Neil Armstrong's childhood home in Ohio listed for sale after four decades

The house where Neil Armstrong grew up and first built model planes is on the market for the first time in nearly 40 years.

Neil Armstrong’s former family home at 601 W. Benton Street in Wapakoneta, Ohio, is being offered for sale for the first time since the mid-1960s, with an asking price of $430,000. The house, where the future astronaut built balsa-wood planes, a basement wind tunnel, and earned his pilot’s license at age 16, has been maintained by Karen Mikesell, a retired history teacher who bought it in 1988. Mikesell has welcomed nine astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin, who was moved to tears during a visit after Armstrong’s death.

The home features a garage constructed from scrap lumber and a bedroom now decorated with autographed astronaut photos and a model of the Wright brothers’ first production airplane. Although the property is not legally protected from alteration, Mikesell hopes a new owner will either keep it as a private residence or donate it to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum, which cannot afford to buy it. The sale marks the first opportunity in almost four decades for the historic house to change hands, leaving its ultimate fate open.