Historical home
Dear Editor,
In 1899, a gentleman by the name of Henry Barbazette purchased two lots in the budding town of McCook, Nebraska. Mr. Barbazette was married and was the owner of a fine furniture store two blocks away from his lots on Main Street.
He proceeded to build one of the largest, finest homes in this little prairie town, a two story mansion with a huge wrap-around porch, two sunrooms and parquet wood floors. It was a Victorian masterpiece at a time when the Victorian style was just beginning to wane.
Situated on a corner lot, it is not only recognized in early photographs but also in one of the very early pencil drawings of McCooks' beginning as the center for commerce for Southwest Nebraska. Its circle drive and carriage house was clearly delineated on the map. Until the early 1990s, nearly 100 years later, the home still contained some of the original furniture from Mr. Barbazette's store.
The home remained in the family, with a relative converting it to apartments during Prohibition, complete with a still in the basement, according to the building inspector of the time, for nearly 70 years, and then, as all property does, it passed on to a different owner who kept it for another 20 years until its sale in 1993.
Until the following century (2000), each owner kept the property in fairly good shape and as a fact, as late as 2004, though not in perfect shape, the home was still holding up fairly well for a property that had, at the end, landed in the hands of incompetent and greedy owners as has happened to other historical buildings in our town.
It is no worse shape than the old YMCA was in when it was converted to apartments, no worse shape than the Keystone Hotel or the band shell at Norris Park is in today, in fact, there are numerous properties in McCook with far less historical value, in just as poor condition, that are not on the list to spend all that FREE money the CITY has to be torn down.
One hundred and 10 years old, the building deserves more respect than is being afforded to it. Some of the other properties on the City's tear-down list were junk or fire damaged for nearly 20 years before anyone even attempted to remedy the problem.
I am not sure what the city thinks is going to go up in place of this piece of our history, but you can rest assured that it won't be the masterpiece this home was nor even close to its potential for restoration. The neighborhood that it sits in will not support any huge expenditure in a new building because the average value of a home in that neighborhood is under $ 60,000, which is probably a third of what it would take to build a new home on that lot. I suppose the lot could end up with an ugly duplex the like of which showed up farther east of it, a sad testimony to what this town's values are and its history is not high on the list.
We can only hope that in some shape or form the Keystone Hotel is salvaged or we will once again find another building following the path of the home at 301 E. Second Street. There is a collective shame in turning our backs on historic buildings.
Susan Doak,
McCook