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Location DB >
United States >
Pennsylvania >
Cornwall >
Redbrick Schoolhouse
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Publically Viewable |
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This location has been labeled as Demolished, and therefore can be viewed by anyone.
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The school house was built to allow as much light and air to enter as possible. A 15 feet wide corridor running north-south on the first floor allowed for air and light to permeate the building.
A rectangle measuring 12 sq. feet was cut in the first floor and an inch thick slab of cobalt or glass was put in the opening to allow light to enter the basement.
Windows just above ground level also allowed light into the basement whose ceiling was located several feet above ground level.
Several vents built into the brickwork above some of the basement windows allowed for increased ventialltion.
At the center of the buildings original slate roof was built a cupola whose hatch could be opened for ventillation and closed during inclement weather. the cupola has been taken down and rests in the front school yard.
The manual arts shop was divided into 4 sections; sheet metal, mechanical drawing, wood working and wood finishing.
Some of the items they made were cedar chests, desks, bookcases , lamps and bedroom suites.
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Type: Building
Status: Demolished
Accessibility: Easy
Recommendation: forget it
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Address
Cornwall, Pennsylvania
United States
Owner: Cornwall Borough
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It exhibits a neo-classical revival style of architecture.
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The Redbrick school house was built on land the Cornwall School District purchased from Robert H. Coleman and his assignees in 1901. Coleman was experiencing finacial difficulties from the 1893 depression and sold about an acre of land to the district, which became the Cornwall Lebanon School District in the early 1960's.
Designed by architect Abner A. Richter of Lebanon, and built by Reinoehl Lumber Co. of Lebanon for $25,000 Construction was completed in February 1902.
Research indicates that grades 9 through 11 were originally taught at the school.
In 1927 the gray-stone school that is currently Cornwall Elementary School was built and opened in 1928, leaving the redbrick school to be used cheifly as a vocational building.
There were 4 classrooms, 2 recitation rooms, a directors room and a laboratory on the first floor; a basement that was used for woodshop; and a large attic that was used for agriculture.
Boys attended manual arts classes and girls attended home-economics classes in the redbrick schoolhouse which as of 1964 also contained an art room, a drawing room, and agriculture shop and 2 classrooms for geography or math.
after 1972 the school house was used for storage and maintenance.
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the Cornwall Historical alliance, a non profit organization was formed in 2005 to save and preserve the school house.
Their efforts failed.
The Cornwall-Lebanon school board last night voted narrowly to quash a bid by the Lebanon Valley Conservancy to negotiate a lease of the century-old building.
The board then voted to award a contract to demolish the schoolhouse by the start of classes Aug. 25.
Wiley Parker, a lawyer representing the conservancy, and Kip Kelly, chairman of the conservancy’s historic-resource committee, addressed the board for about an hour.
Parker said the conservancy wanted to take two years to explore funding options for renovating the schoolhouse with an eye toward leasing the building long-term from the district provided enough funding was secured. It was the conservancy’s intent, he said, to relieve the district of any additional financial responsibility for the building.
The conservancy was willing to lease the structure from the district for $500 per month for the two-year period, he said.
School-board member Beverly Henry made a motion for the board to accept the conservancy’s proposal. Henry’s motion included that 30 days be granted for an agreement to be reached between the conservancy, school-board solicitor Timothy Sheffey and a committee composed of Henry, Edward Albert, Ruth Ann Schlegel and Jeff Bensing on the provisions of a two-year lease.
Albert seconded the motion, but the board voted 5-4 against it.
Henry, Jon Arnold, Albert and Schlegel cast the minority votes.
Later in the
meeting the board voted 7-1 to award a demolition contract to Musser’s Excavating of Lititz in the amount of $59,500.
Albert had left the meeting by that point, and Henry voted against awarding the contract.
Parker said he was disappointed and surprised by the board’s vote.
“I thought that the whole tenor of the conversation and discussion was positive, that every issue that they raised as a concern I thought we dealt with and addressed,” he said.
School-board President Gary Watts said the board had been patient the last 31⁄2 years during which efforts were made to preserve the building.
Watts said his vote was based on land issues and that he was skeptical negotiations would have yielded an agreement between district and conservancy.
“I don’t know that that land will ever be used for anything,” Watts said. “It may not ever be used for classrooms; it may not be used for parking — I don’t know. But I didn’t want to handcuff this (school) board or future boards. If you have the land, you have some options.”
Attempt to save old Cornwall school again denied
by Monica von Dobeneck Saturday July 12, 2008, 2:37 PM
A last ditch effort by Myerstown businessman and philanthropist Carl Wenger and the Lebanon Valley Conservancy to save Cornwall's old red brick schoolhouse from demolition failed Friday when school board members said they'd need to see more money up front.
The school board had voted on June 16 to tear down the building, and crews from Musser's Excavating in Lititz were already preparing the 106-year-old former high school and vo-tech school for demolition. The June decision followed three and a half years of negotiations with groups that wanted to save it, including the Conservancy, the Cornwall Historical Alliance and Cornwall Borough.
After reading about the decision in the newspaper, Wenger, who is in Florida at the moment, apparently contacted school board members by phone with an offer to buy the building for $100,000. Enough board members wanted to review the June decision that school board president Gary Watts called for a special meeting Friday. Wenger's thoughts were conveyed to the board by Wiley Parker, an attorney representing the Conservancy.
But several board members said Friday nothing had really changed since their vote in June. They do not want to sell the building because they think they might someday need the land it sits on for parking. The Conservancy had proposed leasing the building for two years while looking for grants to restore it, then negotiating a long term lease if successful.
The school board wanted Wenger to put up a $100,000 bond to make sure there was enough money to pay off the contractor for breaking the contract, even though the demolition bid was only $60,000. Parker said that amount was a "Trojan horse" designed to "kill the deal."
After a hasty call to Wenger in Florida, Parker said Wenger would be willing to post a $20,000 bond, but not $100,000. He said the $100,000 figure Wenger mentioned earlier would be to buy the building, but he had not yet named a figure for moving toward a lease instead.
Parker said Musser's had already agreed to a two week delay in demolition at no extra cost so the parties could work out an agreement, and Wenger was willing to pay all legal costs and whatever fee necessary to break the contract.
"He has a strong attachment to that building for family reasons," Parker said.
While the discussion prompted some biting exchanges between board members, in the end only school director Beverly Henry voted for the deal.
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This will sit as an empty lot, and now the historical School Haus Inn is for sale, see link below.
Old school coming down
Lebanon Daily News
After more than three years of flaring tempers and soaring rhetoric at jam-packed public meetings, the end seems almost anticlimactic.
Shingle by shingle and window by window, the old red-brick schoolhouse on the north side of Route 419 in Cornwall is coming down.
Three years of work to save the historic school proved fruitless last month when the Cornwall-Lebanon school board, reluctant to commit taxpayer money to a project that lacked universal support, voted to tear it down.
Like the community, the board was divided on the fate of the 106-year-old building. Voting at a meeting June 16 to tear it down were Gary Watts, Harry Mathis, Keith Donnachie, James Garrett and Jeffrey Bensing; the minority — who wanted to appoint a committee to work with the Lebanon Valley Conservancy to negotiate a two-year lease of the building — comprised Ruth Ann Schlegel, Jon Arnold, Edward Albert and Beverly Henry.
The board then awarded a $59,500 contract to Musser’s Excavating of Lititz to demolish the schoolhouse.
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The moderator rating is a neutral rating of the content quality, photography, and coolness of this location.
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This location's validation is current. It was last validated by
Steed on 4/12/2009 5:06 AM.
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on Apr 12 09 at 5:06, Steed validated this location
on Apr 12 09 at 3:13, PAexplorations changed the following: Status, Hazards
on Aug 8 08 at 12:07, Steed validated this location
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