500 North Union Street Middletown, PA 17057 – MacDonald House – Now The Hetrick Center (owned by Drs. Scott and Mary Colman (Colman Properties, LLC))
The home construction spanned several years in the 1870’s. The MacDonald’s lived across the street in the Mish home during the construction. It is a “Greek Revival” home, with the balustrade imported from Florence. The home included stained glass windows and a marble floor. It is Mansard-roofed, which is a hip roof. The slope of a mansard roof from eaves to ridge is broken into two portions. The lower portion is built with a steep pitch, sometimes almost vertical; the upper portion has a low pitch or is nearly flat. This results in a higher and more useful interior space than can be obtained with other roof types.
John MacDonald was an inventor, and built a dumb-waiter from the then kitchen on the lower level to the dining room on the second floor. The home purportedly had the first furnace and bathroom in Middletown, and the original owners each Thursday held an open house. Mary showed the bathroom to the ladies, and John appropriately showed the gentleman the furnace.
An interesting aside, Mary MacDonald (Ross) was told that Mary, Queen of Scotts, was her third Great Grandmother.
The property also had a courtyard with assorted trees (including fruit trees), bushes and flowers and a carriage house, with the grooms quarters on the second floor above the stalls and carriages.
The property has gone through several owners (we believe 7-previous owners include Dr. Bixler and Dr. Hetrick) and each one made various revisions and additions through the years. The original home expanded to 24 rooms. The courtyard is now a parking lot, the carriage house was preserved but renovated, and subsequently an adjoining building was added. The “home” exterior, to the best of our knowledge, remains very close to the original architecture and much of the interior woodwork and staircases are original.
The MacDonald Home is now home to The Hetrick Center’s Chiropractic and Physical Therapy services.
