Patterson House –History
The current Robert A. Macoskey Center has gone through many transitions throughout the years. The following is a description of the house when the ALTER Project first encountered it:

    The Patterson house was built in the early 1900s. It was a one and one-half story wood frame building of about 1,000 ft square that was oriented east to west. The 672 foot square first floor consisted of four rooms: a living room in the northwest with an entry door, the kitchen in the northeast corner from which the basement and attic were accessed, a small room in the southeast corner, and a bedroom in the southwest corner. A 14’ x 6’ addition was attached to the southeast corner at an unknown date. It served as a bedroom, laundry and entry and was supported by a stone pier foundation.
    The 300 square ft. attic was divided equally north and south into two rooms. The basement was 26’ x 13’ with a stone foundation and a concrete floor under the northern half of the house. The southern part rested on stone frost footing. A front porch was supported by stone piers. As of this writing, the original builder has not been identified, but Paul Patterson and his family occupied the farmhouse between 1941 and 1973. Patterson was a hauler of livestock. Although the land was not farmed after 1950, for a time the family did farm a strip of land starting at what is now the parking lot and ending near a stream to the east. They grew corn, wheat and oats and kept sheep, rabbits and chickens. At one time, the property boasted a garage, a barn, a corn crib, a coal house, springhouse, and an outhouse. During their tenure a good well provided excellent drinking water.
    The Pattersons lived on the property until 1973 when the state of Pennsylvania acquired the property by eminent domain. The acquisition procedure had started in 1970 and was hard fought by the Pattersons over the course of three years. After the Pattersons left, the unoccupied house fell into ruin (Kris Macoskey 1992).

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After acquisition, Slippery Rock University's original plans for this site were to develop an 18-hole golf course for the University. Instead, the land sat vacant for the next two decades (Claire Anderson 1999).