i know a story 8

This is what the Mansion on Main Organic Salon & Spa in Leola looked like after a fire in December 2023. The building was the author’s childhood home.

 ANDY BLACKBURN | Staff photographer file photo

 Devastation hit me when I read about the fire that leveled The Mansion on Main Organic Salon & Spa on West Main Street in Leola late last year. But even more devastating was the fact it was my childhood home, built by my grandmother 100 years ago: A unique architectural structure capped with a red tile roof and three tall chimneys.

Inside, beauty flourished with parquet floors; a grand staircase with its scroll newel post; a cozy, quaint eating nook; and a sunroom with miniature floor tiles that soaked up the sun’s warmth. A driveway circled the house, passing through a covered entrance way or porte cochere.

Now that it’s gone, memories flood my mind of what to share. Where do I start?

Eating in the nook with Grandma and family, enjoying the sunroom’s fireplace in winter, playing games or putting puzzles together by the warm radiator in the big kitchen, sliding down the grand staircase railing? Or do I repeat how I survived the day a horse ran through the house, when I was 15 months old (which I recorded in I Know a Story in June 2017)?

Or do I share stories of the front hedge? Originally, the property sat on 2 acres, with a front hedge that seemed to stretch for miles — especially when I had to trim it three times a year using only hand shears. My arms ached for days. But it was a great hiding place when we boys would throw apples at the sides of trucks. Once, Dad suggested we sell hubcaps that he acquired working for the highway department. A “25 cents” sign and more than 25 cleaned, polished hubcaps lined the outside of the hedge. These were single caps that came loose that Dad had collected along the edge of the roads.

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The building that housed the Mansion on Main Salon & Spa, Leola, holds memories for the author, who lived there as a child. The building was a total loss after a December 2023 fire.

After a few sales, fright set in when a state trooper appeared asking, “Where did you boys get all these hubcaps?” His tone implied we stole them. We were shaking in our boots until I explained my dad’s highway role, fixing sign boards all over the county and picking them up. The hedge also served as a backdrop to sell potatoes as extra income to help our family during the Depression years. I disliked the digging process, though selling and bagging them was tolerable. Occasionally, a few dollars would come my way from Dad.

Other memories include World War II air raids — always scary to me. But the back stairs helped. Located off the main stairs, a set of lighted stairs allowed playing to continue without lights being seen outside. The stairs also hid, under jackets and clothing, Dad’s 50-pound bag of sugar (a black-market purchase). Why he told me not to tell anybody about it was perplexing as a kid. And then there was Dad’s scary “Double Alexander,” his imaginary punishment tool, hidden in the basement. I never could find it in the basement, but that’s another story to tell.

Fortunately, the fire in December did not destroy my grandma’s magnolia tree, about 100 years old, too. The entire Myer clan and friends all loved to climb it with its low, wide, spreading branches. Grandma would yell to get off her tree, as you will ruin it. And yet it survived the calamity that night in December.

There are many other fond memories of 119 W. Main St., but the garage and Grandma’s favorite tree will have to serve as reminders. It was just an ordinary home to me. I didn’t know I grew up in a “mansion.”

The author lives in Lititz. The Mansion on Main Organic Salon & Spa is operating temporarily at 349 W. Main St., Leola.

If you know an interesting story, please write it in 600 words or less and send it to Mary Ellen Wright, LNP editorial department, P.O. Box 1328, Lancaster, PA 17608-1328, or email it to features@lnpnews.com. Please include your phone number and the name of the town you live in.

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