Where's the Barn House Forum when you need it!?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m thinking hard about buying this house.

How much do you think it would cost to repair the fire damage? It doesn’t look like all of it was burned, only two of the apartments. The rest is probably smoke damaged, but what does that need to fix? Just new walls, right? I wouldn’t be doing any of the work myself. I’m just curious what it would cost to have a contractor fix the house up. Haven’t decided if I would try to restore it to its original configuration or keep it as apartments and just rent them out. Is this a horrible idea?

2

It’s got a lot of character. Does “fire-sale price,” in this instance, really mean there was a fire? My biggest concern would be with the local Historical Society (once you’re locked in, they want THIS and THAT).

Why don’t you contact the This Old House folks and see if they’d be interested in renovating it for a series of episodes?

Are you staying in Alaska?

3

I’m moving to Lexington next year. So, I was looking for a place to live and I came across this Casper-looking house. I love it, but my wife isn’t sold on it.

I got a good laugh when I finally realized that “fire-sale” literally meant “we’re selling due to a fire!”

From what little I have been able to find online:

-This home has been converted into 5-6 apartments.
-There was a fire in February caused by some dipshit leaving a cigarette on the wooden stairs.
-10 Washington and Lee University students were living there at the time.
-From the photos, it only appears that the upper, west portion of the house caught fire. Looking at the windows on the other side, the curtains and interior seem fine.
-Insurance would not adequately cover the repairs. I think this could mean that the owner had really horrible insurance, or that the insurance company doesn’t think the damage is that bad.
-Without enough insurance money or assets to repair the home, the owner tried to have it demolished, but the city’s historical society had the permit declined.
-Unable to demolish the home, the owner simply wants the value of the land: $90,000 for the half acre.
-There is obviously going to be restrictions imposed by the Historical Society, but considering they let the owner convert the inside into apartments, I don’t think they’re going to be super-strict about the renovations. It looks like they’re just going to want the exterior to generally stay the same–which I’m fine with.

I would love an old house like this. I’m not really excited about a renovation project, but it might be worth it. I could always either resell it for a profit (hopefully) or keep it as apartments and rent them out to students.

To be honest, I would be perfectly happy selling it in three years (when I leave Lexington), breaking completely even, which would mean I got to live in a 6,000 sqft house for free for 3 years. I’m good with that.

4

There really isn’t enough information to say. Renovating old houses can get into a ton of money even without fire damage. What’s the electrical system look like? Plumbing? HVAC? “Just new walls” can get quite complicated. If you have to do a significant amount of rewiring, for instance, the city might require you to bring the whole building up to code, and rewiring a whole house like that can require knocking out a lot of plaster and re-drywalling everything. The fact that they’re not mentioning any upgrades or showing the inside of the property suggests that there is a lot of work to be done, but you never know. You’ll almost certainly have to buy the property with cash, typically banks don’t like to lend for this kind of thing.

5

^ A lot of excellent points, Renee.

Bear, I do not envy your wife “not being sold” on it. That will be the deal breaker.

That gave me a chuckle, as well, in a whistling-past-the-graveyard kinda way. :wink:

I’ll bet it has pocket doors–that would make me weak in the knees, I don’t know why.

6

By the way, I’m not saying don’t do it. We’ve renovated a beat-to-shit craftsman before, and had a lot of fun with it and made a lot of money, but we were doing most of the work ourselves. The people renovating the house behind us spent about $300K just on the renovation of theirs, and that was maybe a 1600 sf house in a cheap area ten years ago. These things are not cheap to fix up if you’re hiring stuff out, and that is a HUGE house.

7

It’s fabulous. And it’s a money pit. Choose which is more important to you.

If you’re asking, I assume that you have limited or no experience in building trades, so you can’t contribute much skilled labor to the renovation.

Even with my limited experience, I’d assume that a fire meant new wiring throughout, new structural walls, a new roof, and smoke and water remediation. The age of the house and its conversion to student apartments would make me assume that the plumbing and foundation need a good going-over, and that some (most?) of the renovation isn’t up to code. I’d assume at least a half-million for renovation, and maybe twice that.

(But if I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d buy it’s twin in a heartbeat. Especially if it has pocket doors.)

8

So it’s not just me. :slight_smile:

9

Bear_Nenno, THIS could be YOU!

(I couldn’t resist.)

10

LOL! I’m going to have to watch that movie, now. I haven’t seen it. Looks like it’s available on Amazon STARZ (free trial, here I come).
Thanks for the laugh!

11

**************** WARNING *****************

This looks for all the world like a real masonry structure - not a brick coating on a structure made of something else, a real , live brick house.

But First: After any fire, most places, AIUI, require a complete strip down to studs and all new wiring.

Now, back to brick structures:
The floors are wood - timbers resting in sockets in the exterior walls.
After a fire, that may very well mean all the floors will have be torn out and the structural timbers inspected. If one of those timbers is damaged, it may well be a tear-down (except the Historical folks won’t let you do that)

Now: all brick and mortar use mortar (brilliant deduction). Mortar ages and dries. As it dries, it releases its grip on the bricks.
See where this is going?
Fires are noted for speeding up the drying.
See: Brick Re-pointing.
Basically, digging out the outer 1 1/2" of mortar and putting in new mortar.

Real brick houses have <1 rows of bricks in the walls. Since you have now removed both the sheetrock (and the remaining original plaster and lathe) PLUS the floors, you can now see if the interior course of bricks has been damaged by the heat, or if you can just get away with re-pointing on both the inside and the outside.

Of course, you may end up having to have an interior frame of steel beams to carry the floors and stabilize the brick shell.
But the place will still look pretty from the outside! The Historical folks will love you.

Find a local expert on old brick construction and pay him his $20K fee for evaluating the property.

Now you know why it is being offered as “Lot Value” - you can’t even get the lot due to historical significance.
And now you know why it wasn’t bought instantly.

(I was once offered a magnificent old Victorian for $60K. It was in worse shape then this one even might be - no foundation, no support for 2 12’ high floors of wet plaster + 2 fireplaces (double parlor).
I bought a run-down 4/2 in a second-class 1979 tract development.

12

usedtobe, that was an education, sir, thanks.

One question: Do the Historical folks have any say in what goes on, repair-wise, inside the house?

13

Usually, they are content to leaving the shell - which is why the butchering into student housing.(never a good sign, btw. My first house was 1918, last use: student housing)

Each group is different - if there is magnificent wood or stone inside, the part from front door to rear door may be protected. Which might mean you can put a false wall over the original, just don’t remove the original. I have no idea.

But: before even touch this thing, I’d like a detailed agreement as to what I could or couldn’t do.

In SF, there are original brick buildings with massive steel beams carrying the load. And I don’t think the ones I was in were even in a sensitive area, so I have no idea why they went to that expense for a modest sized building.

For those “un-reinforced masonry buildings” In the Loma Prieta (1989) quake, almost all of the ones killed in SF were stopped at a light in front of such a building. It exploded, raining down several tons of bricks. The cars and occupants were crushed beyond recognition.

14

I heard back from a realtor regarding the house. She’s more than a realtor, though. I contacted this lady specifically due to her credentials:

Master’s Degree in Architectural History
5 years with Virginia Department of Historic Resources
8 years as Executive Director of Historic Lexington Foundation
Former Preservation Consultant

She is also the person interviewed in the story I read about the city denying the demolition permit. So, I figured she would be a little knowledgeable about this house, and old buildings in general.

The fire, she explains, was confined to the attic but destroyed much of the roof. While there was no fire damage outside of the attic, there was substantial water and smoke damage during the firefighting effort. Plus, the house has been exposed to the elements since February which caused additional water damage.

"All of the interior wall and ceiling finishes have major issues due to water damage. Interiors will need to be taken down to the studs, and building should have new mechanicals and new drywall throughout. That said, the original woodwork (below attic level) --trim, doors, windows, etc-- is in very good condition and the vast majority of the building appears to be structurally sound."

This house was configured into a 6 unit apartment with 10 total bedrooms! She says the original house was 5 bedrooms upstairs and large entertaining spaces downstairs. The building was converted to apartments in the 1970s.

When asked about using a VA loan, she said that most lenders would consider this house to be a new construction rather than a renovation, but that if it is left in apartment configuration, it would be considered commercial as opposed to a home loan. That said, she doesn’t think it would qualify for a VA loan.
I don’t really understand that part. If it is considered a “new construction”, shouldn’t it qualify for a VA loan? If I were having a house built on a newly purchased lot, wouldn’t I be able to use a VA loan for that? I will have to look into this further.

I asked to see the written repair estimates the owner received that made him decide to demolition it instead of fix it. She says that she expects to have that soon, and will send it my way. She is also going to send me more pictures of the inside this week.

15

She actually just sent me some photos. I’ve shared them on my Google Drive, here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B0rpnn6BI71pRUZaRDhxZl9Mc28?usp=sharing

She also mentioned that 45% of the rehab costs can be recouped through state and federal tax credits since it is a registered historical building. A tax “credit”, unlike a “deduction” is completely returned, right? Would I really get half of the reconstruction costs refunded? That would be awesome. She sent me a link to the state website with more information, but I don’t have time to read into it right now. I’m hoping some of you have experience or knowledge about that program or those tax credits.

16

You wouldn’t really put drywall, instead of lathe and plaster, in a nice old house like that, would you? Would you? whimper

17

Do they even offer lath and plaster walls anymore? My 1902-built house had a fire, and the choices for restoration were “drywall + plaster” or “just drywall”. Lath and plaster was not an option. My house was underinsured (come to find out, insuring market value versus replacement value was not a good idea, learned that lesson), so we went with drywall only. Don’t worry, we still have one fully lath and plaster room that wasn’t touched by the fire.

18

Can’t believe I typed “lathe”; I know better. Does the plaster go over the drywall? And sticks to it?

I have to quit watching This Old House-type shows–you get the impression there are artisans everywhere.

19

The original plaster and lath I’ve seen used gypsum plaster as first layer, then plaster of Paris for top (appearance) coat.

When I installed an acrylic tub, I was able to find gypsum plaster for its bed.

I’m told it is no longer made.
Just finding a crew who could still do it was a trick, last I heard.

I don’t think anybody in SF still bothers, but I didn’t go looking.

Bear: Those pics do NOT look promising.

One thing I have heard, long ago: NEVER try to live is a house with substantial fire damage. Rain brings out the smell.
I would be amazed if you would be allowed to use any of the existing roof.

On the plus side, the place does not look like it is really special - all the bits I saw were standard stuff found at lumber yards when the place was built.

But now you know what a transom looks like.

20

Oh - the roof looks like it was built as cheaply as possible - if those ARE 2x4 rafter and ridge pole, I would be quite hesitant to see what else was done on the cheap.

It would have been nice if they had installed modern windows.

The other thing: “All new mechanicals” _ HVAC, DWV (love the plastic pipe).

That house was not built with a forced-air heat/cool system - it had a fireplace. There is probably a hole in the 2nd story floor with a grate to allow hot air up from the lower floor.

Another “While you’ve got it torn apart, you might as well…”. Get used to hearing that…