
In 1841, the building was the site of a fugitive slave trial, when Granville residents assisted in the escape of a fugitive enslaved person, according to Ohio History Connection. The building became home to the local Grange in 1923.
Heidi Drake, the OAB Special Project Coordinator for the historical society, has worked to ease the transition and maintain the building’s historical standards.
“This building is an icon in Granville,” Drake said. “However, it was costing the historical society a lot, and our events only occurred four or five times a year, so it was no longer feasible for us to maintain the building.”
Drake and other historical society members contacted a group of Granville leaders for advice on what they thought would be best for the building.
“We decided on selling the building to a trusted public entity,” Drake explains, “one that would serve the building, and in turn, serve the community.”
The historical society has offered to sell the building to the Village of Granville for $75,000. Since the village is dedicated to preserving Granville’s rich history, council members supported the purchase, and the Granville Community Foundation has committed to helping pay for it.
“It was vital to us to feel good about who owned the building,” Drake explained. “That’s what [the Historical Society] cared about most.”
Koehler said the legislation says that the building will be for public use.
“The Granville Community Foundation expressed interest in helping us with the purchase,” he said, adding that he will be working on a memorandum of understanding with the community foundation so that it will be recognized for its contribution and will be able to use it.
Koehler said he’s unclear at this point about all of the possible uses for the building, but “it could be for boards and commissions and additional meeting space. Long-term, there are probably lots of possibilities.”
He said the historical society approached the village about three years ago and said it didn’t have the means to continue owning and maintaining the 192-year-old building.
“An alternative could have been a private sale, and that’s not something we were interested in seeing happen,” Koehler said.
He said he hopes to have the sale completed in the next two months and to see the building in use by the end of the summer.
One issue the village will be studying is how to provide even a few parking spaces at a building that currently has none.
“It’s all on-street parking currently,” he said. “We’re weighing our options about additional parking. There are three possibilities. One is no change.”
Of the other two options, the village could do one or both.
The building comes with an easement with a neighboring property, which could provide access to parking on the west side of the building – especially for people with disabilities who need to park up close.
Another could involve cutting into the tree lawn on Elm Street in front of the building to provide a few diagonal parking spaces.
The historical society will also transfer the Mahard Trust, a fund held by the society, to the Village of Granville to support maintenance and upkeep of the Old Academy Building.
According to the Historical Society’s 2017 Annual Report, the Mahard Trust account has around $130,000 for the building’s maintenance, operation, and utilities.
Koehler and Law Director Bill Mattes will oversee the purchase and conduct site inspections to ensure the building is structurally sound for public use. Although renovations may be needed, the building comes with some legal language that protects its historic character.
“The building will look and feel as it does now in perpetuity,” Drake said.
Brin Glass writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.
Alan Miller, of The Reporting Project, contributed to this story.