After fire, couple rebuild dream home, stay put in city

New Old House

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By KATIE SEMINARA

Vindicator Staff Writer

YOUNGSTOWN — Though Jay and Kim Rupe passed out Halloween candy from their apartment on Tod Lane, the couple should be hanging up Christmas lights on their house a few blocks away.

For more than a year, holidays have been celebrated in their cramped apartment, rather than in the Rupes’ 1926 Dutch Colonial retreat.

After just one month of living in their home, flames ravaged the second floor, leaving the Rupes to decide whether to tear down their house or salvage the extensively damaged remains.

“There’s really no words to describe how we felt. We were overwhelmed by seeing the house and overwhelmed with the choice,” Kim Rupe said.

“It was extremely difficult, because this is our first [purchased] home together,” she said of deciding the next step.

The Rupes chose to stay, to rebuild the house they had handpicked to be their own.

Both Jay and Kim Rupe grew up in the Youngstown area, he on the West Side and South Side and she in Niles.

For 12 years, the couple moved from Las Vegas to Chicago to Harrisburg, pursuing education and following job offers. In 2004, the couple decided to take jobs that would bring them back to Youngstown, closer to family and the memories of childhood.

Jay Rupe teaches engineering classes at Trumbull Career and Technical Center, and Kim Rupe is an educational assistant with the Youngstown city schools.

“Youngstown is a central location,” said Jay Rupe, adding that it’s a quick trip to Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Akron and Columbus.

But the Rupes needed one more thing to make Youngstown complete — an old house on the North Side.

The North Side search lasted two years before the Rupes found their house on Tod. It had red oak floors, built-in shelving with bay window seating, black-and-white checkered bathroom tile, Colonial fireplaces, and a mahogany staircase and banister. The Rupes were smitten with the 82-year-old treasure.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Lamb family lived in the house, said Kim Rupe. The Arms Family Museum helped the Rupes discover the history of the house, and the information showed that Mr. Lamb was a contractor who worked on the North Side.

After the Lambs lived in the house, the Seigle family moved in.

Mr. Seigle also played a key role in development of Youngstown as the superintendent of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. and vice president of Federal Iron.

The historical value and old-fashioned charm of the property were everything the Rupes wanted for a place to call home.

“It’s just a beautiful house. It’s got a lot of character ­— more than you can see,” said Jay Rupe.

But that beauty was tainted last October when a fire wreaked havoc on the house’s interior.

The blaze started in the master bedroom, first extending to the roof and then spreading to all other rooms on the second floor.

Water and smoke damaged the first floor, said Jay Rupe.

Many of the intricacies of the house they fell in love with were torched, and their belongings were trashed.

The Rupes received calls at work alerting them to the fire.

Although the couple had only lived on Tod for one month before the fire, neighbors came to their aid with food, clothing and water.

One of the neighbors even broke a window to save the couple’s cats, said Kim Rupe.

With neighborhood support and their strong commitment to the house, the Rupes began the painstaking process of restoring their home.

“I guess at any point we could have just left, and people were surprised that we didn’t,” said Kim Rupe.

New replicated hardwood floors were laid, doors were recreated to mirror the originals lost in the flames, the banister was refurbished and stained to look like new and fireplaces were revitalized.

“We are trying to get it back to its historical luster,” said Jay Rupe.

A year later, the Rupes are on the brink of moving in to their dream home — for a second time.

Kim Rupe called the North Side “a diamond in the rough” and they say friends and family who visit are always impressed with the aura of the house and the neighborhood.

“We’ve changed a lot of perceptions on Youngstown and that’s a reward right there,” said Kim Rupe.

People who view the city as being crime-infested with zero neighborhood atmospheres miss out on the real Youngstown, she said.

“People can believe what they want, but this is a great place.”