When making an offer on a house, would you want to know that it was located in a designated historic district? Especially if that district contained rules governing future alterations of your historic home? Of course you would. And the City Council in Mobile, Alabama thinks sellers of historic homes — in these designated districts– should be required to disclose that information to potential buyers. It makes sense to me. But apparently not to many Realtors in Mobile, who are resisting the proposed ordinance requiring disclosure. Claiming the ordinance increases the liability of both sellers & their real estate agents, the Realtors believe the proposed rule is an attempt by the Council to transfer liability from the city to the property owners. So what? Should the city be required to disclose leaky roofs for the sellers, as well? As a real estate agent, myself, I am embarrassed for these Realtors who should welcome any effort to make real estate transactions more smooth & transparent for all parties.
[For full article in the Press-Register (by Robert McClendon) click here]
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UPDATE: The Mobile city council has dropped the proposed ordinance, “for now.”
Another colonial-era property seems to be “doomed” despite willing buyers who would restore the property, according to an article in the Observer-Tribune. The “Madelyn Post House,” named for a woman who lived in the house for 101 years, was built in 1740 and is located on Main Street in Brookside, New Jersey — about 40 miles west of New York City. (For what it’s worth, Mendham Township is apparently the hometown of both singer Whitney Houston and Abner Doubleday, the legendary “inventor” of baseball). The house appears to be a “3/4 Colonial” (with 2 window bays on one side of the door, but only one window to the right) and apparently has original features, including the hearth. However, due to administrative snags & neighbor complaints, at least one plan to save the house was stalled. The new purchaser plans to raze the house. According to the article, this house will join at least 2 other 18th century homes that have been recently lost in this community. [Full article here]
Click Here for a List of 125+ articles here at Historic House Blog!
Many-a-time on our road trips between Connecticut and Ohio, we would exit I-80 to stop for gas near a small city named Sharon, just after crossing the border from Ohio into Pennsylvania. Yet we never really drove into town, feeling we didn’t have time to casually “explore” on such a long trip. But had I known about this Richardsonian mansion on the hill downtown, perhaps I would have taken a few minutes to check it out. Richardsonian architecture was often reserved for public buildings, such as town halls, churches, or libraries. So most houses designed in that style are grand, indeed, often looking like castles. Read more…
Historic homes with interesting stories attached to them can elicit excitement & emotional attachment with potential buyers. Historic homes with stories linking them to Revolutionary War heroes actually get press coverage. This eight-room, circa 1790 Gambrel style home in Portsmouth, RI, (Aquidneck Island) is reputed to have once been a hiding place for General Lafayette during the American Revolution, as reported by Yankee Magazine. Read more…
“This Old House” magazine has declared its best historic house neighborhoods for 2011, releasing an extensive report featuring 64 neighborhoods from all over North America. So as to not leave out anyone, 1 neighborhood was chosen for each U.S. state and 1 for each Canadian province.
The magazine editors say that these “best” historic neighborhoods are often found in “long- or formally forgotten cities, towns, and ‘burbs that are worth a fresh look.” It also promises that these neighborhoods feature some of the “most architecturally eye-popping older houses on the continent.” Read more…
In Eutaw, Alabama, a magnificent & restored Greek Revival plantation home (circa 1852) is now for sale.
The antebellum estate — called “Everhope” — was long known as “Twin Oaks” until the actual twin oaks suffered their demise due to unlucky acts of nature. The property is also known as the Captain Nathan Carpenter House and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As Patrick Rupinski writes, “For$6 you can get a guided tour of Everhope . . . For $695,000, you can own it.” Read more…
This one is, well, just a tad unique. In 1976, a black couple — Donald & Thelma Smith — bought a beautiful mansion (circa 1912) in the historic Hill District of Pittsburgh. While doing some renovations a few years later, some exterior wood was removed from the facade to reveal — surprise, surprise — a carved swastika they never knew about. Don’t believe it? Look for yourself (pic, above left).
So, the owners faced a real dilemma. Read more…
We usually stick to American topics here on HHB– but, wow, this property “across the pond” really caught my eye.
Up for auction on November 23rd in the U.K. is this incredible, post-Tudor, sandstone block property, which is “reputed to be one of the oldest houses in Wirral,” dating to the year 1627. Yeah . . . that’s just 7 years after the pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock.
The house – creatively dubbed “The Old House” — is located on Limekiln Lane in Wallasey, in northwest England (see map, above). Wallasey is a town within the Borough of Wirral – west of the large city of Liverpool on the Irish Sea.
The auction house’s “guide price” for the house? Read more…
I really like Marshall, Michigan.
I’ve only been there once, and that one visit was only a few weeks ago. However, I am smitten. I had long been looking forward to visiting Marshall (well, “long” being since March 2009), when I bought an old copy of Mabel Cooper-Skjelver’s Nineteenth Century Homes of Marshall, Michigan (see left). Flipping through musty pages of old black and white photos – it was published in 1982 — I could still easily see that this small, midwestern town was unique because of the high density of architectural treasures there. So I decided I must go take a tour, and soon. But we know how that goes. Several seasons passed by, and still, I hadn’t seen Marshall, Michigan.
Finally, an October 2010 visit from an out-of-stater, Dave, my good friend & co-founder of Historic House Blog, was the perfect excuse for a road trip up to Michigan. And we were not disappointed. Read more…
In honor of Halloween’s fast approaching, we thought we would address the issue of “haunted houses” and real estate. Ghosts and the paranormal are certainly not limited to “historic” houses. But let’s face it . . . historic houses almost inevitably have some kind of story tied to them. Whether it’s a dramatic legend about a murder in the house, or the death of a former resident in a back bedroom, or a tale passed down from owner-to-owner about a bizarre sighting long ago in the attic, or even a current owner who has simply heard lots of unexplained sounds or seen creaky doors open on their own, almost any old house has some kind of “ghost” story attached to it. These stories are usually good fun, and extreme cases involving stories of demons or poltergeists who have harassed the “living” residents are extremely rare. Read more…
