The House, 1902
Charles Grothey built this stone house in 1902 for his son Fred as a wedding gift. It was close to the family mill on the Ziegler's Church-Glatfelter Station road.
The house has undergone restoration.
Source: Das Siebenthal Revisited -- The People of Seven Valleys Pennsylvania by Armand Gladfelter. mehl-ad associates, York PA. LCCN 81-83824.
The Grothey Line
Ernest Henry Grothey was a tanner in Hannover, Germany. His son Charles learned brushmaking there, migrated to Baltimore in 1851 at twenty-three, joined the Maryland State Guard, and went on to fight with the 200th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry at Fort Steadman and Petersburg.
After the war Charles ran a general store in Fairfield and farmed in North Codorus Township before buying a farm south of Shive's Tannery in the Seven Valleys basin to start a milling business. Hog bristles for his household scrub brushes came up from Baltimore by six-horse wagon. The whole family straightened them by lamplight through the winters.
Aaron's House
After Fred, this house became the home of his brother Aaron Grothey. Aaron was the musician of the family. He and his brother George had saved pennies as boys to buy a trumpet and a baritone horn from Sears and Roebuck and taught themselves to play well enough to join the "crack" Spring Grove Band as teenagers.
In the 1930s, Aaron organized and led an orchestra in Seven Valleys that played across the southern end of York County. He played violin to lead the group, then stepped out at intermission to perform fifteen-minute baritone horn solos.
The Atelier Today
The house is still a workshop, though the tools have changed. What happens here now:
- Web application development Eagle Console Suite, AFN broadcast tools, the dx1.dev family of tools.
- 2D and 3D fabrication Laser-cut work, printed parts, prototypes that begin as sketches and end as objects.
- Small-batch production Limoncello, made here from scratch.
Back then, the bristles got straightened by lamplight. Today, AI agents build and refine code overnight.
The Robots
The Grothey mill ran first on a twelve-foot water wheel built by hand from three-inch oak planks, then on a gasoline engine. Each generation found the appropriate machine and put it to work.
- Segway Navimow X430 Cutting the lawn on its own schedule, unbothered.
- Whisker Litter-Robot 4 Serving Murphy, who has not expressed gratitude.
- Tesla Optimus On the roadmap -- just as the water wheel was once on the roadmap.