Krupski: County prepared to raze ‘Helen Keller house’
“Someone had gotten a deed to the land between the house and the beach and they were going to build a bungalow colony where the marine biology center is now,” Ms. Sewell said. “He ran afoul of the law somewhere and instead of getting involved in court he just gave it to the county. And the county decided everything to the beach side of Sunrise Way is going to be county property.”
The county offered her parents tenancy in the house until their deaths, an offer she said they declined.
The couple purchased a lot adjacent to the house on Sunrise Way and Ms. Sewell said her mother wanted to have the house physically moved there, which never occurred.
Eventually, they purchased another piece of property on Mill Creek, which is where Ms. Sewell and her husband, John, continue to summer. The couple lives in Washington, D.C.
About two years ago, they put the Sunrise Way property up for sale.
As for the house slated for demolition, Ms. Sewell remembers it as “a kid’s heaven,” complete with secret passages, double stairways and a very mysterious attic.
There’s also the story about how the great rum runner Owen Madden may have lived there and allegedly smuggled alcohol through the creek and stored it in the basement.
No one knows how many other tales there are about the house, she said. Every time she drives by it, her heart beats a little louder.
“It’s just a shame to waste a beautiful building like that,” she said. “To not use it when it was taken over and let it die — it’s like taking in a dog and not feeding it. You just don’t do that.”
