Rabbit Hash General Store project moves from demolition to construction phase

Описание: RABBIT HASH, Ky. (WKRC) - After months of demolishing old buildings to harvest 19th century building materials, the reconstruction of the Rabbit Hash General store is in full swing.

“This is probably going to be a precedent setter in historic preservation,” said Rabbit Hash Historical Society president Don Clare. “What we’re going to end up with is the Rabbit Hash General Store and it’s going to look like the day before it burned.”

The 185-year-old country store caught fire February 13, 2016. The building was gutted. To keep its historic designation, every piece of remaining structure was preserved, cleaned up and stored for re-use. Four old buildings were dismantled piece-by-piece to collect siding, flooring and structural members for use in the General Store’s resurrection. Friday, September 16, crews finished the subfloor made from the roof of an old bank in Florence, Indiana.

“We’re trying to put everything in this store that would have been there in 1831,” said Clare. “It’s going to have the wavy floors, if you go in one of the side rooms you’re going to hit your head on the header. It’s going to be just like it was.”

Across the road from the construction project, Terrie Markesbery has set up a temporary general store. She has run the Rabbit Hash General Store since 2000 and considered it “an old friend.”

She is watching the project closely, “I am so excited. I think it restores hope. People come down and they are hopeful that it will be rebuilt the way it was.”

Markesbery says she’s confident that people will support the new general store and hopes it will have some of the old building’s charm and whimsy. She’s even thinking about how to recreate the original store’s smell.

“A little burlap and incense and kerosene. Things like that. Sure. We can do that.”

Clare says the historical society has raised enough money to get the building under roof. He says additional funds may be needed to complete the project. The goal is to reopen the Rabbit Hash General Store in time for the community’s Old Timers Day celebration on Labor Day Weekend 2017