Don Damewood was a man of vision.
Sometimes the vision was blurred — often so out of focus he didn’t even know what he saw. But he never stopped looking ahead.
Right after completing high school in Princeton, West Virginia, Don Damewood joined the Merchant Marines, shipping in and out of ports all over the world throughout the 1940s. His high school sweetheart, Helen, stayed back home where they’d made heartfelt promises to each other before he sailed away.
In 1950, they married in a huge (for the time) ceremony at a Princeton church and headed to Wilmington, Delaware. There, Helen worked at the Maidenform Bra Factory and Don once again shipped out to sea. Two years later, Don learned one of his visits home had culminated in success when he received a telegram from Helen informing him she was pregnant with their first child.
After returning to Delaware for the birth of their first daughter, Cassie, Don’s wanderlust struck again. He’d become a certified electrician in the service, so he bought a 30-foot Spartan trailer and followed electrical jobs up and down the East Coast for two years with Helen and Cassie in tow.
In 1954, he landed a fairly stable job near Toronto, Ohio working as an electrician at a power plant that was under construction, so the family finally decided to stay put. They parked their trusty mobile home in a local trailer park in Toronto full of young families much like themselves, struggling to save money to buy a house while trying to keep the kids in clothes and put food on the table. Less than two years later, Don found a lot in a new subdivision just outside of Steubenville — a little community affectionately known as Pleasant Hill — and they built a home.
Helen became pregnant with their second child while the house was under construction. Don worked tirelessly, first at his day job and at night on their new home.
Their second child, Candy, was born and quickly diagnosed with Down Syndrome. This diagnosis combined with other health problems led doctors to predict she would not live past two years old. Candy would ultimately live a happy and long life, well into her 50s.
Shortly after Candy’s birth, the family moved into the Pleasant Hill house. But Don wasn’t satisfied — he wanted wide open spaces, lots of land, and a bigger challenge. He began roaming the hilly Ohio countryside in his pickup truck, exploring old farms and acres of land overgrown with brush and timber. He knew he’d eventually find the perfect place to build another, bigger house for his expanding family. One day he came home and told Helen that he’d found the idyllic refuge that would keep him challenged for the rest of his life. Helen reluctantly climbed into the truck and was driven way off the beaten path and down into “Wild Cat Hollow.”
Helen’s fears were not unfounded. Don’s utopia was 100 acres of hills and valleys, overrun with blackberry vines, apple trees, black walnut groves, crabgrass, and milkweed. Smack in the middle was a tiny dilapidated old farmhouse occupied by a tiny dilapidated old man named Homer. The only saving grace Helen could see was a huge barn that had aged well over its 100 years of life. After one look, though, she told Don she would never live in a place like that. He relented, assuring her that if she would just agree to the family purchasing the property, she would never have to live there.
But Don could not help himself. A week later, he convinced Helen to allow him to put their home on the market, and a month later the family walked into their “new home” — a trailer parked in that overgrown valley next to the old farmhouse — where Homer still lived.
They began again.
Don started building another house. They found an old bulldozer at an auction and he cleared huge areas of brush and trees. It was a long and difficult process, but Helen had to admit that the place was growing on her. Don finished the house enough to move his family in, but his vision was still incomplete.
He’d begun exploring the vast meadow behind the house, the only flat part of the property, and found streams flowing in from all directions. It was the perfect spot, he decided, for a lake.
He got to work. Don bulldozed out the meadow and dammed up the biggest creek on the property. He read book after book on how to create and maintain a manmade body of water — how to insert drains for maintenance, how big the dam needed to be in order to be effective, what kind of fish he should stock, and how to combat kelp and algae.
Helen watched from the wings, amazed and proud, wondering if there was anything her crazy husband couldn’t do — or at least wouldn’t attempt. After two years, the lake was done.
Shortly after the lake was completed, Don and Helen decided to open it to the public. They built picnic tables, shelter houses, a concession stand, bait shop, and lifeguard chair. They stocked the lake with 10 varieties of fish, created a sandy beach, and installed a dock and diving board in the center of the water. They pondered naming it after one or both of their daughters, but couldn’t figure out anything that flowed. Suddenly, they recalled a river they had both loved back in Wilmington. It was called Brandywine, and so this place would be too.
Brandywine Lake was an instant success. There was nothing like it within 20 miles, and there was something for everyone to enjoy. They added horseback riding and even hosted professional wrestling events, similar to today’s WWE, near the water. Amidst the success, Helen and Don encountered another “housing shortage” — they learned they were pregnant with their third child. Don, in a move that came as no surprise to Helen, got to work building an addition to the house. Their first boy, Jonathan, was born in June 1961.
Over the next few years, the mental and physical tolls of living with an on-site business mounted. From March to September, the lake opened every day at 6 a.m., when early bird fishermen caught the first glimpse of sunlight, and closed at 9 p.m., when the last waterlogged swimmer reluctantly came ashore. The lines between home and work were blurred — visitors were knocking on the front door day and night — and even in the off-season, there always seemed to be a fence to rebuild or a concession stand to update. Don and Helen closed the lake to the public in 1964.
Four years after Jon was born, the Damewoods welcomed their daughter Tricia. Due to be born on December 25, 1965, she was haled as the final addition to the Damewood clan and Don celebrated the upcoming event by giving his wife a special Christmas present — a cherry red Triumph TR4. Unfortunately, Tricia held out until January 2, which meant Helen could barely fit behind wheel of her gift.
His family, in his mind, was complete — but that didn’t mean Don was finished finding new ways to push the envelope.
Right after Don purchased the Brandywine property, he’d bought a few horses. He had had a lifelong love of the animal and finally had the space to entertain it. He paid $250 total for three at an auction — they were just nags, but they were perfect for exploring the land and teaching the kids horseback riding basics. But true to his nature, Don wanted more, and ventured into the realm of purebred horses. The American Saddlebred caught his eye and became his passion. They were high-spirited, graceful, and a challenge to train and ride. The first two to call Brandywine home were the gentle mare Peachette and the lively stallion Ace.
It was around this time in 1970 that the Damewoods also welcomed Jason, the second son and, this time truly, the final child.
Cassie, Jon, and Tricia showed horses with their dad throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. None of the horses ever brought home a lot of blue ribbons, but many memories and friends were made as every summer was spent pulling the horse trailer from show to show. (Sadly, the family barn that sat across the road from the home was destroyed in a fire in 2000. It was ruled arson, and all of the ribbons, trophies, saddles and equipment were lost). Against all odds, one of the family’s horses, the Baron Von Steuben, named after the military officer that the nearby city of Steubenville was named for, attracted the attention of a professional trainer. The Baron went on to become the World Champion Three-Gaited Saddlebred in 1977.
To have a world champion come from a small Ohio farm was beyond uncommon — and a dream come true — but a dream that wouldn’t be witnessed by the man who would have most enjoyed it.
The victory was shrouded in incredible tragedy and sadness. In July 1977, just weeks before the win, Don and his oldest son Jon were found dead in the family car at an empty construction site near a Steubenville hospital. They’d left home the day before for a haircut, and never returned. Don was 51 years old, and Jon was just 16.
Officials cited accidental carbon monoxide poisoning from the car’s exhaust system as cause of death, but rumors and suspicion ran rampant and continued for years. Many suspected foul play due to the many unknown details and the rarity of this type of poisoning in a presumably moving vehicle — but nothing could ever be proven.
Over the next few years, Helen struggled to hold on to the farm and her sanity in the wake of unimaginable loss. At the time of Don’s death, they owned more than 50 rental properties and had several homes under construction. Cassie, the oldest daughter, had made a life in California by then, so 12-year-old Tricia became the unofficial head of the household, taking Candy and 6-year-old Jason under her wing as her mother did her best.
Tricia worked hard to care for the horses, mow the grass on the sprawling property, and keep up with the large amount of household and outdoor maintenance that came with where they lived. She also helped with her dad’s business that he had left behind, collecting rent, cleaning out properties after tenants moved out, and helping in the office. Her support continued through her college years. As a student at the University of Akron — a school she chose for its close proximity to home — she drove back nearly every weekend to help out.
Tricia had never planned to make her home in the area where she had grown up, but after graduating from college, nothing else quite made sense. Helen and Candy remained at Brandywine and couldn’t possibly keep up with the farm alone, and she couldn’t imagine it being sold. Tricia and her fiancé Dave, another Toronto native, decided to move into the home’s basement apartment, start a business of their own, and begin saving to build a house.
They also began the long, laborious process of revitalizing the property and getting it back to the condition it was once in when Tricia was a child.
Tricia and Dave married in 1990 and built their home just down the road from Helen’s place on two acres they purchased from her. A few years later, their daughter Taylor was born, and in 2000, their son Evan rounded out their family.
Taylor and Evan enjoyed growing up on the property just as much as Damewood kids always did — spending their childhoods playing in the water and exploring the woods. They were sometimes joined by their cousin Cody, Jason’s son, and all three of them loved spending as much time as they could with their beloved Grandma Damewood.
The time they spent with her would be too little. After a very short and unexpected illness, Helen died in June 2005 at the age of 76. Even all after all those years, Don remained her one and only — she never dated or remarried.
Immediately after Helen’s death, thoughts turned to the Brandywine property. The thought of it leaving the family — after all Don had done to make it what it was today — was torturous to Tricia. She and Dave had also just completed construction on an addition to their own home and didn’t want to uproot their children and move into the now vacant house.
They’d often thought of Brandywine becoming a retreat where people could enjoy the peaceful setting that Don and Helen had created. The idea for the Inn was quickly born, and in 2006, opened for bookings.
A plaque on the front wall honors the memory of Don and Helen, “whose dreams, determination, and hard work transformed an isolated valley into a warm haven for family and friends.”
For nearly two decades now, loved ones and strangers alike have found a second home at the Inn at Brandywine. Dave and Tricia have welcomed guests from more than 28 states, in addition to Europe, Canada, and Australia. Children have caught their first fish in the lake, college friends have gathered for much-needed reunions, and couples have even said “I do” on the front lawn.
We are so grateful to everyone who has made a memory here — and we are so grateful to Don for seeing the hidden potential in this overgrown valley all those years ago. We hope to continue supporting his vision for many years to come.