Initial plans to expand the Eureka Springs Hospital have hit a bit of a speed bump.
At its Sept. 7 regular meeting, the Eureka Springs Historic District Commission unanimously denied the hospital commission’s request to deconstruct and remove the house located at 28 Lema St., also known as the “Purple House.”
Instead, the hospital commission will look into whether moving the structure — which was initially built in 1914 — is possible and come back to the HDC with a new proposal.
Eliminating the house from the grounds of the hospital is necessary to expand and remodel the facility, hospital commissioner Kent Turner told the HDC — a project that, if funded, would take place over the next four to five years.
“The commission has not come to this decision lightly,” Turner said. “We have evaluated probably 13 or 14 other designs, and there’s just no way around being able to use this property.
“[The house] is dead set in the center of where we need to, in fact, start the new additions of the hospital. So, there’s no way we could go with the design and do what we want to do by keeping that house in that location.”
The hospital commission’s original idea was to deconstruct the structure in a way to preserve parts of the building to be used by Eureka Springs residents. HDC commissioner Marty Cogan, however, quickly had an issue with the plan to tear down the building.
“Have you considered moving the house?” Cogan asked Turner. “There’s nothing wrong with that structure. I, for one, would not vote to demolish it because there is nothing inherently wrong with the house. It just doesn’t suit you guys.”
“No, I’m not saying there’s anything inherently wrong with the house,” Turner responded. “We think for the health and welfare of the residents of Eureka Springs …” “Ridiculous,” Cogan responded, cutting off Turner. “That’s an egregious comment.”
HDC commissioner Judy Holden then asked Turner if the hospital commission had considered auctioning off the house to be moved off the property.
“Maybe there might be somebody that would be willing to move the house,” Holden said.
Turner responded: “That hasn’t been an option, and I don’t speak for the rest of the hospital commission, but I don’t believe that would be a problem. We are somewhat moving rapidly because, I will tell you, we are working with Washington, D.C., on funding and it looks like we’re going to have a lot of funding available to us.
“But I think … [looking into moving the house] is one of the alternatives I think we could move forward with trying to make that happen sooner as opposed to later.
“It’s worth a shot. I like the idea of an auction.”
Turner said he will bring up the idea at the next hospital commission meeting, which is scheduled for Sept. 19.
“The [hospital] commission will actually evaluate whether to have somebody come in and evaluate whether or not it can be moved and report back to the HDC when we get when that answer.”
