The building at the intersection of Schantz Avenue and Heritage Point Drive will serve as a location for artifact care, document archiving and cataloguing, and historic photo digitizing. It is on the Kettering/Dayton border, just up the Patterson hill from the Carillon Historical Park Museum, which is also owned by Dayton History.
The vast majority of the collection, which is now housed at different area sites, is from NCR, Kress said. It will be stored at the building being named the Mark and Paula Hurd NCR Archive Center.
Credit: CONTRIBUTED/DAYTON HISTORY
Credit: CONTRIBUTED/DAYTON HISTORY
“We’re going to be able to bring it all together and create an environment that is best suited for the long-term care and protection of the artifacts,” he said.
The center will have “tight tolerances on humidity controls and temperature controls and make sure the items are in the best environment they can be in,” Kress added.
The family of former NCR CEO Mark Hurd provided a $1 million gift, the largest donation for the facility to date among about 10 “major” and several local contributors, many of whom want to remain anonymous for now, Kress said.
Dayton History is about halfway to its fundraising goal and continues to seek donations, he said.
“We were trying to get to the point where we felt comfortable pulling the trigger to start the project and when this (Hurd) gift came in,” the decision was made, he said.
Credit: CONTRIBUTED/DAYTON HISTORY
Credit: CONTRIBUTED/DAYTON HISTORY
Hurd had a 25-year career at then Dayton-based NCR, a former Fortune 500 company for which John Patterson became the driving force in the late 19th century.
Hurd spent his final two years with the company — where his wife also worked — as its chief executive before leaving in 2005 to take the top job at Hewlett-Packard. He later became CEO at Oracle and headed it until his 2019 death.
Dayton History plans
The Hurd Center, where renovation is expected to start in the coming weeks, will have offices and digitizing suites for curators, archivists and volunteers, Kress said. It will house about 10 people on a daily basis, Kettering city records show.
Public access will be limited to periodic open houses after work is completed, which Kress said will hopefully be next fall.
The entrance to the former restaurant’s Tenderloin Room will be restored for various public forums, but the center will not have “an ongoing exhibit that people can just walk in during the day and wander around,” he said.
Credit: Teesha Mcclam
Credit: Teesha Mcclam
Nonetheless, “the work of preserving and protecting the stories and artifacts of such legendary businesses … and others whose influence has been felt not only around Dayton, but around the state and world, is a wonderful thing,” said Elizabeth J. Woods, an Ohio History Connection director.
“Knowing that future generations will be able to experience such a rich and diverse history — in a newly renovated space, no less — is something that we should all celebrate,” Woods added.
The collection may have a business focus due to its origins. But it also captures changes in social history and has an international flavor, Kress said.
“With NCR’s archives, the photographs are of the community and are of people and buildings and offices around the world,” he said. “The 68,000 images in the DP&L collection are of communities that DP&L served through the decades.
Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
“It really is a community photo archive. It just happened to be collected and/or created by companies,” Kress said.
“There’s a tremendous amount of social history that was collected,” he added. “For example, John Patterson used to send staff photographers around … for new cash register installations — and that was all over the world.
“We have photos of new cash registers in France and Germany and England — you name it. Cash registers being delivered by sled dog up in Alaska. Just wild images of all these installations because Patterson wanted to use those images as marketing materials.”
The site’s history
Dayton History completed the purchase of the 2.2-acre site in 2016, according to Montgomery County real estate records.
The three-story, 24,000-square-foot restaurant and banquet center was built in 1962, land records show.
Credit: CONTRIBUTED/DAYTON HISTORY
Credit: CONTRIBUTED/DAYTON HISTORY
Founded by Neil Swafford and operated in later years by Walter Schaller, Neil’s Heritage House had a five-decade run before shutting down in January 2006. In its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, it was a popular supper club and special-events venue, drawing wedding receptions, family reunions, class reunions, school dances and a variety of other events.
In 2010, Serena Walther, granddaughter of the restaurant’s founder, moved from California back to her hometown of Dayton, and with her then-husband Eric Leventhal, renovated the space and reopened the restaurant in 2011.
The restaurant opened strong, fueled in part by nostalgia, but later struggled and suspended operations in late 2014. The restaurant’s equipment and furnishings were later auctioned off.
Since its purchase, Kress said Dayton History has not made many visible improvements to the site, which has a parking lot with about 170 spaces, Kettering records show.
The vehicle lot needs to be resurfaced, which neighbor and Dayton History supporter Brian Hartt earlier this month called “clearly a significant re-arrangement of the existing pavement.”
Hartt also wanted to know how equipment being hauled in for the renovation would impact traffic.
Tracey Jipson, who also lives nearby, said she is “excited by their intended use of this building,” but expressed concern about overflow parking for special events.
“While our street is fairly wide, it is a very small neighborhood … And that’s a lot of people to (potentially) introduce into a small area at one time,” Jipson said.
“Safety — certainly in this neighborhood — there are a lot of walkers, a lot of small children (who) live on the street,” she added. “So, if we have a lot of traffic being introduced at a specific time, that’s certainly going to be a concern.”
The city of Kettering approved Dayton History’s plan with several conditions, all of which will be addressed, Kress said.
“I really think they’re going to be pleased,” Kress said of the neighbors. “The parking lot and the building have needed work for two decades. And so, when we’re all finished it’s going to be really nice over there and it will be nice to get that building used again. And not the kind of massive traffic that was there when it was a restaurant.”
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