Apartment rental on Battles Estate, Hagen History Center campus Girard

By Judy J. Beasley Last updated Jul 27, 2022

GIRARD — A one-of-a-kind apartment is once again offered for short-term rental in Girard.

The apartment is in the Yellow House, one of two museums on the Girard campus of the Hagen History Center on Walnut Street in the Borough of Girard.

The one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment on the museum’s second floor housed a caretaker in the 1980s and 1990s. The apartment was later renovated and rented out on a short-term basis in 2014 and 2015. It has been vacant since , said Cal Pifer, executive director of the Hagen History Center.

“It’s a very special place on a historic farm,” Pifer said.

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The Italian-style Yellow House was built by businessman and banker Rush Battles in 1858. The Battles estate also includes the nearby White House, built by the family in 1861. The White House is now home to family antiques and memorabilia recently owned by Battles’ daughter. , Charlotte Elizabeth Battles, who lived in the house until her death in 1952. The estate was donated to the Erie County Historical Society in the 1980s.

The rental apartment does not have access to the rest of the Yellow House, which is preserved as a typical farmhouse of its time.

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Customer base and revenue plans

“Tenants will enter through the front door and go upstairs to the apartment,” Pifer said. “We are closing the first floor.”

Tenants will have access to public walking trails on the property’s over 80 wooded acres. “They will also be able to climb the stairs to the third floor cupola of the house,” Pifer said.

Past tenants of the Yellow House apartment were primarily from Texas, Florida, Virginia and the Carolinas, Pifer said.

“The tenants were mostly the opposite of snowbirds, people who had moved away from the area and gone south, and came back to get away from the heat and visit family members here during the winter. summer,” Pifer said.

The apartment has just been rented out still on Airbnb, a website selling short-term rentals. The cost is $105 per night. The apartment is also available for weekly rental.

Rental income, less taxes paid, will be reinvested in the Battles estate, Pifer said. The Yellow House and the White House are currently not regularly open to visitors.

“We have plans ahead for the Battles site. We are now going through a period where we are reviewing and analyzing different options to use it more,” he said.

Short-term rentals are now regulated by some municipalities in Erie County, including the Townships of Millcreek and Summit. The ordinances include specific districts where these rentals may be located. Millcreek and Summit now allow short-term rentals in commercial and mixed-use neighborhoods, not residential neighborhoods.

Elsewhere in Erie County:Some municipalities are regulating or considering rules for short-term rentals

The Erie City Council is also expected to review short-term rental regulations. Council discussed the regulations last fall, but took no action on them. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2019 ruled that short-term rentals are only permitted in areas where they are specifically permitted by a municipality.

Girard has no regulations for short-term rentals, but Borough Council should consider such an ordinance, Borough Manager Rob Stubenbort said.

The Battles museums are located in a residential area of the borough, although the closest neighborhood is some distance away, across fields from the estate, Stubenbort said. The museums are located just off Main Street, the borough’s downtown shopping area.