More of The Great Sca Housing Search

I mentioned in a previous post that we were considering a $14k boarded up OTR rowhouse and a 6k square foot Avondale mansion. For the recordbook's sake, I'd like to share a bit about them. (Larry Budde can confirm these stories, as he was there.)

The OTR rowhouse is actually located in the West End, a few blocks west of Findlay Market. It absolutely needs a complete renovation. This should not come as a shock, as it is an historic 2800+ square foot house built right after the Civil War, yet is cheaper than a Hyundai. Many years back, the city bought the two buildings on the west side of this rowhouse and tore them down. We were thinking maybe the city would sell us the 2 lots so that we could turn the area into some sort of community garden, but the city said no dice.
If the city had said "sure, we'll sell you the 2 lots," we may have hired a contractor to help fix this place up. Regardless, God laid it on our hearts to go deep within a "scary" part of town, deep within a home that hasn't seen residents in over 8 years, deep within a building that has no sunlight due to boarded up windows. So this isn't "the" house. It's ok. We believe we were called to check it out, and we did. Obedience. (Yes, I was afraid that we'd get up to the 3rd floor to find decomposing bodies. I'm weird like that.)

Later that day, we hit up a house in Evanston. From the street, it looked beautiful. From the inside, every window looked as though a rock or brick had been thrown through it. And with good reason, as it was in fact what had happened. Larry and I were quite impressed with some of the rocks found on the 3rd floor. If the Reds knew some of the young locals could throw as such, they'd release Todd Coffey for good. The place had so much potential charm. It also had an unprecedented amount of urine in the carpets. 'Twas a nice house, and could be a nice house again, but 'twill not be ours. Just wasn't right.

Moving on, the next 4 houses in Avondale were abandoned, advertised "for sale", and yet we were unable to see them because they were either boarded up or the key wasn't where the realtor said it would be. It's kinda hard to see the inside of a house when the inside of the house cannot be seen. (Deep stuff, I know.) And it's unbelievably frustrating when we obtain babysitting and drive across town only to not get the houses we set out to see. Makes me want to kill bad realtors.

The final stop on our ill-fated tour was the aforementioned 6000 square foot mansion. I scouted it out a few weeks ago, as I just had to see what 6k square feet looked like. I peered through a BIG leaded-glass front door to see an enormous home with a Biltmore-esque grand staircase, all hand-carved. Yeah, it needed work, and no, we don't need that much space, but why not look at it while in the area, right?
As we approached the house, Larry noticed that the big front door was open. I did not have any desire to go through a huge house that may or may not have random squatters around the next corner, so I started to think of how to convince Robyn and Larry to just leave. Then Larry said something to the effect of "the door isn't open... it's gone." That's right. You've heard of stealing items from a yard. You've probably heard of stealing copper pipes. Well I'm here to tell you that someone stole the damn front door.
Larry has some huge stones, because he went inside. Robyn and I followed. What we found within continues to blow my mind, even as the days pass. That beautiful grand staircase? Gone. They took the front door and the hand-carved banister. And if you look closely at the picture with Larry, you'll see that some of the detailed trim remains. These crooks aren't done. They're taking everything they can.
This house is done. In Hyde Park, it's a $3 million house. Two years ago, in Avondale, it sold for $215 thousand. Today? They'd be lucky to get $50 grand. Sometime over the last two weeks, the charm that remained in this once-pround mansion was carried through the hole in the wall formerly known as a front door.

Welcome to the city. What a depressing day. Driving home was surreal... full of conversations containing phrases such as "what the hell are we doing?" and laughter to keep from crying. And yet, somehow, we woke up Monday morning as committed as ever to going boldly where no man seems to want to live. We can't afford to let these communities simply die. If we won't go and live there, who will?