Jeannette 'Mansion House' that predates city is home to local history - and up for sale

It needs a good bit of work, but someone interested in local history could find quite a lot of it within the walls of an old stone farm house in Jeannette’s Seneca Heights neighborhood.

In the 100 block of Locust Street, a dark stone house predating the city sits near the top of the hill. Originally granted by warrant in July 1784 to Revolutionary War veteran Jacob Kimmel (or Keemel, depending on which document from the state archives you’re looking at), the property once was more than 300 acres. Later, Kimmel split the property and gave part to his son Andrew.

The home itself was built in 1779, according to a publication celebrating Jeannette’s 75th anniversary. Jeannette became a city in 1888.

A few years before that, in 1876, the house was the birthplace of Maud M.B. Trescher, the first woman elected to the Jeannette school board in 1921 and the first woman elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1924.

In 1917, with the country in the throes of World War I, George and Mary Jupena bought the property. At that time, it still was part of Hempfield, according to the Jupenas’ great-granddaughter, Patricia Beggs of Greensburg.

“It was part of a section of Hempfield that was eventually incorporated into Jeannette,” Beggs said. “They also built a red-brick home two lots down that’s no longer there.”

On an old lot map Beggs found in the state archives collection, a large section of the original property stands out as the biggest in the neighborhood. It is labeled the “Mansion House.”

Because of its size, Beggs said it often was used as a duplex for multiple tenants, including her aunt Jeannette, who was the first baby to be born in the city after its 1888 incorporation.

Beggs mostly remembers visiting her grandmother at the house when she was younger.

“We’d stay overnight, walk down to Enrico’s Bakery,” she said. “On football nights, we’d walk to the stadium. We had a lot of fun there.”

Beggs and her siblings want to sell the home, which is listed at $99,500, to someone with an interest in its history.

The 5,000-square-foot house is a fixer-upper, to be sure. But it has a host of interesting features, including a newer section on the rear with curved archway entrances, a double staircase leading to the second floor — a vestige of its days as a duplex — and two large (currently nonfunctional) fireplaces that had been plastered over.

“My dad always loved it here,” Beggs said. “He knew there was a lot of history, and he wanted to see it restored.”

For more on the home, see OldHouses.com/31230.