By DOUG GRAVES
Ohio Correspondent

KETTERING, Ohio — If you have an extra $8 million handy, you could be the owner of an 8.6-acre Ohio farm and a 55-room mansion in Kettering, in Montgomery County.

The estate of Col. Edward Andrew Deeds is up for immediate sale. The estate, called Moraine Farm, includes a 45,803 square-foot mansion owned and operated by National Cash Register (NCR) and is located on Stroop Road in Kettering, adjacent to the Kettering Medical Center. The price includes the antique personal property.
“Certainly we’re very interested in its future because of the significance of Moraine Farm,” said Kettering City Manager Mark Schweiterman. He adds that the council is not interested in purchasing the property at this time.

NCR announced in June that it would move its world headquarters to Duluth, Georgia, taking with it more than 1,000 jobs from Dayton. And while NCR plans to sell its headquarters building, the plans for other sites, such as Moraine Farm, was uncertain.

A booklet which features color photos inside the mansion and black and white photos of the past was created by Cincinnati commercial real estate service CB Richard Ellis Inc. The booklet shows off the mansion’s beautiful architecture, artistic interior design and some of its history, like the private airport that was once in operation.
Most of the home’s antique contents are intact, just as they were when the home was occupied by the Deeds family in the early to mid-1900s.

Deeds, a former NCR chairman, built the original house in 1912. He later turned it into an English major style mansion. The original estate had a dairy barn, stable, private landing strip and gun club. To this day the property houses a music room which features one of the largest Steinway concert grand pianos in the country, a dining room complete with a banquet table that seats 28 people, a sun room, recreation room, atrium, a 1920s observatory and a Lotosland room, named after Deeds’ 206-foot private yacht and featuring furniture from that vessel.

Deeds was an inventor and collaborator with Charles Kettering, and together they founded Delco. Brady Kress, who runs the Dayton History Organization, said the Deeds home has a lot of historical value.

“Deeds bought the farm in 1912 and made many additions to it,” Kress said. “He entertained many people coming into Dayton to learn about the Conservancy District, NCR, Delco and Frigidaire. The likes of Henry Ford, Edsel Ford, Orville Wright, Thomas Edison and others went through those doors.”

Kress is overseeing the preservation of Deeds’ barn, the building where the electric automobile starter was invented. That building will soon be enclosed in its own new building at Carillon Park just south of downtown Dayton.

“Certainly, we would like to have it,” Kress said. “It’s worth preserving. Our focus is to make it safe and secure and the best of all worlds, like having tours and letting people know of its historical significance.”

Some foresee the estate being used as an executive retreat center, a place to host out-of-town visitors for private events, or even a corporate bed and breakfast. So far there are many projections for its use, but no one has come forward with a purchase offer.

City leaders in Kettering said they don’t have the money readily available to purchase the property, but they would also like to see it preserved.