The Danz House

It was a monument to an earlier time, an old horse that put up a tremendous fight.  But time marches on, and the old rickety house between Washington and Eureka is now just a memory.

It is not known exactly when the house was built, but our research places construction most likely in the late 1860s. John Nafziger built it, patterned after his own house he had just built near Eureka on Cruger Road.  

Early on, the property was owned by Washington’s Holland family and then by the Switzers. Alex and Anna Danz moved into the house in the early 1930s and raised their family in it, renting from the Brakbill family, who owned the property at that time. As time passed, the house ended up in the hands of Alex and Anna’s son Warren, who purchased the property in 1980.

From there, the house started a slow and steady decline as it started rotting away.  It became a haven for trespassers, vandals, and photographers and eventually fell into severe disrepair.  By 2019, most of the flooring inside the house had collapsed into the cellar.

It was then that Tazewell County intervened and told Danz that he either needed to fix up the property or it needed to go. Warren had reservations because it was his boyhood home, but he had intentions of making it what it once was.

To appease the county zoning board, he installed windows, a new door, and a metal roof to bring the property up to a standard that would keep the County happy.

Despite Danz’s efforts, the zoning board decreed that the house must be demolished, and on July 1, 2019, it was razed.