WEST CHESTER TOWNSHIP — One of the Muhlhauser family barns may be moved this spring from Fairfield to Beckett Ridge Park for renovation into a community conference center.

The old Muhlhauser barn in Fairfield was built for the Muhlhauser-Windisch Brewing Company, one of the region's early breweries. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

        The 121-year-old wood barn, which is 100 feet long and 40 feet high, sits next to Ohio Casualty Group's headquarters on Seward Road.

        The barn served the Muhlhauser-Windisch Brewing Company before eventually being sold to the heavy metal band Kiss, which used it for a rehearsal hideaway during its heyday, a township official said. Ohio Casualty Group purchased the 80-acre farm and an adjacent 58 acres in 1998. But now the company wants to clear the land, which is zoned for industrial business, for development and has offered to donate the barn to the township.

        “We don't want to plow our history into the ground. Whatever we can save, we want to hold onto,” West Chester Township Administrator Dave Gully said.

        West Chester trustees gave Mr. Gully approval Tuesday to pursue the project with Ohio Casualty Group and Rick Muhlhauser. It still hasn't been decided who will pay to move the barn. The township may even be able to have a developer do it for free, Mr. Gully said.

        David Gaker, a Liberty Township resident and an engineer who has been “rescuing” barns, will move the barn, said Joyce Smith, real estate manager for Ohio Casualty Group.

        “It would be a neat way to save the barn and work as a good corporate citizen and give something back to the community,” Ms. Smith said.

        “There's strength to be drawn from our heritage in general,” said Rick Muhlhauser, a great grandson of Henry Muhlhauser, one of three partners of the brewery. “If you destroy all the reminders of the past, then you destroy your ability to draw strength from it.”

        The Muhlhauser barn could be moved as early as this spring with renovations. expected to cost about $1 million, complete in a year's time. Another barn, also built in the 1880s, is available for relocation, Ms. Smith said.

        Ohio Casualty Group has been trying to hand off the Muhlhauser barns since last fall. The barns aren't listed on a historical register, but they are tied to the Muhlhauser family, one of the region's original beer dynasties.

        The barn West Chester is interested in would go at the foot of the hill at the new, 151-acre Beckett Ridge Park, which straddles Beckett Road, including the steep hillside directly below Beckett Ridge Country Club.
       

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