By Don Iannone
Stan Hywet is the precisely built 65-room home,
where the tire baron Seiberling family lived in Akron
for more than 40 years, starting in 1912.
At the time, it was a country home,
four miles from the center city.
Now, it stands tall in a stately,
but wearing neighborhood on Akron's northside.
By design, Stan Hywet was a Tudor Revival creation,
and as architectural buffs know,
this is a carry back to 16th Century Elizabethan times.
Franklin A. Seiberling, founder of Goodyear Tire and Rubber in 1898,
and his wife Gertrude, had the house built with the fineries sufficient
to attract the likes of U.S. presidents and other celebrities
to dine and spend the night in the mansion.
Last Friday night we toured Stan Hywet
to soak in its lavish Christmas decorations,
and experience whatever mystery may await us.
We weren't disappointed on any level.
The Seiberlings were gone, but their spirits lingered,
peeking occasionally at us from the end of darkened hallways;
those the tour intentionally ignored.
Officially, Franklin and Gertrude's remains rest
in Glendale Cemetery in Akron,
but anyone setting foot in Stan Hywet knows...
that a part of both can still be felt
within the mansion's mighty walls.
While opulent in many eyes,
the spirit of Stan Hywet feels rich
in other more meaningful ways.
Stan Hywet challenges you
to find yourself in an earlier time--
one where empires were built
from mighty ideas that changed the world.
You can't help but want to build something in life
after experiencing Stan Hywet.
