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This Is the House that Sebring Built – Restored
SEBRING, Ohio -- To walk into the Sebring mansion is to step back more than a century in time and see firsthand the opulent lifestyle of a rich family. Before the Income Tax Amendment was ratified Feb. 3, 1913. Before Congress and state legislatures passed estate taxes.
While the visitor to or guest of the Sebring Mansion Inn & Spa, 385 W. Ohio Ave., Sebring, cannot help but be impressed at what owner and self-described “guardian” J. Lynne Biery has achieved since she bought the property in 1996 – she has added amenities the builder and first owner, Frank A. Sebring, didn’t imagine. Such as air conditioning. Such as indoor and outdoor pools in the basement. Such as a pub, sauna, steam room and massage room, also in the basement. Such as valet parking.
Biery, a successful real estate agent in Louisville, has seemingly spared no expense in restoring the grand house the pottery magnate built after touring Europe where he was inspired by the architecture of the Italian Renaissance. Having become wealthy, Biery says, “Sebring wanted a house worthy of his status” and upon his return, hired an architect. Sebring sent the architect to Italy and he used what he saw there to draw blueprints.
Biery’s research shows that Sebring bought and imported all of the materials used in his house – the brick, stone, even finishing woodwork -- from Italy.
“Our restoration process has sought to re-create as much of the beauty and grandeur as possible as it was in 1902,” she says. “Also, I want this to feel like a home and not a hotel.”
The Canton Women’s Club and Lake (County) Historical Society, who also visited the mansion the same day as The Business Journal, would agree that Biery is well on her way to achieving her goal.
The mansion, with roughly 30,000 square feet of floor space and another 2,500 square feet of outdoor porches and balconies, has 12-foot ceilings, is well lit by natural light, has a stained glass dome on the third floor – 8 feet 6 inches by 6 feet 3 inches – and a large stained glass window that looks west at the landing of the staircase leading to the second floor. That window with a pagan goddess in white robes carrying a white garland of flowers has become the identifying sign of the inn.
Biery first became aware of the potential of the Sebring mansion in 1988 when she was invited to explore its use as office space. The Sebring family had long moved out and the structure had been jerry-built into apartments. Years of “wear and decay and neglect” had taken their toll.
While she saw the potential for “a cozy country inn,” Biery first had to engage an architect (Edward Steiger), contractor (William Murphy), and work with the zoning board.
She had hoped to earn a historic preservation tax credit, but her plans “failed on two of the 10 National Park standards.” While she planned to restore the Sebring mansion, she did not plan to do so 100%. For example, she intended to convert the ballroom on the third floor to a restaurant.
She also learned the tax credit for asbestos removal had expired.
Biery waxes philosophical, “To the National Park Service, I said, ‘We can’t all be museums.’ ”
The Sebring Inn missed out on qualifying for historic preservation tax credits but it is in the National Registry of Historic Places.
What she learned as the restoration progressed was that the house had not been designed as it should have been. After nearly a century, the roof leaked and needed to be replaced – that was expected – but the excess weight of the dome on the superstructure had caused the third floor to sag 3 inches. Which in turn resulted in some of the stained glass breaking.
The leaky roof had also resulted in considerable water damage to the third-floor ceiling and hardwood floors as well as the joists and second-floor ceiling. Termites were discovered in the level separating the first floor from the basement. In addition, the basement was filled with water up to the first step leading to it.
And two raccoons had taken up residence on the third floor, Biery recalls. So had squirrels. And bats had settled into the mansion.
Undaunted, she began overseeing restoration, removing all of the brass plumbing, wiring, heating equipment and concrete in the basement. Twenty-one dumpsters, each with a capacity of 40 cubic yards, were needed to cart the debris away. It took 1 years to gut the mansion.
Retarding her efforts were new fire codes that necessitated a redesign of her architect’s plans –that took a year – and workers diverted to other historic preservation efforts.
Some of the original material was salvaged including the oak hardwood on the first floor and the grand piano in the room immediately to the right as one enters. Seven miles of new wood flooring, the laths one inch wide, were needed to replace the rotted flooring removed, Biery informed visitors, a goodly portion of that wood in the restaurant on the third floor.
Restoration is nearing completion and the four of the large bedrooms on the second floor are available. All are named after “pottery luminaries,” Biery says.
Noticed by members of the Canton Women’s Club and Lake Historical Society – almost all visitors notice – was what the staff has nicknamed “the Cialis Room.” Its real name is “the French Room.”
As in the Cialis television commercials, two large white cast iron bathtubs sit side by side. The room was renovated and furnished before the Cialis ads began airing, Biery emphasizes.
All the restored rooms offer king-sized beds. Depending on one’s preference, guests have their choices of a room with a Jacuzzi, sunken bathtub and the bathtubs in the French Room. The inn offers plush terrycloth robes in each, a microwave and other amenities.
It also serves meals but one must be a guest to eat in the dining room or elsewhere in the inn. The inn does serve large groups that book it for events. Biery suggests the inn is ideal to hold class reunions and off-site business meetings.
Also present the day The Business Journal visited was Jay Karen, whose visit Biery had won at an auction. More precisely, she had won his services as a consultant for two days on how to market the inn and enhance its amenities. Karen is the president and CEO of the Professional Association of International Innkeepers and based in Charleston, S.C.
International Innkeepers has been conducting a media campaign that promotes inns such as Biery’s and bed-and-breakfasts as “A Better Way to Stay.” A film crew was scheduled to shoot the Sebring Inn July 23 and 24 as part of that campaign.
“Today’s travelers want something local [not part of a national chain] and authentic,” Karen said. “This place is something special. It’s not often you get to see something as wonderful as this. It’s better than it was in its former glory.”
With limited success Biery has researched the Sebring family and history of the mansion. Much of what she “thought was history turned out to lore,” she says with a sigh.
Her outlook remains one of optimism. Across the street, she has purchased the white two-story house that she plans to also convert to an inn (but one with lower rates) and finish the landscaping at the Sebring Inn.
“One of my goals was to bring romance to the back side” of the mansion now that she has recaptured what Frank Sebring created in the front.
Meet her at the front entrance and she’ll present you with a flute of champagne.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story appears in our August 2013 print edition.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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