Inside Neil Armstrongs boyhood home: Atrounauts house for sale for first time in nearly 40 years

WAPAKONETA, Ohio — Inside Neil Armstrong’s boyhood home, at the top of a creaky stairway, sits his bedroom where he launched model airplanes out of the rear window to measure how far they’d fly.Hanging in the room now are autographed photos of astronauts who’ve visited the privately kept house to see where Armstrong’s first steps to the moon began.Owned by a retired history teacher devoted to preserving its past and charming character, the home is for sale for the first time in nearly 40 years.What will become of it remains uncertain.All over Armstrong’s hometown of Wapakoneta, there are reminders of his history-making moonwalk.

But few places played a bigger role early in his journey than 601 W.Benton St.

— the house where the Armstrong family settled in western Ohio when he was a young teenager.It’s where Armstrong built planes out of balsa wood and glue in the dining room and constructed a basement wind tunnel to test his models.He’d often pedal his bike from home to take flying lessons at an airstrip.At age 16, Armstrong made his first solo flight and got his pilot’s license.

Just 20 years later, he rocketed into space for the first time.After the 1969 moon landing, he taught at the University of Cincinnati.Today, Armstrong’s two-story boyhood home is an occasional stop for visitors to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, even though the house itself isn’t open for tours.When Karen Mikesell bought the place in 1988, she had no idea who once lived there until another teacher soon told her.

As a history teacher who later became a school principal, Mikesell felt a responsibility to “keep it like the Armstrongs had it,” she said.She’s hosted nine astronauts, including Buzz Aldrin, who flew to the moon with Armstrong and Michael Collins in 1969.Aldrin stepped inside the bedroom upstairs a few years after Armstrong died in 2012, Mikesell recalled, “and the tears just streamed down his cheeks.”Over the years,...