By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
After beginning the Pickwick Place project 18 months ago, the latest chapter opened Thursday in the rich history of the farm.
Operated by three families – Kent and Laura Stuckey, Rose and Greg Hartschuh, and Chris and Andrea Schimpf – the first phase of Pickwick Place opened last year with a produce market and Acres of Adventure. The Acres of Adventure orginally began on the Hatschuh’s Sycamore Run Farm.
On Thursday The Loft opened its doors to its first corporate engagement, the North Central Ohio Media Group’s Client Appreciation Day. The Loft is the center of three barns renovated in the Pickwick Place Project that was originally the Pickwick Farms owned by Walt Michaels. The original Pickwick Farms was a world class standard-bred horse operation for pacers and trotters.
Kent Stuckey explained what it took to transform The Loft into being a functional event and meeting center.
“We basically completely gutted the building. This building in particular, it was down to the brick and iron shell at one point,” Stuckey said. “We saved as much of the material as we could to reuse, and you can see a lot of that in the building. We reused wood from the horse stalls and things like that.”
The upstairs meeting room of The Loft can sit up to 240 people for a wide range of events and meetings, Stuckey explained.
“We will be hosting weddings and receptions both. That will kind of be the hallmark of what we do here. Then through the week we will host business meetings and things like that,” Stuckey said. “We have a few graduation parties yet to come. We have one this weekend, and maybe one next weekend. Basically anything that needs a meeting space because we have different meeting spaces to accommodate different sizes of groups.”
“Then also we plan on doing several ticketed events where the public can come in and enjoy some type of programming, and then the public can come in and mingle, socialize, and have some entertainment,” Stuckey continued.
The Loft is just one of many ventures that will be taking place at the Pickwick Place. Stuckey explained the other amenities that are offered on the Pickwick Place’s grounds.
“In the fall and actually expanding throughout the year we will have Acres of Adventure, the corn maze and agri-tainment side of things. Then just yesterday the market at Pickwick Place reopened this year. That will be in the north building. There is still some renovation to do there. So hopefully by mid-summer we will have a full-fledged market building in that building. Now we just kind of have the wagon drug out there like we were last year as we transition.”
The Loft held an open house for those that worked on the project along with their families Wednesday night.
A photo gallery of The Loft from Thursday’s event can be found on this site’s photo page.
More information on The Pickwick Place can be found at http://www.thepickwickplace.com or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ThePickwickPlace.
Related content: Polishing Pickwick to a farm-fresh shine | Carrying on the Pickwick legacy