Removal of the fireplace?

Novel idea:

You've got a 144 year old home with two fireplaces. One has been used recently (on the West wall) although probably shouldn't have been, and the second is in the center of the home, sealed up for probably 50 years or so, unworkable and unusable. So why keep it?

Very exciting recommendation from our architect: if you're gutting the place, why not take down the fireplace bricks, fix the roof, and use the 144 year old bricks on another project? Since the basement access is currently ONLY from the exterior of the house, could we maybe use this new unused space where the fireplace WAS on the first floor to access the basement from inside the house? Hubby thinks a trap door concept would be cool, and I tend to agree, if it's workable.


It could also open up the second floor quite a bit, (see image) where we plan on having the Master Bed, Bath and office space.

The real question is whether or not this is a structural load bearing wall. If so, plans may be of naught. The green outline in the image is of the original construction. The addition to the North (3 floors of an addition) were added on later on (not sure how much later) but it's clear that the wall that the second fireplace is on was once an exterior wall.

I'd love to clear out the whole area, but not sure if we can do it.

In other news, it looks like we've got a deal on the rehab loan. After many weeks of negotiating with our banker, we've finally come to a meeting of the minds... and wallets. M is thrilled.

Update: We did take down the fireplace... partially, but the design we went with is NOT the one from above. We moved the bathroom from the West side of the house to the East side of the house, so as to have a straight hallway down the west wall, instead of the 'rabbit warren' hallway hubby referred to it as.

It's a minor adjustment I didn;t think we'd be able to make at first due to the plumbing, but our plumber assured us he could do it, so we did.
H.