The couple plans to relocate to Middletown and their eventual goal is to renovate the 13,000 square-foot mansion and convert it into an owner-occupied bed and breakfast in their retirement years.
“We’re in year one of a five-year project,” Traci Barnett said. “We’re right on schedule on different phases.”
The project includes the mansion and the auxiliary buildings, such as the carriage house and is also being completed to meet historical preservation standards, she said.
Barnett said the roof project on the mansion was completed in October. She said the eight-month project included repairing and/or replacing the slate roof. Asphalt shingles on one section of the roof were also replaced with slate roofing.
Weather was an issue during the roof project. “Work was delayed during the rains,” she said.
The project also rebuilding all of the box gutters, the mansion’s internal gutter system, being rebuilt. In addition, she said “a lot” of clean up work in the yard and other landscaping was also completed over the past several months.
The three-story, 12-bedroom, eight-bathroom brick-and-stone Romanesque castle features 12-foot ceilings and fireplaces in every bedroom. There’s also a ballroom, formal dining room, library an still has much of the original stained glass.
Barnett said some interior work will begin after Jan. 1.
“It’s going to be preliminary electrical work that needs to be first before the plaster work is done,” Barnett said. “It’s a big house and it’s very time consuming.”
The mansion has received $212,500 in tax credits from the Ohio Development Services Agency and the total project to renovate the South Main Street property is estimated at nearly $1.32 million.
It was built in 1887 by Paul J. Sorg, one of Middletown’s first industrialists and first multimillionaires, for $1 million, according to records.
Prior to the Barnett’s purchase, the mansion has been home to dance and photo studios, a construction company and low-income apartments over the years.
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