Lifestyles
Instructor and husband give historic
tural styles, the couple purchased
an 1898 Victorian home and
began restoring it.
"After we fell in love with
Marietta," Ross said, "we found
that others shared our love for
the town and were very concerned
about restoring the buildings
there."
The Rosses joined the Marietta
Restoration Associates, a group
dedicated primarily to preserving
the buildings in Marietta, which is
approximately 12 miles from cam
pus, along Route 441.
"When we suddenly found
ourselves the owners of the
church, we really didn't have any
immediate plans for it," Ross
said.
"In the back of our minds we
had thought of the possibility of
apartments or even a gallery."
"It would be very easy to just
box off four units," she explain
ed, "but then you would lose the
interesting features of the
church's high Gothic ceilings and
windows, the wainscoating, the
In photo at upper left, Linda Ross looks from opening in nearly completed condominium. Bot
torn left, exterior view of church. Above, Ken and Linda Ross stand in front of historic church
they bought four years ago.
unusual woodwork and the like."
So, the Rosses finally ap
proached deVitry, who had
already done similar work in Lan
caster, and came up with plans to
maintain and enhance what the
church already had to offer.
The architect first came up with
some rough plans for a gallery
and apartments. But zoning or-
dinances prohibited construction
of a gallery, and costs estimates
for apartments proved to be too
high for the Rosses to gain back
money on their initial outlay.
"We realized we would be
about 90 years old before we
would ever see any return on our
investment," she said.
With a desire to respect the ex
isting architecture, keeping as
much of what was still there in
the church intact, they settled on
the idea of condominiums. The
money from the sale of one unit
would finance the next unit.
Before becoming an instructor
of Humanities and Education at
Capitol, Ross taught art and ar-