Attorney Mann and his wife appreciate the home’s beauty and intend to restore the site’s use as a family home — with space for local artists, he told the Dayton Daily News late Thursday.
“We are restoring the Peace Museum back into a residential house in conjunction with our daughter Kristin, her husband Aaron and our grandson River,” Mr. Mann said in an email. “We are putting up an eight-foot fence in the back area, and we hope to display local street artist work there for many years to come.
“Please let all Dayton artists know we would love to see their inspirational ‘Dayton Strong’ ideas,” he added. “Beth and I are so proud to be a part of this wonderful community.”
Property records put the transaction date at Tuesday.
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Credit: Tom Gilliam
In April this year, the Dayton International Peace Museum announced plans to move to Courthouse Square downtown. The museum intended to move to the Courthouse Plaza SW building, 10 N. Ludlow St.
“We couldn’t be happier with the new owners,” said Kevin Kelly, executive director of the museum.
Mann is an attorney with Dayton law firm Dyer, Garofalo, Mann & Schultz L.P.A. Beth Mann is president of FLOC (For Love of Children), a Dayton nonprofit organization.
Credit: Peter Wine
Credit: Peter Wine
The museum has billed itself as America’s only brick-and-mortar peace museum with rotating exhibitions and special programs.
A goal for the new museum location, which has room to seat 165 people, is to host events, Kelly said earlier this year.
The museum’s former home, the three-story Isaac Pollock House, built in 1877, was to be sold and the proceeds to be used to start an endowment for the museum, Kelly said.
“They’re well known in the community and have certainly contributed to the Miami Valley,” Kelly said Thursday of Douglas and Elizabeth Mann.
He believes the couple intends to transform the building into a home again.
“We were really pleased when we met them, listening to some of their ideas and felt like we couldn’t ask for a better new owner,” he added. Some prospective owners spoke of dividing the building into apartments, an idea Kelly did not favor.
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