I think you'd be crazy not to.
I'm sorry to do this to you but I think you guys have to buy it.
A fantastic dream; a fantastic gleaned history.
This recently happened to us with a log cabin that had been a part of the family farm for over a century. No one knew what to do with it. Last I heard, it had been purchased by someone who was going to have it moved off the land and turned into a museum.
Maybe a museum of your own?
Oh, yes. If there is any way, buy it.
What an awesome, awesome post; it left me wishing that any of my ancestral homes were still standing. (Well, one is, the home my maternal grandfather built with his own hands, but it's well under 75 years old and is well-kept and smack in the heart of a bustling neighborhood.)
Halfway through reading this, I thought, what a shame someone else beat him to it.
If it's back on the market, surely, it is a sign.
Do it.
i like this line best:
"I expect an answer, or at least an echo, but instead my voice dies as though my mouth were covered in felt."
that was nicely written and what a treasure to have the photographs for your kids to have if nothing else in the future memory of this place.
I too, think you need to buy it.
An hour southwest of Detroit - Must be pretty close to - Monroe? Erie?
Sorry, but you're going to have to do it.
It's just beautiful, and you can take as much time as you need to complete it since you have somewhere else to live.
That's a beautiful house despite the dilapidated state. You shouldn't let it go. I'd kill for a fixer-upper like that -- my bf and I are looking, but unfortunately, and you know how it is in SF clearly, a fixer-upper starts just short of a million here. Sigh.
We spent last weekend out in the Virginia countryside and we, too have been fantasizing about a weekend home. Unfortunately in Virginia ain't nothing for 12K. Also, we always have things to do on the weekends, keeping one house up is enough, and soon the kids will have soccer games on Saturdays that will keep us in town, and what about our aging mothers.. blah. blah. We talked ourselves sane on the drive home but not before picking up those real estate pamphlets from the box outside the diner.
How could you not buy it?
Regardless of your choice, you write beautifully and truly capture the stunning beauty that can be found in old buildings. I think it's a gorgeous building with potential - my unsolicited advice - if you can, do it. You will regret it if you don't.
As both a sentimental fool and a child born to immigrants, I fantasize about an opportunity like this. $12,500? You must. You absolutely must. I'm going to go click through your ads just to put some pennies in that account to help you do it.
Hang on...where did the ads go?
Do it! I can't wait to hear the next stories that will come out of it!
When I was a child, my family owned a small beach house (more of a beach hovel really) where we spent long weekends, summer vacations, etc. I even seduced a boyfriend or two there in the sand dunes. When my father died, my mother didn't want to go there alone, so I bought the cabin from her so that my son could continue my journey and memories.
Unfortunately, it takes more time and money to look after than it gives in return. It's about 70 years old and constantly needs work, plus the first day of any time spent there (even a weekend) is always a workday what with the cleaning, airing out, etc. Emptiness is hard on a house, especially in the sea air. If you are the kind of person who always wants to go to the same place, consider it, but pragmatically if you are the kind of person who enjoys different adventures, second home ownership burns up a lot of resources that could be spent on new experiences.
That makes me sound a little cheap, but I've owned it for about 14 years now and I think I'm coming to a natural parting of the ways. Not all history is meant to last.
And by the way, the fenestration looks quite balanced to me.
I spent 4 years of my childhood on, and then later, near, an Indian Reservation in Nevada. I'll never forget the memories of living in the middle of nowhere. I'm glad that we ended up moving eventually (high school would have been horrible), but it was truly an awesome experience. I would love to give my little girl something similar.
Hmmm. I've always dreamed myself of renovating an old Michigan farmhouse, although not one as far gone as that. When my husband and I were home several years ago we happened upon an old house for sale (near Kzoo, actually) that we talked for months afterwards about... but short of an act of God we will never live in that state again.
With the way real estate is there it just might be worth it. It definitely has potential, although the dream is probably more fulfilling than the reality would be.
my grandparents' house was recently put back on the market. it's in georgia. i live in tennessee and my brother lives in north carolina. we seriously considered buying it together for about half an hour one evening after a bottle of wine. but from a state away, it seemed ridiculous. i do miss that house - fully 90% of my dreams that i remember take place or end up there. now i spend my time taking "small town excursions," taking pictures of old houses from my car. i guess i'm trying to find a bit of what i have lost.
if i were you and i had the money and the love for the house, i would buy it. i really would. you never know, if you buy it and fix it up, an opportunity could open up for wood in that community and you could have your country life.
either way, a country house sounds great.
I'm a sentimental fool for all things old and connected to family. I'm typing on a "primitive oak library table" that used to belong to my great grandfather and even though hubby hates it (well, used to, anyway), we still have it.
I agree with the rest, buy it if you can. The work may well be worth it in the end...
Our family has similar homesteads in PA (no where near where we are now). One is heading towards ruin - empty and abandoned and the other is inhabited by someone non-family. If we lived within easy driving distance to the abandoned one, I'd love to get it and fix it up.
The house looks like a humble greek revival to me...architecturally speaking.
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~twp/arch...itecture/greek/
(see examples 22 and 23)
Buy it. You cannot not buy it. My heart will ache if you don't buy it.
That would be amazing if you bought it and kept it in the family. It could be an ongoing project and someday you would have a beautiful house in the country to visit. If you can, I'd say go for it!
The house my great-great-great grandmother built in 1890 still stands. My cousins all have ranches around it. No one lives in it, but we preserve it. Their are family heirlooms from all five the generations that have sprouted from the teenage couple that built the little stone cottage.
It's modest to say the least.
But I love going in there and seeing the kitchen cabinets that my grandfather built or the desk where my great-great-great grandmother wrote. It's wonderful to imagine all the lives that are similar to mine, yet very different that were carried out in those little rooms.
It will never be out of my family, too many people hold it close to their hearts. Yet, it's more like a scrapbook than a home now. No one lives there, we all just imagine living there.
In 1982 my mother bought a 1790 Federal-style house from the Fire Department for $5000, and saved it from being used as a "demo house" for fireman training. It had never had electricity or running water, and the last owner had let her dogs cats and chickens run free over about a quarter of the house.
She took out a $32,000 mortgage (the value of the land, more or less) and worked on the house for six years until we moved in.
Her house is now a showplace. If the foundations are sound and the chimney is sound, there is a ton here that you can do yourself. Hire someone to do the electrical and the basic plumbing and do the rest as a family project.
Honestly? You can't not do this. Its a beautiful house, and I know from experience what it means to grow up in the house where your ancestors were born and died. It gives you a feeling of place in the world that you cannot replicate.
I hope you do this.
Another consideration (if you choose to buy it and have it refurbished) is to rent it out to families on a weekly or weekend basis during peak spring, summer and fall months. We rent a beach house at least once a year, and I am seriously thinking about making the plunge and buying a fixer-upper to do this very thing. The beach houses here go easily for 1000.00 to 1500.00 per week and 500.00 to 700.00 per weekend. If you choose your families carefully, it can be pretty lucrative.
Don't you think that there was a reason you were photographing all of those old abandoned places in Detroit only to come to this very place with your very own history? I think there is.
Oh, I would be so tempted to buy it. Seems the comments are peer-pressuring you to do just that (and I really hope you do).
It's a Hyundai- you'll never regret it, or you might momentarily, every now and then. But come on . . . I loved this story, btw. Walker Evans is my favorite photographer- wrote my art hist. thesis on his "modern" eye.
For a price like that, why not risk contractor's bills ten times that much? I know it's never so simple but BUY IT. Press upon your family for a few months and learn how to drywall yourself (errr... rather, learn how to apply drywall all by yourself to a WALL...). Pay for the big stuff like plumbing and a roof and electrical, cannibalize one of the bedrooms for a bathroom, get mismatched bashed-up old freestanding pieces for your kitchen.. and pick away at the rest. I know, I know... easier said than done with kids, but who cares if it takes a couple of years or more?
Then again, I'm totally selfish. I just want to read your blog all about your rambling shaggy old homestead.
I can tell it appeals to your sense of romance. And besides, the whole idea is positively Nova Scotian, and you can't beat that.
ps- read Little Heathens, by Mildred Kalish Armstrong. it will convince you to buy it-
Well, I'll throw in my vote, too. I think it'd be a shame not to buy it, if you can. Perhaps a sweetjuniper fund drive, and we can all become partners in the endeavor?
Will you please just hop on here and let us all know that you bought the dang thing already?!? The suspense is killing me.
Hell, I'LL buy it. I'm never going to find anything in the San Francisco real estate market anyway.
i too have to say that you guys have to buy this. i also have to correct you, the house is Greek Revival style not Federal. perhaps the state of michigan has a grant program for rural historic houses because this one would surely qualify. albeit its condition is a bit ragged it has a "high degree of integrity" as we say in historic preservation circles.
check out www.michigan.gov/shpo as they may be able to assist you.
your photographs and writing bolster the historic preservation movement. i always enjoy reading.
If you don't buy it, someday you'll try to find it and there will be a Quick-E-Mart or something equally offensive there in its place. And that will suck.
Great post. Makes me a bit sad, because my family also has an ancestral house...letting go of it has been extremely difficult.
It's your destiny (if there is such a thing) to buy the house. We should all be so lucky to have such a place to collect our most beloved ghosts.
Buy it you must. This would fulfill a dream for me as well. This is the kind of thing I literally dream of, and that house and property look fantastic. Go for it.
By the way, this is my new favorite post.
This post is just begging for a sequel. A follow-up that says: "We did it. We bought it. We're land barons."
If you have the means, I think you ought to go for it. Even if the house is beyond saving, you'll have the land.
WOW! That was a great post and an equally wonderful post. Please let us know what you end up doing with it. But I too think that you should keep the house.
I meant great post and wonderful house. Sorry...
You could put in an offer for the house; with a clause to have it inspected first, to make sure it is structurally sound. I can already imagine what it would look like restored.
Oh my god, how could you not. Anyone else who buys it is just going to tear it down and put something far, far inferior in it's place.
Invite us all to the housewarming, will ya?
There's no whimsy in pragmatism. The coolest memories, the ones that live forever, are often born from the decisions that some think you crazy to make.
You have to do what's best for your family but really, we don't get second chances at life.
(Also, we moved from family land in the country to the city and I miss the tranquility.)
amazing. you should do it! such a wonderful post, too.
What is money for? Buy it!
I'm privy to being sentimental as well but I agree with your granddad. OTOH, I think you ought to get at least a brick and those family dutch figurines out of the place.
I'm actually more intrigued by your statements about how people just don't know how to make "stuff" anymore. I also have this fascination with outdated technology and whatnot-like, could I make my own old school cameras, and the like. If I ever get to quit my job I'm going to start making cylinder gramaphones (Victrolas) and selling 'em. And my test cylinder is going to have me singing "video killed the radio star". I want a diode based TV housed in a gigantic closet.
I've been working myself up to maybe trying a pinhole camera (you can google). Actually, that might be a cool project to try with Juniper.
Dude? Buy! All the hair on the back of my neck is standing up. I take this as a sign. Buy. The pictures blow my mind. Doit doit doit.
I'm new. Does Dutch like to hammer? 
Because a house like this can well become what everything in life revolves around for the next few years. By everything I do mean everything from the deep savings to the spare quarters, the summer vacations and each available weekend. Some people can really get into it and enjoy the process. Others will go bald, gray and ulcerous after the first few months. Then again, long sightedness is one of the main superpowers that having kids gives a body, so perhaps even for the weary of hammer, the future house is worth the going...
Not that you need one more person to tell you to buy it but...buy it! You'll regret it for a very long time if you don't - the way you love architecture and history, how can you let so much of your familial history go because it's too hard? If I had that kind of opportunity, I would be hard pressed to pass it up if I had the means to buy it.
I won’t tell you to buy or to not buy, but I will tell you that growing up in the same house where my dad grew up (and being the fourth generation to live on that farm) was both hard and indescribably happy. Old houses have a certain charm to them, and I would have loved to stay in that old house due to the memories and familiar smells and sounds. I can’t count high enough to tell you the number of times I fell asleep to the music of a cricket, or the hooting of an owl. I also cannot count how many times we nearly froze when our power went out, our propane ran dry, and our pipes froze. Idyllic living it was not, but I wouldn’t have traded that sort of upbringing for anything.
A storybook countryside home is work. A lot of work. My heart broke when our farm was sold and our old house was torn down after it was empty for several years. The new owners apologized for the loss of that structure, nearly 150 years old, but it couldn’t have been saved. If a house is empty for too long, it seems to give up. It sags and bows and slumps through the vacant years seemingly knowing that one day it will be a pile of rubbish. If you do decide to purchase it, I would suggest stripping everything you can out of the old house and putting it into a new one. What you do next is up to you. If you decide to not purchase it, don’t ever regret it. That part of your history is in the past. You have photos and hopefully stories from your grandfather to sustain yourself.
This post has touched me quite deeply. I can’t really describe why or what in it is so moving, but thank you.
god help me, i hate to open my mouth and have the assvice pour out, but buy it. my husband doesn't believe in signs, but i do.
if it were us, we'd buy it- and i know you guys would be like us and make it what could be, should be. your love of ruins, your need for space and quiet and tranquility and light and breath.
and oh, the tales we could share of money pits! in fact, though, you'd be like us and hunt through dumpsters for wood doors and cr*igslisted sheetrock and lumber and curbside finds and nearly every blessed re-used thing that we've put upstairs. my husband hates to part with a penny, and we've been able to save nearly 60 grand doing it ourselves, our way. just be willing to wait awhile to move in. pay for what you don't ever want to compromise on (electric, plumbing, some of the serious construction) and do the rest with your dad and whoever else you can bribe with beer and dinners and good thrifty finds (bicycles, couches, a/c's, you think i'm joking)- ugh, much apologies for all the assvice.
and jim, you may be many things, but a wanna-be walker evans is not one of them. you are a tremendously gifted self-taught photographer in your own right. so stop it.
I am probably the wrong person to comment on your post about the old homestead. After all, Bunker Hubby and I decided to follow our dream of building our own place, a geodesic dome, and where are we? Five years later, with no dome, just the Bunker (which will be the basement of the dome), bare drywall, and cement floors).
But I think there's something to be said for following dreams, for working together on something that's important enough to that you're willing to sacrifice for it, and suffer for it.
And if the bones are good, well, you can fix everything else (although contractors' bills do suck).
Even if the homestead goes on to another purpose, it's a good thing that you documented it before it's gone.
thank you for taking us on this tour.
oh my. Im looking forward to reading about your purchase and rehabilitation of this magical place.
I work in the field of historic preservation; check with the Michigan SHPO re. incentives (grant, tax, etc.) for rehabbing the building. Most of these incentive programs require that the bldg be listed on the National Register of Historic Places; if it is not already, what a fantastic project for you to undertake (writing a nomination, that is...) You already know so much about this place- it will give you an opportunity to record it all, and have it archived for posterity. Let me know if you want more info (I coordinate the NR for Arizona...)
God. If I lived up there, I'd buy it myself. I only wish my family had a home we could say any of us spent more than 10 years in, much less claim that a great great great grandfather built with his own hands. (Trailer parks just don't have the same charm, do they?) I don't know if my husband would let me go through with it (he's the practical one), but damn, I would try. So I can't say I hope you do because I don't know the particulars of your situation, but...I would have a hard time resisting this.
I think this is the best thing you've ever written.
I need for you to have that house, if for nothing else than to hang onto it. It may never be restored. It may remain a dilapidated, once grand structure. A ruin on the verge of becoming...something. But it's yours. I'm selfish. I want to watch the story evolve. And I cannot imagine anyone other than you guys in that place. It's not too far gone, until it's gone.
Lord, I love this post. I read slowly as I scrolled down because I didn't want it to end. Please buy it. It may be selfish on my part...I want to read the stories that would come from such an endeavour. But, it also touches my heart to think of you and your family turning this ancestral house back into a home.
I live with my family in a home that is 130 years old and has been lived in by my family for 5 generations.
It's been kept up beautifully. We just bat-proofed it, making it even better!
I think you'd have fun with it, country mouse vs. town mouse type of fun.
Buy it, buy it, buy it!!! If you don't, you'll probably always regret it.
Did your grandfather tell you whose grave he takes care of?
I live in a house that is 150 years old and I completely understand your feelings about this place. The old places, built so well that they are art in and of themselves, call to us.
But I have to say- it's work. If your marriage is strong, if you have a little extra money, if you have patience and willingness to learn to do the things that must be done, or have the skills now- then think about it.
Whatever you decide, you have written a gorgeous piece of work here.
Thanks for sharing.
i also think you should buy it, although i wasn't going to say so at first. the internet has spoken. peer pressure sucks, huh.
BUY IT. I want that house for you both so badly I could shriek. I just read this entry, poured over those photos and was apparently talking aloud while doing it. My husband finally asked, 'What?!' and then I realized. Awe inspiring. Go for it. What a dream to realize.
It is a very charming house, I can appreciate you're attraction to it. I found an old tudor recently that for all practical purposes is an overgrown lot with a pile of ruble on it. But me, I see endless possibilities in restoring it. Sort of a means to recapture its history and preserve it.
Hey, Dutch!
Ya ever see any ghosts or any of those sorts of creepy-crawlies in all of your dilapidated wanderings? Perhaps as-yet-to-be-written fodder...
Long time lurker here. My folks live out in Holly these days. Dad's a social worker providing GED training, mostly to folks in long neglected neighborhoods on the west side. Thanks for your photographs. It's been years since I last saw the Tiger paws or Michigan Central up close and personal.
I write to say that buying the homestead would make for a great adventure and fine stories which I would love to read, but everything truly essential about the homestead can be yours without title to the land and house.
Mom and her sisters sold two family homesteads after her parents died. She grieved bitterly over both sales. These were each country places she'd go to and find physical evidence of dead kin - kitchen knives and hand tools and the like, with childhood memories attached. A veteran house rehabber, she was close enough to both places, and they were cheap enough, that she could have bought them and made something beautiful of them.
But either one of them would have been all consuming of her free time and energy, as the live-in rehab projects we worked on in my childhood were. Weekends spent scraping the rot away, and weekends spent making the remains temporarily livable, and weekends camping in the house, and weekends making creeping progress towards beauty. (And a brief hiatus of sorts from the more demanding stuff when I was a toddler and my brother an infant, Mom first calling in reinforcements then holding up and waiting for us to grow a little so I could keep one eye on my brother and she could keep one eye on the drywall. Everything kept, patiently, in the meantime.)
So the homesteads were sold. In their stead are vacations in the country with extended family, and a floor to ceiling patchwork of photographs in the front hall of my parents' house which documents the homesteads, almost all of the shots with departed beloveds in the center of the frame, looking up from their work or posing with the fruits of their labor. Most of these photos are unremarkable except to us. Pegs to hang the family story on.
And the family story continues a stone's throw away from that hall in Mom's workshop out back, where she quilts and sews bike shorts for my father and blankets for my new niece, her first grandchild. These being the things she loves to do even more than fix old houses.
Jim. Buy that house. Right now. How could you not?
When my husband was a child he lived with his parents and older sister in a late 1800's granite cottage in a small goldfields town -- incredibly beautiful.
Then his dad left, and at age 12, his mum died. The house was sold for pennies to a rich childless couple from the city who still have it as a country escape, and I think my husband's heart breaks every time he thinks about it.
Of course the emotional attachment is more acute, but being a witness to this story is the reason I am going to add my voice to those saying: DO IT. An opportunity WAY too good to miss.
P.S. You knew we'd all say that, right?
We've also dreamt of a house an hour away. We are South African and live in Pretoria. It would be different. Possibly made from rock, with a thatch roof, covered outside space and somewhere to make fire at night. There would be thorn trees and creamy, long grasses and insects, birds and if we are really lucky some game to look at through the kitchen window.
With some exceptions it would also be dangerous and the anxiety we feel just keeping us safe in our own home stops us from considering it seriously.
I'm actually more on mg's side. Are you really interested in the house, or interested in all the memories that are kept within.
As I kid, this much will I admit, I felt awed to walk around my father's home -a farm in a little mountain village in Austria. My own history became tangible.
And yet, it can be a burden to hang on to too much old, dead things.
Listen to your grandfather. Grandfathers are mostly always right.
All I know is this: the house built by my great-great-grandfather in the U.P. is still in our family. Its upkeep is not for the fainthearted, but it provides a connection to my family's history that is impossible elsewhere. Places like that must be cared for by people who love them -- no one else has the patience or resilience to undertake such daunting challenges. Who is better suited to the task than you?
Yeah....buy the house. Blog about it. Maybe make some kind of documentary even. That could be awesome. And a ton of work. But awesome.
And a question for Iris, if you check back, how do you bat-proof a house? My inlaws live in a certain beach town in W. Mich. in a 100+ yr old house and get bats ALL THE DAMN TIME...and they can't figure out where they're coming in...or maybe my MIL just gets too much joy in watching my FIL catch them? Aaahhh...the joys of midwestern living!
Dreaming is beautiful. When my mom and I would go on long road trips we'd always be on the look-out for crumbling, dilapidated farmhouses.
We'd each try to be the 1st one to say "ooh there's a nice fixer-upper!" and dream which of the "mansions" we saw that day we'd buy. Mine always had to have a watchtower so I could recline on scarlet cushions set on window benches and read or have enough room for a wooden roll top desk so I could write until sunset.
The irony of this past-time was we already lived in a crumbling 19thc. farmhouse with squeaky floorboards (ghosts, cats, gusts of wind), hand forged nails and peeling lead paint. I hope our house never ends up old and abandoned like so many do.
Of course I would buy it, but then I am a hopeless romantic. This past week my sister and I went on a quest to learn about our heritage also. We ended up in places I never imagined existed in the United States. The poverty was unimaginable. Our quest led us to 2 gravestones in an overgrown, snake-infested, long forgotten cemetery on the side of a hill in Appalachia. That was all that was left. There was no homestead or much of a town. We were in coal mining country, and when I imagined the life my grandparents lived there I cried. I've thought about what I learned constantly for over a week now, and I'm more determined than ever to find out all I can about my family's history. But, if a shack had been all that was left of my grandparents home, I would have bought it.
OMG, you have to buy this. Seriously. $12,500?? Like you said, that's a car payment. We've never regretted buying our house in the country. A 30-year mortgage on something like this would be a pittance and you could work at it at your leisure.
And the family connection makes it all the more precious.
Jim, you're amazing.
I grew up in a 200 year old farmhouse. My parents bought it when I was a baby and it was almost condemned. I spent my childhood helping in the restorations. I wouldnt trade those memories for anything in the world. My parents blood, sweat and tears, are literally a part of that house, as are my own. We renovated one room at a time, first the kitchen and the family room, which also served as the bedroom for the first year. If there is any way to keep this house in your family please do it, the rewards for your children will be immeasurable.
This house has a doorway to your past and windows that look out on your present. Capture that. Buy it. And fix it. It will be expensive. It will be a lot of work. But the journey of home remodeling brings so much pride and family bonding that it all becomes worth it. If it helps, there's an extensive network of home remodeling bloggers here to help you through it. Find me at http://aconstructedlife.blogspot.com/ and many more of us at www.houseblogs.net
Listen.
Do it.
I'm not gonna tell you what to do but I have to say that I thoroughly enjoy your writing. thank you.
I have to tell you, my father and his brothers burned down the house my grandfather built with his own hands in the '20s about 10 years ago. I am still mourning the loss of that house. If I had known they were going to do it I would have moved into the house to save it. The worst part is one of my uncles lives next door and should have been caring for it.
I would buy it. Save it.
as a child we spent summers at 'Whites Cottages' on Lake Tomahawk. a small inlet with a raft and 3 cottages- room enough for our family as well as 3-4 of my dad's siblings and their families. my fondest memories of growing up live in that space. I found out several years later after the place had been sold to a 'not so friendly' owner that my parents/aunts/uncles had the opportunity to buy the land/cottages for what would be considered 'pennies' today, and passed on it. I revisited the area a few years back only to find it had all been bulldozed to make room for condos.
It's a damn shame.
Never mind the farm house, I think you should start dressing like Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of New York.
trust me, I have plenty of flannel pants.
Holy CRAP property is cheap in America! And by property i mean land. You probably wouldnt be able to buy something like that here in Melbourne, Australia (abandoned or not) for less than $300,000.
There's a property that has been in my family for only two generations here and needs a lot of fixing up but means the world to me. No way would it be on the market after my grandfather passes for less than $450,000. If i had an opportunity to buy something so dear for less than $15K i would snap it up in a heartbeat if financially possible. No question.
Dude, I can totally see your grandfather's point, and yet, I think he'd be happy if you bought it. He'd love to see you want to preserve it against almost all logic. Your financial downside is very limited if you stay practical after impractically buying the place. Plus, to paraphrase George Bluth, there's always money in the Stupid Blog.
Plus, as an added bonus, where else but on a family farm in the country can you dress like Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York? You said you already have the flannel pants, and despite your defeated conviction that "it ain't ever happening", out there it could happen once a week, tops! (I'm sure your wife would pull the plug if you pushed it farther than that.) Now go make it happen!!
Well, I'm going to echo a whole bunch of others.... You must do it, if it is a feasible option for your family. It's a small cheap car! Only with great big contractor bills. But the fun of restoring it and preserving a bit of your family history - what a lesson for your children. Also? How awesome to have a lovely little weekend spot? I have fond memories of going to my great-grandmother's vacation cottage. And those first days of cleaning and airing out were worth it for the peace and quiet (we only had a radio) and the long walks through the woods. Some of my fondest memories with my stepmother, actually.
I don't think you'll ever regret it.
Please buy it; it is part of who you are and your children. The fact that it is again on the market is your sign.
That is beautiful.
I'd rather you buy the rehabbed houses in Corktown my parents are trying to sell.
To reiterate,
Don't live with regrets.
Buy it.
If you decide later it's too much, you can sell and have the peace of mind that you had it for a while.
But if you don't buy and then someone knocks it down and turns it in to a Walmart, you will always wonder, "what if."
awesome - thanks for this. you never know what might happen. . .
About five years ago, my husband and I bought a farmhouse nestled amidst the apple orchards found in the Hudson Valley, NY. It had been built in the 1760s and sat on 7+ acres of land. There was a giant barn, a pond and a weeping willow on the property, and we instantly fell in love with the history and potential of that house. For two years we tore down walls, ripped up floors and rebuilt porches in an attempt to restore it to its former stature (with some modern features). Fueled by the sounds of our future children running in the adjoining meadow and by the desire to preserve a piece of history, we worked hard to bring that house back to life. Every season we spent in that house, we loved-- watching the fox and her cubs frolic in the spring; lost in the spell of thousands of glittering fireflies in the summer; the brilliant colors of the trees in the fall; and, the icy beauty of the winter snows. In the end, we had to sell the house before we could finish the work we started. But, we still think back on the experience and imagine what our lives together could have been had we stayed in that house.
Buy the house, live in it and love in it. No matter what happens, you'll be stronger and better for it.
Buy it! Buy it! Buy it!
eek, this made my heart hurt.
buy it maybe to not live in it - but just to keep it, document it and preserve it. continue that history!
I don't know what is moving me to make a comment about this, but after reading it I just had this overwhelming feeling of "they have to buy that house."
I found your site after you guest posted on Dooce and I am hooked. I love your style of parenting. (Also, our 11 month old son is named Graham, so when I saw your son's name it sealed the deal ... you are in my favorites.)
Thank you for sharing your writing with the internet world!
I doubt anyone will read this; I'm woefully far down the comments and part of the unpopular opposition.
Don't buy the house. You'll be sacrificing a lot both monetarily and emotionally. Assuming your family survives the lengthy renovation process intact, what next? It can never be what you want it to be. You would only be exhuming a corpse to kill it again. It would be the saddest chapter in the history of the house.
Let it fall to ruin. You of all people should recognize the beauty and neccessity of the past fading. It will no matter what you do--are you willing to martyr yourself in slowing the process?
That home looks like the house of my dreams, and when I see the interior photos, all I see is what it would look like clean and with a coat of paint on the walls. Gorgeous...
You wouldn't have to give up your city life - it could be a weekend home. Well, after a long period as a "project." If the Duggars could build a house from scratch, I'm sure you could figure out much of the renovations. It would be sort of a nice yin to the yang of your Mies van der Rohe in the city.
don't waste another minute - do it.
all these romantics reading your blog...don't listen. buying it will change everything...beautiful ideas aren't meant to turn real and you have such a beautiful thing to remember and think about and daydream about and imagine fixing up...it would just become too real
Are you kidding?! It looks pretty darn solid and it's almost 200 years old. It's 12 thousand dollars, practically nothing on a 30 year mortgage. It has a special irreplaceable connection to you and yours. It will give you an opportunity to learn how to do things- a project on a grand scale. You can learn how to lay roofing tiles, how to tuck-point, how to hang sheet rock all with impunity. Your family will have a home in the country for summers, weekends, or more and you could possibly rent it out as a moneymaker. You can take as long as you want and work at your own pace. Worst case scenario you do nothing, the house falls down, you have land which can only go up in price.
I know I shouldn't be urging you to do anything. I hardly ever comment and to do so now is a mistake. You will make up your own mind and will live with your decision. But I just can't help myself! The cost is so low and the possible rewards are so high.
I'm whispering "do it."
(And if you do, please put the bathroom in the wooden addition and don't led the kids inhale too much lead paint in the process.)
Oh, Jim, you need to buy this house. You have this fantstic ability to see possibilities in what others have let go to shambles. Preserving history is not a "romantic notion" as a few commenters have stated. Europeans live in 500 year old farmhouses and their culture is the better for it. Will it be hard, time-consuming, and expensive? Of course. But it will be sooo worth it.
P.S. I'm in Ann Arbor - can I come and help? Seriously.
buy it! you may end up broke, but you won't end up sorry.
Beautiful post. Your writing moves me, this entry especially. The entry, along with those lovely photos puts me down in the "buy it" camp.
Another thought to add to the many ones here. This post is absolutely beautiful and touching, and something about this house inspired you. What if you were to buy it, and write about turning it back into what it once was? Maybe there's a book here?
Beautifully written. As someone who has discovered after buying an old house that we both HATE home improvement with all we've got, I'd mostly fall on the side of the practical. Michigan does have a historic preservation tax credit, though. And like others, I have the table my mother's family and my family used as a dining room table, which objectively I hate, it's this Italian Renaissance ornate thing that is sooo not my style. But I remember years of birthdays and Thanksgivings and family celebrations with my loved ones gathered around that table, and it stays. So, sentiment and history are imortant too.
(I also have the old piano. THAT is going).
This story is nauseating. Knock the place down with a bulldozer.
I love the idea of your readers volunteering their time to help?! Buy it, and think of a cool way to involve us-- using your community...now thats a historic notion... a "house raising". My 'rents have a cottage in Michigan. I'd swing by for a day or two, pitch a tent and help.
I think everyone should have a Datcha to grow their potatoes in the summer.
Long story short (I'll try!): A year or so ago, my parents bought the old general store and house that my grandmother grew in. Her father was the general store owner and postmaster, and when his kids grew up and moved away, he sold it to one of his employees. It is a small town an hour and a half south and a tad bit east of St Louis, settled by Saxon Lutherans.
They bought it with one goal: to honor the heritage that is rooted in the community. They've succeeded in putting the store on the National Registry of Historic Sites, and when it's fully restored, it will sell Missouri food, wines, and products exclusively. The house (attached to the store, sits next to and above) is now a B&B, where my mom welcomes guests with the same kinds of homemade cheese and coffeecakes that her grandma made for traveling salesmen in that exact kitchen.
To say it's a lot of work is...not even beginning to cover it. Everything was rotted beyond recognition, and while they had help from contractors (obviously), it was still my mom and dad down there, slinging dirt in the basement, repainting the sign, sanding down headboards. Even still...At one point, reports my brother, Mom stood up and said, "You know, this is hard work, but I can feel my grandfather hugging me as I do it."
This past weekend they had their first guests, three generations of a family who were in town for a reunion. This family has since lived all over the world -- never again in the US, actually -- but they remembered coming to the store to buy lemon drops as kids. They were absolutely thrilled to be able to stay there (even though the B&B isn't quite finished).
Point of all of this is to say: Do it.
And if you're ever driving through southeast Missouri and want some damn good German coffee cake, let me know.
I'm going to go against everyone's opinions here and say....do what's best for you. If you have the finances, time and energy to buy it and fix it up GREAT. If not--at least you have the pictures and the story to go with the memory.
And the neighbors would be a dealbreaker for me.
I think you would live to regret it if you did not find a way to buy it. Our house was built in 1868, and I'll never move. You can't beat an old house. And yours would be your family home! So very cool.
Those Excalades will be repossessed soon...
BUY IT!!!!
In 1992 we sold the house my grandfather built around 1929 with only the help of his brothers and brothers-in-law. The house was perched on a hill overlooking the 20 acres that my grandparents farmed their entire lives. The land had been in the family since the early 18th century.
It still makes my guts ache. If I won the lottery tomorrow, the first thing I would do is buy it back.
The Michigan tax break for homes in a historic district is a 25% tax refund - this year we got back $2500 from a roof job. I am not sure if there is a tax break unless the home is in a district. Many of the old house help programs are income based, so we're out of luck on most everything else.
We've lived in an old house for ten years now, it's been a love/hate relationship. All extra cash goes to it, and it's still a wreck. DH & I fight about it. While I love its architecture, I'm not sure it the sacrifice has been worth it.
Never thought the day would come when I can finally sort-of understand the lure of the McMansion.
I recommend reading the Devil Queen blog before making any decisions.
I would love to say buy it. If it was me I probably would buy it. But after I had done so the amount of work involved and the cost would sink in. I live in a 130ish year old house not too far from you guys. My husband and I have completely reno'd the thing..did it all ourselves so saved tens of thousands in contractor costs but my lord..the work..the work..it's been 5 years and we are still only about 85% done. All of the fights we ever have stem from this house and renovation. And it's not just the initial work..every year something new comes up that needs attention. So if you do this thing..and I am hoping that you will cause that place is just incredible..be sure that you will have the time to go there and make proper use of it because that house deserves to have children laughing in it again.
lovely, evocative post.
jen (ponderosa) sent me, because i just did a post about my grandparent's house. there was no breaking and entering, but...
it will be the bane of your existence, but you're so close to having it in the family for 200 years, you can't not have it! you have plenty of time to fix it up.
You are being featured on Five Star Friday:
http://www.fivestarfriday.com/20...edition-
14.html
This is amazing. Some people only dream of having a piece of their family history that is this real, this tangible. I barely even knew my grandparents.
This would be an unbelievable piece of historical property for anyone, let alone someone whose family it belongs to. Wow.
No encouragement from me either way. Just wow.
Not to be an ass or anything, although this is an ass-y thing to say, but I think this is the most contrived sounding thing you've written. I really enjoy your blog and I really like that house, so you know I'm not a total ass, but I think you could read back over this and know it.
Hmm, well you did put it out there for public comment or criticism.
I was confused by your comment "my wife's career requires a city."
What, they don't have lawyers in the country? Seems to me there are lawyers anywhere you turn.
Hey, Great blog. I like walking through abandoned houses sometimes, too. We named our daughter, born in December 07, Juniper as well. So, love the name, and love your blog.
Karli
To mix a couple of metaphors:
Ruh-roh. Houston? We got a problem.
Wow... I don't envy you with this one.
It has got to be hard to not run out and try to buy the place.
The practical and the sentimental are tough to make any sense of on a pro/con list. I doubt that an opportunity like this comes along very often, but it is also hard to stretch the budget to make it work.
Maybe you can buy it and fix it up when you have all of that spare money to put into it at a later date.
Thanks for sharing and let us know!
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