CUMBERLAND — Officials in Cumberland are considering adapting a historical house for public use next to the town’s biggest park.
Doing so is estimated to come in at a six-figure cost, however. Another option is to demolish the house, which is about 120 years old.
The two-story house, located at 341 N. Buck Creek Road, stands on just more than 6 acres just west of Lions Park. The town acquired it in 2018.
According to Hancock County property records, the house was built in 1900. There’s also a pole barn on the property.
Cumberland hired Browning Day, an Indianapolis-based architecture, planning, landscape architecture and interior design firm, to evaluate the property and determine options town officials could consider.
At a Cumberland Town Council meeting last week, Ryan Cambridge, a planning practice leader and senior associate with the firm, along with Jonathan Young, director of preservation and reuse said the house was in decent condition.
Browning Day also prepared the town’s recently adopted parks master plan. During that process, Cambridge said, many residents reported that they value community events, but that “there wasn’t a home for them that felt like home.”
The town-owned house next to Lions Park could help fill that void, Cambridge continued.
Young said the craftsman-style house’s first floor has a living room, family room, study or bedroom, dining room and kitchen. A staircase leads to a floor with four bedrooms and a small bathroom.
Young discussed two options for adapting the house into something more functional. One called for opening up the first floor from front to rear and replacing the large stairway with a smaller one to create a space that could accommodate almost 40 people. The option also proposes having handicapped-accessible restrooms along with a kitchen and a pantry.
The second floor could also be opened up, Young continued, creating a space capable of fitting about 30 people. It could have a small kitchen and restrooms as well.
That option could cost $170,000 to $270,000, depending on how extensive town officials wanted the adaptation to be, Young said.
Cambridge said the town could rent out the property for private parties and small weddings, or larger weddings held outside with the house serving as a pre-function and food-preparation space.
Cumberland Town Council members liked the idea of having a property available to rent but wondered how much public coffers would benefit from it.
“What I feel confident in saying is, if you had an amenity like this, it would get used,” Cambridge said. “I don’t think that I could say strongly that this is an economic play, like that you’ll recoup what you put into it.”
April Fisher, Cumberland town manager, agreed.
“It’s going to be more of an amenity than it’s going to be a profit-generator,” she said.
A less aggressive option Young discussed calls for a kitchen, pantry and accessible restrooms on the first floor but leaving the existing staircase, requiring the large gathering space to take on an L-shape. Two bedrooms would be maintained on the second floor, creating smaller breakout spaces, while the other two bedrooms would be combined into a larger space. There would be smaller restrooms and no kitchen on the second floor under this option, however, which is estimated to cost between $150,000 and $230,000.
Cambridge also discussed creating a parking lot on the property and walkways connecting to area neighborhoods as well as between amenities on the property.
The pole barn, which Cambridge said has electricity and is structurally sound, could be enhanced into a three-season space for an estimated cost of $15,000 to $20,000.
Cumberland Town Council President Joe Siefker said the property, with its abundance of green space and proximity to Lions Park, could be a good venue for the town’s annual Blues, Beer and BBQ festival.
Whatever council members decide to do, Cumberland town historian Joni Curtis hopes they keep the house standing.
“We’re trying to re-brand everything and bring everything into Cumberland, and I think this would help do that,” Curtis said. “I am for saving the house… I think we could do a lot of things in it.”
