Does a previous owner of a home make it more valuable? How do we evaluate whether or not the owner of a home and what they accomplished while living there makes it worthy of preservation? Astronaut John Glenn lived in Arlington at the time of his historic Friendship 7 mission.

On February 20, 1962 the world was riveted as Friendship 7 orbited the earth — three times. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth and he lived in Arlington. The media was camped out near his home on North Harrison Street while Vice President Johnson waited down the street, as Mrs. Glenn restricted access to their home at this historic time. The Arlington Library has a fantastic write-up, click here.

The house is now for sale. It is being marketed as a teardown. The property sits on over
17,629 SF with beautiful treed vistas. The property cannot be subdivided. The real estate sales listing talks about the “value in the land”, click here. Is that the only value of this property? You can pull up the property archive card and see that “GLENN, JOHN H. JR. & ANNA C” owned the home from 1958 to 1966.

What should happen? What is threshold for preserving a place, event or story? And, if it were to be saved how could it be utilized? What does this mean for our community?