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WAPAKONETA, Ohio — Inside Neil Armstrong’s boyhood home, at the top of a creaky stairway, sits his bedroom where he launched model airplanes out of the rear window to measure how far they’d fly.
Hanging in the room now are autographed photos of astronauts who’ve visited the privately kept house to see where Armstrong’s first steps to the moon began.
Owned by a retired history teacher devoted to preserving its past and charming character, the home is for sale for the first time in nearly 40 years. What will become of it remains uncertain.
All over Armstrong’s hometown of Wapakoneta, there are reminders of his history-making moonwalk.
But few places played a bigger role early in his journey than 601 W. Benton St. — the house where the Armstrong family settled in western Ohio when he was a young teenager.
It’s where Armstrong built planes out of balsa wood and glue in the dining room and constructed a basement wind tunnel to test his models.
He’d often pedal his bike from home to take flying lessons at an airstrip.
At age 16, Armstrong made his first solo flight and got his pilot’s license. Just 20 years later, he rocketed into space for the first time. After the 1969 moon landing, he taught at the University of Cincinnati.
A parade of astronauts has visited Armstrong’s house
Today, Armstrong’s two-story boyhood home is an occasional stop for visitors to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, even though the house itself isn’t open for tours.
When Karen Mikesell bought the place in 1988, she had no idea who once lived there until another teacher soon told her.
As a history teacher who later became a school principal, Mikesell felt a responsibility to “keep it like the Armstrongs had it,” she said.
She’s hosted nine astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin, who flew to the moon with Armstrong and Michael Collins in 1969.
Aldrin stepped inside the bedroom upstairs a few years after Armstrong died in 2012, Mikesell recalled, “and the tears just streamed down his cheeks.”
Over the years, she’s been given a moon rock and received a piece of gold foil that covered the Apollo 11 capsule — a gift from one of the Navy frogmen who helped recover the command module and its crew.
Some astronauts autographed their photos with personal messages to Mikesell — “thanks for taking such great care of Neil’s home!” wrote Mike Foreman, who flew on two space shuttle missions.
“You can read books, but you can never have those kinds of experiences that I was able to have because I lived here,” she said. “I could go on and on.”
House holds many reminders of the first man on the moon
Armstrong’s family bought the home in 1944 after his father had moved them about a dozen times with his job as a government auditor.
The oldest of three children, Neil was born in a farmhouse just outside Wapakoneta, today a city of just under 10,000 people.
The house on Benton Street with its big front porch has changed little on the outside. Inside, the layout is similar too, though it has been updated.
In the backyard, a garage that Armstrong and his father built with scrap lumber still stands, though a chicken coop where he and his friends gathered for Boy Scout meetings is long gone.
Armstrong’s old bedroom is now decorated with photos and paintings of the moon landing. Hanging from the ceiling is a model of the Wright brothers’ first production airplane — the aviation pioneers were from nearby Dayton and an inspiration for Armstrong.
She never met Armstrong, who was famously private. She did talk with his parents, siblings and children about the 1908 home and its place in Armstrong’s upbringing.
A part of American history is for sale
Mikesell, who’s 82, said she hopes someone might be willing to buy the house and donate it to the Armstrong museum, which doesn’t have the funds to acquire the property, according to Logan Rex, its spokesperson.
She is just one of a handful of people who’ve owned the home since the Armstrongs sold it in the mid-1960s. By the time she bought the house, the rooms were covered with wallpaper in a rainbow of colors, so she sought to restore its original look.
While the house, which is listed at $430,000, isn’t legally protected from alteration, Mikesell is also optimistic that the new owners will respect it — whether it remains a private residence or becomes a place for overnight stays.
“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.”
