This Old House, one of the largest shelter magazines in the nation, is featuring an historic Youngstown property in its March 2012 issue.
The Lyons House, a 1910 arts-and-crafts style home located at 1010 Bryson St. on Youngstown’s North Side, is profiled in the magazine’s “Save This Old House” feature, which typically spotlights a distressed, but architecturally significant, property. The home is listed for $15,000.
Copies of the magazine featuring the Youngstown home were mailed to subscribers earlier in the week and the issue will hit the newsstand in early February.
Frank F. and Elizabeth Lyons built the house and lived there from 1910 until 1920. Lyons was president of the Lyons/Laerie Medical Supply Co. in Youngstown. The home was later owned by Beecher P. Higby Sr., who had prominent Ford and Lincoln dealerships in town.
The Northside Citizens’ Coalition for Community Development, Inc. listed the property on preservationdirectory.com… last July. A month later, Keith Pandolfi, associate editor at This Old House, contacted the Coalition for information on the property. Pandolfi writes the “Save T his Old House” feature for the magazine.
“I’ve always known that Youngstown had incredible historical housing stock, but this one just seemed very unique to me,” Pandolfi said. “Here you have a Mediterranean-style house in an industrial town in the Midwest. It caught my eye.”
The Lyons House is a two-story Craftsman-style home and a contributing property in the Wick Park Historic District (National Register of Historic Places). The home is notable for two large parapet gables in a Spanish Mission style. The house is constructed with Tapestry Brick, an art brick manufactured by Fiske and Co., Inc. of New York.
The historic house is four blocks from Youngstown State University and one block east of Wick Park. Homes in the neighborhood date from between 1900 and 1915. Styles include Craftsman, Colonial Revival, English Revival, Tudor, Queen Anne and Neo-Classical.
“The North Side neighborhood has a concentration of historic architectural variety that rivals any community in the Midwest,” said Meg Slifcak, principal, MKS Consulting, who is advising the Northside Coalition on the divestment. “The neighborhood’s location adjacent to Wick Park and YSU and the Wick Park residents make this neighborhood ripe for the urban pioneer,” she said.
For the past five years, the Northside Coalition has sold its real-estate holdings so it can shift from community development to neighborhood advocacy. A Raymond John Wean Foundation grant funded the initiative. NSCC President Mark C. Peyko is leading the project with board members Atty. Leonard Schiavone, Herb Soss, Norma Stefanik and Mark Thompson. The late Linda Hoefert also assisted in the project.
To date, the non-profit organization has sold nine houses and scattered vacant lots in a neighborhood bounded by Madison, Wick, Elm and Broadway. Six of the previously vacant houses are now owner occupied and another serves as a student rental. Dominic J. Marchionda, who built the Flats at Wick apartment complex on Madison Avenue, also acquired two houses just north of YSU for a planned commercial development in the Elm Street corridor. Howard Hanna Realtor Linda Tobin Blough handled the real estate transactions.
Despite the recent house sales, many challenges remain – including the number of vacant properties and absentee owners in the neighborhood. “The residents need to create a vision and a plan to realize the dream of increasing vitality in the neighborhood,” Slifcak said.
For more information on the Lyons House, visit www.preservationdirectory.com… or call 330-259-0435.
Editor’s note: Metro Monthly Publisher Mark C. Peyko is president of the North Side Citizens’ Coalition.
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