Making the Maurice Knight Home More Efficient Part 1 of 3 – The History
Apologies to customers out there, but sometimes a house is just a house. I’m quite familiar with ranch homes, split levels, Cape Cods, center hall colonials, and so forth.
Every once in a while, though, you get to work on a truly spectacular house. If you’ve read the blog for long, you know I have a thing for older homes, mine is pushing 200 years old. I also like exploring the history of homes. When I got the call for this one I was excited:
You know, just your typical 8000 square foot, pristinely preserved 1913 Tudor 2 owner house originally bought by a 29 year old chemist with strong family connections into Akron, Ohio where the home is.
It’s also directly across the street from the entrance to Stan Hywet, the 7th largest home in the country that was built by Frank Seiberling, founder of Goodyear Tire, and one of the most beautiful places on earth when you include the lush gardens surrounding the house. Seiberling was known as a good, fair, and hard charging guy. He was very good to his employees and built an entire section of Akron called Goodyear Heights for his employees to live. He had seen the poor conditions his workers were living in, and it ‘troubled him greatly’ according to an article I read on him in the Akron Beacon Journal years ago. The main doorway of Stan Hywet has an inscription carved above it that says ‘not for us alone’ in Latin. Seiberling seems to have been a real mensch from everything I have read about him.
I’ve been going to Stan Hywet since I was a kid, they have a car show there every summer where my dad found a number of his car restoration clients. I could still give a big part of the tour of the house. One of my dad’s clients was an early innovator in aluminum casting named Tom Lester, who I came to know very well at the end of his life as my Uncle Tom. He actually amassed a fortune large enough to build a home in this class and had a similar character to Seiberling. He was also one of my favorite people I have ever known. I would never have known him without Stan Hywet. So I have a strong connection to the house and the area. But I digress.
That gives you some background about the neighborhood. The home was actually built by another fellow, Harold Joy, who was general superintedent for BF Goodrich. At the time, this was the first house on the street, and Harold’s wife Jessie didn’t want to live so far out in the boonies. Now Akron goes on at least 5 miles beyond the house, and it’s only about 3 miles from downtown. Ah, progress…
Enter Maurice A Knight. In 1913 he was a young whippersnapper of 29 who had recently founded the Maurice A. Knight Company. He bought the home off of Harold Joy. Knight was a chemist who developed specialized coatings for stoneware used in labs. The company still lives on, it was bought by the Koch Engineering Company in 1981.
Maurice’s dad was Charles Mellen Knight. Charles was a professor of chemistry at Buchtel College, which later became Akron University, and was even interim President in 1896-97. Maurice’s father is not to be confused with Charles Landon Knight, who founded the Akron Beacon Journal.*
Maurice married Lulu Weeks and they had 5 children: Maurice Jr., Lovina May, Lulu Weeks, Edmund Hal and Lillian. The kids are important, because in a rather miraculous happenstance, that one family owned and lived in the home until 2006 when Lillian passed away at age 82.
While some maintenance was perhaps not perfect, the home is in nearly pristine condition. It has a newish roof, all the wood is intact in the home, and it has its original light fixtures, door hardware, and window hardware. (Including some really cool windows in the sunroom.)
I’ve been through a lot of cool older homes. The only one I have seen that approaches the level of preservation this home has is the Marvin Kent Mansion in Kent, Ohio which is a Masonic Lodge now. The Masons have taken very good care of this home which was once called the grandest house between New York and Chicago when it was built in the 1870s.
When I pulled up to the house, I knew that it was under renovation. The concrete exterior recently had the ivy removed, and it is in need of a powerwashing, so I had no idea if I was going to walk into a demolition zone or a nice place.
I was very happy to find out it was a nice place! In fact stunningly so.
The home is a Tudor built during the Arts and Crafts period. It eschews the frills, pomp, and circumstance of the Victorian era right before it. Instead, I would describe it as ‘massive’. The trim and carpentry is not ornate, but it is very large in size and expertly done.
It was designed by the noted local architect firm Harpster & Bliss, who also designed schools, YMCAs, and the home of the founder of Firestone, Harvey Firestone (that home was unfortunately torn down in 1959 meeting a fate common for these homes).
When Lillian passed away in 2006, her family decided to sell the home. At that point it was essentially a one-owner, 93 year old home. It also sits on 6 acres, one of the largest chunks of land anywhere nearby.
The Junior League of Akron, a women’s volunteer organization, adopted the house to use as their 2009 Designer Show House. Each room was redecorated by a different design professional. Most of the bathrooms were redone at the same time as well, but the old hardware was kept in most cases:
You can read about the individual rooms and designers in this Akron Beacon article. The results are still there, and the home has a wonderful, eclectic feel. All of the architectural details were preserved.
The home was listed for sale again after the Junior League completed their project. Being a large older home, it requires an owner to have the means to keep up with the home, a hands on attitude to home improvement and understanding how the house works, and a love of older homes.
I am happy to say the home found the right people. In part 2, I’ll dig into the improvements we made, which were limited to the attics. And my thanks to the kind homeowners, who agreed to let me publish the story and pictures of their home!
References:
Akron.com – Historic Home on Market for First Time
Ohio.com – Old Mansion Gets Makeover
* The homeowner was told by several sources that Maurice was a relative of the owners of both the Akron Beacon Journal, John S. Knight, and the Miami Herald, James L. Knight. Those two co-founded the Knight Ridder news service, similar to Reuters. John and James’ father was Charles Landon Knight, who founded the Akron Beacon Journal. Maurice’s father was Charles Mellen Knight. Same era, almost the same name. I can’t find any connections between the families in a basic look through the genealogy, but it could be there.
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