The Kentucky family that bought the Gould House
We moved here in July 2024 with our three boys. Two years and a lot of plaster later, this is home.
Who I am
Sean Harrington
My wife and I moved to Owosso in July 2024 and bought the Amos Gould House, which needed a lot of fixes. Two years later we are well on our way with both the preservation and the renovation. Restoring an old house teaches you humility and patience a million times over, and we love it.
Our three boys came with us and they are in most of this. They hand out paintbrushes at the Farmers Market, haul boxes up and down our stairs, and know more about Owosso history than I did a year ago. What we do here, we mostly do together.
I serve on the Downtown Historic District Commission and the Temporary Carnegie Library Committee. Both started with somebody asking whether I would fill a seat. Both have shown me how much thought already goes into keeping this city running, and how many people are quietly giving it.
What I love about Owosso and Michigan
We came here knowing almost nothing about Owosso except the house we had agreed to buy. Two years later, here is some of what we have come to love about the place.
Neighbors who show up
People here participate. They come to the meetings, fill the committee seats, work the concession stand, and say what they actually think when somebody asks. I have watched two people go back and forth hard over a zoning question and then walk out to the same parking lot still friends. That is what makes local government work, and plenty of towns have lost it. Owosso still has it, and it is a big part of why I felt like I could be useful here.
Great local food and business
We would rather spend our money three blocks from home than three towns away, and here you can. The people running these shops know your order, sponsor the ball teams, and put in hours nobody sees to keep a storefront lit. They do it on thin margins in old buildings, and that takes real faith in a place.
Listening to the trains roll through
You hear them at night with the windows open, and it has never once bothered me. Owosso was a railroad town before it was much of anything else. Plenty of cities pave over what built them. This one kept the sound and the story both.
Biking our beautiful parks
The trail along the Shiawassee is one of the best things this city owns. We ride it often with our boys, and between the river, the boardwalk and the parks strung along it you can cross most of town without touching a road.
The theater community
A city this size having live theater at all is remarkable, and Owosso has multiple because a group of people simply decided it would. Nobody is getting rich. The volunteer communities build the sets, sew the costumes, sell the tickets, and strike the whole thing. It is the same spirit that staffs the parades and runs the festivals. A handful of people who will not let a good thing fall over.
The historical society
Owosso holds on to its history better than most towns its size, and that is not an accident. It is people doing the unglamorous part, which is mostly cataloguing, cleaning, and telling the story again to a new group of ten-year-olds. We are proud to be a small part of that effort.
Service to the community
Owosso made us family before we had done a thing to deserve it. So we give back where we can, which usually means showing up with a ladder, a cooler, or a box of paintbrushes. None of this is ours alone. Everything below has other people’s names on it too.
Festive lights and open tours
We light the Gould House for every holiday. Nobody asked us to. We do it because a house like that ought to be worth something to the people who will never set foot inside it, and somebody driving home from second shift in December should get something out of it too. We have opened it to students who want to see the inside, hosted civic events on the lawn, and this year it joins the Historic Home Tour. We are just the ones keeping it standing for a while.
Cleaning up the skate park
There was broken glass and graffiti out at Holman last year. We asked the city for permission, cleaned the whole thing up, and painted a new mural. A year later it still looks great, and that is the part worth knowing. Fresh art and a clean surface build enough pride that people leave it alone.
Serving on the Historic District Commission
I read the staff reports, sit through the site plans, and listen to owners explain why a repair will cost more than they have. It has given me a lot of respect for the people already doing this work.
Volunteering with the festivals
We sponsor and run the free art table at the market. Flags in July, pumpkins in October, rock painting, necklaces and bracelets. No cost, no sign-up, and nothing to buy before you sit down. Our boys hand out the brushes and usually end up painting alongside whoever showed up.
Cleaning up downtown
We pick up what we find when we are out walking and maintain our property. A clean block makes the next person more likely to keep it clean, and that compounds faster than you would think.
Breakfast at St. John
Some Saturday mornings we help provide the free breakfast. Come by. Everyone is welcome and nobody is asked to prove anything. We started because it was an easy way to be useful. We keep going because of the people we have met. You learn more about a town in two hours of serving breakfast than in two months of reading about it, and a fair amount of what I understand about what people here need, I learned there.
Why I am running
Everything on this page we did as neighbors, and none of it needed a title. But some things do need a vote, and those are the ones people bring up at the door. Water bills that nearly double by 2030. Thirty-nine of our seventy-one street miles rated poor. A vacant building ordinance that has been waiting since May.
When you pick a candidate you are hiring somebody to be your voice. I would like to listen first, then put to work what I have learned over ten years with downtown business districts, fighting blight and helping small businesses grow. Owosso takes real pride in what it builds and what it keeps. I would be honored to help with the part that takes a vote.
Election day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Four at-large seats are open. You may vote for up to four candidates. Please make Sean Harrington one of your choices.