After standing vacant for over a decade, this grand home and its grounds are on a path of rebirth as a community house of culture, art, heritage and the preservation trades The Hovey Family arrived in Urbana by the mid 1820s and acquired almost an entire city block that would become the site of their family homestead. Several additions were made over the course of a decade that resulted in the la
rge and unusual home atop East Water Street seen today. The Hovey's financial interests in Urbana ranged in everything from the woolen mill, brick yard, road construction, and the grocery business and resort hotel in New Jersey. Three generations of the Hovey family would occupy the property spanning over a century. Following the Hovey's departure in 1944, the home was acquired by the Abe Herr who owned a sheet metal company nearby. Following his death, the home would be passed on to his daughter, Martha Jane Hayslip, and her family for a total of 20 years of the Herr and Hayslip residency. by the 1960s, the property was purchased by Water and Margaret Murphy. Walter was a native of Kentucky and would become one of the most distinguished and successful American Saddlebred Horse trainers in the nation. Murphy counted celebrities such as George Foreman among his clients and trained many world champion American Saddlebred horses. Before his death in 2000, Water Murphy would become the first African American to be inducted in the American Saddlebred. Horseman's Hall of Fame. Following Margaret Murphy's passing in 2008, the stately home fell silent and vacant and began to decline. In late 2021, John Bry and Jim Smith approached the Murphy family which resulted in a conversation for the home to be sold Bry and Smith whose main goal is to save the property and tell its diverse story. With the Murphy family blessing, the house will be transformed into a community house that will become a hub or arts, culture, heritage and the preservation trades open to all. Funds have already been invested in the property making urgent repairs. The property will be placed into a non-profit organization to advance is revitalization and its mission; including a goal of placing the property on the National Register of Historic Places.
