After lying vacant for years, the childhood home of groundbreaking jazz musician Miles Davis is being transformed into a museum dedicated to his life and work. Nonprofit group House of Miles East St. Louis (HOME) is currently raising money to finish rehabbing the dilapidated one-story structure at 1701 Kansas Ave., East St. Louis, Illinois where the world-renowned trumpeter spent his earliest years.

Interior demolition kicked off this month, with workers tearing out disintegrating walls and taking the home down to the studs. HOME has also organized a crowdfunding campaign seeking $50,000 to finish restoring the home to its 1920s heyday.

When finished later this year, the renovated space will display a collection of Davis-related artifacts, especially those relating to his life and influence on St. Louis. The building will also serve as a music education center for kids in the local school district, offering music lessons and classes on music history.

"We’re looking to give our kids a little sense of home. That’s why we called this place HOME, House of Miles East St. Louis," co-organizer Jasper Gery Pearson told the local public radio station. "So when you think of home you think not only about the front door and the back door but the whole community."

Source: STL Public Radio