Neil Armstrong’s boyhood home in Wapakoneta, Ohio, has gone on the market for the first time in nearly 40 years, with an asking price of $430,000.The two-storey house at 601 W. Benton St. is being sold by 82-year-old retired history teacher Karen Mikesell, who bought the property in 1988 and has spent decades preserving its character and connection to the first man on the Moon.The house was built in 1908 and has changed little on the outside. Its large front porch remains, while the interior layout is largely intact despite updates over the years.Armstrong’s family bought the property in 1944, when he was a teenager. He lived there while building model aircraft in the dining room and testing them in a wind tunnel he constructed in the basement.His old bedroom, where he launched model planes from the rear window to test their flight distance, now contains photographs and memorabilia from the Apollo 11 mission. A model of the Wright brothers’ first production aircraft hangs from the ceiling.The property also retains a garage that Armstrong and his father built using scrap lumber. A former chicken coop where Armstrong and his friends held Boy Scout meetings is no longer standing.Mikesell said she did not initially know that the Armstrong family had lived in the house when she bought it. After learning about its history, she decided to preserve it as closely as possible to how the family had kept it.“I felt a responsibility to ‘keep it like the Armstrongs had it,’” she said.Over the years, the house has hosted nine astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin, who visited Armstrong’s former bedroom several years after Armstrong’s death in 2012. Mikesell also received a moon rock and a piece of gold foil from the Apollo 11 mission.The home is an occasional stop for visitors to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum, although it is not open for regular tours.
What happens to the property next?
Mikesell hopes the buyer will preserve the house and its connection to Armstrong. She said she would like to see it donated to the Armstrong museum, but the museum does not currently have the funds to acquire the property.The house is not legally protected from alterations, leaving its future up to the eventual buyer.Mikesell said she is ready to hand over the property after nearly four decades.“It’s time to let someone else have the opportunity to be as blessed as I’ve been,” she said, “and to take care of it and keep it as a part of history.”
