Outside Prosperity, Moon Lorn rises again
Though Malcolm Parcell was primarily a representational artist, sticking to realistic portrayals of people and places in his work, he would occasionally take flights of fancy and imagine fairies and goblins inhabiting the woods surrounding his home.
The painter christened his home Moon Lorn, and Parcell himself was dubbed “the Wizard of Moon Lorn.” The image of a mysterious and reclusive sorcerer casting spells in the deep woods was probably enhanced by the white beard and skullcap he sported later in his life.
In recent years, though, Moon Lorn had become something far less than magical.
The structure, which started as a log cabin in 1925 and was added onto several times by Parcell over the years, had fallen victim to time and neglect. Grass grew high around it. Graffiti was smeared on its exterior, windows were shattered and copper was heedlessly torn out by thieves. Rather than being a playground for magical creatures, it instead had become a playground for mice, snakes and other not-so-magical creatures, as well as a hotbed for vandals.
As it fell further into decrepitude, admirers of Parcell and local preservationists feared that Moon Lorn was on the cusp of being a lost cause. But in late 2023, Farley Toothman, a former Greene County judge, paid $75,000 for Moon Lorn, and in the months after sank thousands of additional dollars into restoring it. The work was completed last year, and it is now accepting bookings for guests who want to appreciate its history and the quiet of its surroundings and host events there.
“I do care about it that much,” said Toothman, who remembers meeting Parcell at the gate of the property when he was a boy. “The bones (of the house) were all there. … It’s a special project.”
Born on New Year’s Day in Claysville in 1896, the youngest of three children and the son of a Baptist minister, Parcell is said to have become enamored of the site that later became Moon Lorn when he played there as a child. His older brother, Evans Parcell, won a measure of renown as an illustrator for magazines like Saturday Evening Post and Cosmopolitan, and Parcell himself displayed artistic inclinations early. He studied art at what was then called the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and, like his brother, ventured to New York to stake his own claim in the art world.
Unlike his brother, though, Parcell quickly migrated back to Washington County and it became his base of operations. He stayed busy with scores of commissioned portraits, and his murals became part of Washington’s George Washington Hotel, Citizens Library and Washington & Jefferson College. His paintings are in the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum, the Westmoreland Museum of American Art and are prized by private collectors.
For years, Parcell maintained a studio in downtown Washington, but increasingly began to retreat to Moon Lorn, which he started building in 1925. Located on the border of Washington and Greene counties – a rock tossed underhanded from the entrance of Moon Lorn would land in Greene County – he added onto it in a piecemeal fashion, with a new room here and a new room there. As he aged, he and his wife, Helen, spent more and more time removed from the world at Moon Lorn. He died there in 1987, at the age of 91.
In the aftermath of his death, the Malcolm Parcell Foundation purchased Moon Lorn, with an eye toward making it a retreat for artists. That lasted until 1999, when the property fell into private hands.
The foundation “couldn’t make a go of it,” Toothman said, adding, “It’s not an inexpensive place to live because it’s not well insulated.”
Then, in 2014, it was sold to Consol Energy, as the company increased its longwall mining activity in the area. In 2017, it was selected by the nonprofit organization Preservation Pennsylvania for its annual list of endangered historic properties. Then, at the end of 2023, Toothman purchased the home and began the painstaking work of restoring it.
“Every room is on a different foundation,” he pointed out. The work was mostly completed by Memorial Day last year. Moon Lorn is now occupied by Kara Compton, secretary of the Washington History and Landmarks Foundation and a professional counselor. She oversees the property on a day-to-day basis and handles bookings for it. It’s now listed on the Airbnb rental company site and is being offered as “a quiet escape from the hustle of daily life.” The furnishings within the house, for the most part, replicate what Parcell would have in the house when he was working in it.
“I’ve always liked history,” Compton said. “I instantly fell in love with the place. My desire was always to live out in the country.”
They also hope to make the A-frame studio on the property available for artists. Northern light is streamed into the building through a high clerestory window in the building.
Parcell is perhaps the most well-known artist to have emerged from Washington County, so preserving the site where he lived and worked is important, according to Sandy Mansmann, president of the board of the Washington County History and Landmarks Foundation.
“The structure is unique, both architecturally and in the art world,” Mansmann said.
She added, “So many people remember seeing it when they were a child. It’s a nostalgic place in many people’s minds.”