GAMBIER — Kenyon College President Sean Decatur and family have settled back into the college president’s home, Cromwell Cottage, over the summer, well in time before students return near the end of August. Their doing so followed an electrical fire at the Cromwell Cottage this past December that caused around $200,000 in interior damage, said Mark Kohlman, Kenyon’s chief business officer.
But the fire damage to the historic home — which started inside Cromwell Cottage in the basement, then spread to the kitchen upstairs and a small living room area along with some smoke damage — was not significant. Decatur and family were not home at the time when a nicked power line underground caused an electrical reaction through the line that caused the fire to start. The fire was linked to ongoing construction of the new college library.
“It could have been a whole lot worse,” Smith said at the time. “They could have literally lost the whole building.”
Repairs began in February and were completed June 15, with Decatur and family moving back in the next day, Kohlman said. They had stayed temporarily in a Kenyon Inn suite the first days following the fire, and later moved into a private residence in Gambier. The college hired Rainbow Restoration to make the repairs.
“All of the repairs related to the fire were covered by the college’s insurer, EIIA,” Kohlman said. “Rainbow Restoration did the vast majority of the work directly. I can not say how much was subcontracted.”
He added the college is very pleased with the work done, which needed to conform to the building’s interior architecture. “All of the work was interior work,” he said. “There was some work in the yard where equipment was staged. The most difficult part was coordinating with all the parties involved to keep the process moving.”
Cromwell Cottage is a large Jacobethan Revival-style home completed in 1911, with funds for its construction provided by William Nelson Cromwell, a trustee. It was designed by Kenyon graduate Alfred Granger, a class of 1887 Kenyon graduate, who also designed Pierce Hall. It has been the home of Kenyon College presidents for more than a century.
The home is two and-a-half stories tall and about 7,000 square feet in size. It features sandstone construction on the first floor and a projecting gable on the east wing. Its second story was constructed to resemble half-timber construction. An addition to the north side of the home was added in 1988. The majority of the home’s windows are paired, with the first floor encased in stone and the second floor in wood.
