Retirememt: The only job Patrick ever sucked at....if not this one....next!

Sucker ;)

Cool house...just imagine what it once was. I'm sure you have....sucker :)

^^
Nah, fixing old houses is MrsWD’s thing. I still have work to do on the house we’re living in and I’m having trouble finding motivation to do it. This coming year is going to be spent on my cars. My goal by the end of summer is to have all 7 drivable. No time or interest in hammer and nail work.

My best friend's mom has restored several (3-4 at least) 100 yr old historical mansions in Jax, Fl. She's a glutton fer punishment and can't stop....well into her 70s ;)

The work required is mind boggling....

That’s really cool! I’m another that would love to know the story. How does what was once a beautiful large and expensive house become totally abandoned and fall into such a state? There has to be a story associated with that.

I think that it might happen pretty often, especially within wealthy families. Fashion and circumstance change and the heirs would be able to afford to ignore and abandon expensive homes that wage slaves like us would want try and make a go of. Or, maybe the upkeep is too much for a third generation family member where the interest on the family fortune isn't keeping up with the times...

Here's one story -

JR Simplot, the potato magnate, built a mansion on top of a hill in Boise, but he built it late in his life after all his kids were grown; after a time, it became impractical for him so he moved into a downtown Boise apartment (Insert small-town downtown jokes here!).

None of the family members were interested in living in the mansion, so he offered it to the state of Idaho with the idea that it would become the Governors mansion. That didn't work out at all and so the bulldozers came and scraped it off the top of the hill leaving only an enormous American flag to mark the spot. The Simplot fortune provides upkeep for a greenspace and flag maintenance in memory of the spud king.

I think Mike hit on it. A family gets rich and builds a mansion, but the heirs go about their separate ways. One kid stays home and farms the family farm, but he's stuck with a 100 year old mansion that is too big for his family ( 20+ rooms) ONE bathroom, and badly outdated mechanicals. It's cheaper to build a house that suits his needs.
Why he didn't just sell it is a mystery. Why he doesn't sell it now for salvage is likewise a mystery.

I spent years working on very old houses, some historically significant. As others have alluded to, it's usually a massive undertaking. From the first photos on this thread, I could tell that this house is worth about negative $100k, (or whatever the cost of demolition and haul-away is around there).

The term, "historically significant" is misused and misunderstood quite a bit. Nearly anything old might be historically significant to someone, (like a person who once lived in the house or whose ancestors did). This does not necessarily translate into being significant to the world at large.

The location alone of this place, in the middle of nowhere in rural Ohio on a farm, means that it would have to be an early FLW house or similar to have any significance and value. It is a fairly ordinary if large and fancy house for the time. It would need to be sitting in Greenwich Village in NYC to be worth reviving. And if it was, the dirt it's sitting on would be worth $50 million and it would be scraped. No sale. :cool:

With all due respect, you don't sound like the guy who should be working on a house like that. There are many diffrerent areas of trade and specialization within the construction industry and while you may be good at what you normally do, this is the work for restoration specialists. Restoration is very different from construction; one builds new things and the other fixes and restores old things. I have always found that very few people in construction understand anything about restoration or even value it.

A G&G house is like an old Ferrari or a Pre-A 356, if I had to use an automotive analogy. Just as most people who work on cars for a living have no respect for originality and simply replace parts or think that they are "improving" an old car w modifications, most old Craftsman and architecturally significant houses have been ruined over the years by modification. Plenty of old cars that were special as well.

This is why truly original C2 Corvettes or G&G houses that somehow have escaped the butcher's hand are so valuable. Sorry for all of the car comparisons but houses and cars are both obsessions of mine and I am a restoration guy. The right person to work on either would have no issue w preservation people and in fact would go to the ends of the earth to keep things correct. If I told you the stories of searching architectural salvage yards for old windows to harvest glass from for a 1915 house project in Minneapolis, (glass from the later 1920s or 30s will not do, they changed the manufacturing process), you would think I'm crazy. You would not understand. :)

I have an acquaintance here in Los Angeles that is the pre-eminent guy for restoring Lautner houses. Not coincidentally, he owns several concours level collector sports and racing cars that he regularly drives. A mint, original '73 Carrera RS is probably the least valuable and most mundane of his cars. He understands and reveres the craftsmanship and artistry of a bygone era of construction and design. No detail is too small in his projects.

There are jobs for everyone when it comes to housing around here w the demand.

I meant to post this:

https://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/hot-property/la-fi-hp-home-20190126-story.html

One thing I've noticed is that some farmers are a bit weird about selling any land. They'd rather the house go to waste than have a stranger living in a home they would have to farm around.

speeder makes a good point. Too many folks see an old home and think about how cool it would be... but don't understand
1) the true cost of bringing it up to modern comfort or,
2) the true cost of restoring one that has significance.

The problem is when someone just wants a nice old house and then gets ambushed by the hysterical, um, I mean, historical society that suddenly decides this home is significant.

This ambush often happens because of pride.

Someone thinks the prestige in social circles of being able to say "historic home" comes without disadvantages.

Then reality arrives.

Ambush indeed.

So the moral of the story is due diligence before you jump into a project and have that 'uh oh" moment.

Watch The Money Pit.
https://youtu.be/9yUtwutoW0Q

Might be making a wrong assumption but you sound like more of a 'knock em up cheap' type builder to me and not having the attention to detail needed to sympathetically restore an older property

What is right to you isn't always right for the customer ;)

I see that too. Makes no sense to me, but it happens a lot.

I would say that given how the customer decided to use shaved 2x4's that the customer wasn't all into spending that much either.

I think the customer fell for something without realizing the cost and restriction.

For the Greene and Greene or Chemosphere? Chemosphere has an unlimited budget, so we brought in all sort of specialist. Some days, it seemed like a crime scene with people and their little brushes cleaning and doing their thing to preserve important things. The Greene and Greene's home owner's plan was to live in it and he had to come under a certain budget, so the amount of money dictated how and where to spend it wisely. For example, we talked from the beginning about having tiles made for the fireplace and all the woodwork would come out of my shop. The baseboard and casing would be purchased, ripped down and edges eased to match existing using 3/4" clear pine and painted. Owner agreed due to the difference of 7000+ dollars compared to using vertical grain Douglas Fir like they did 100 years ago only to be painted over and 1/8" thinker. All were replace to be uniform. From 2' away, you can't tell unless it was measured. A second floor was added on back in the 50s and it was not done very well, so a lot of the money was spend on putting back all the Craftsman details to match the lower floor. Correct hardware were refinished but not many were left due to years of abuse.

Its not a car restoration where the original or correct parts must be used for concourse judges. This is not the gamble house, a museum with unlimited budget. The architect, myself and the client decided to have the tiny kitchen enlarged to modern standard so its usable but keeping or replicating all the original details. There's no way I would rewiring that house with knob and tube, have the toilet in your face as soon as you walked into the bath just to satisfy original details. Back then, having indoor plumbing was for the wealthy, so designers needed to show it off, so it was put near the entry to a bath room. We were not having that, so if you are talking restoring it to the original 100%, no this is not the house. It must flow well by today's standard because people have to live in it. I did, however drove to Las Vegas to bring back gallons of oil base floor finish so it will patina the same as the original over time. We milled the floor for all of the upstairs to match the existing. I made a Craftsman lamp with stain glass, a similar copy from the Gamble house for the Dinning Room.

Its easy for the historical Nazis to say or point fingers but someone's has to pay for it. It sure as hell wasn't them, I can assure you. On that house, another 150k could be sunk into it and it will all disappear into the very minor details where 95% of the general public would never see it. For example, we decided to replace the rotten beams by using an engineering beam instead vertical grain Doug Fir under the house like the original. Oh yeah, the historical folks called me out on that too but its on the approved plans yet they made a bunch of noise about that. We all know its much stronger and it will never be seen unless one goes under the house.

These jobs are never about me, its budget driven, always.

I know the exact location of that house. We look at it and researched a few of their homes as much as we could before we started construction. One day out of the year, those private old homes in Pasadena are open to the public and tours are given to small groups. I am not sure if they still do it anymore? I also did a lot of work to a big Spanish about 2 block away back around that time.

I cut my teeth around those old home in Pasadena doing their woodwork and finish carpentry during college. Moving on to small remodels that grew into much larger ones. We did nothing but rehabbing grand old homes for 10 years then the economy kick everyone's butt and people stop spending. We did 9 grand old homes in 8 years, all were in Pasadena but one. While they aren't as intense as having to look for period correct glass like you did, sometimes it isn't possible and it can't made. The job must move forward people needed to move in. These jobs take 3 times as long and 10 times more complex, with blown budgets, always, but still they need to get done and within a reasonable amount of money. From your description, only few owners or houses out of a thousand have the time and budget luxury. Chemosphere was one. I much rather work on those because there's no time nor budget constrain making it a lot less stressful.

Old Ferrari, G and G or not, the owner's pocket always have the say so and how deep of a restore they want to go. 15-20 years ago, 700 k was a lot of money spent on a remodel on a home worth 1 mil+. I chased after them because it was fun, and I discovered that I was up to the task. I moved on to the west side during that time working for a bunch of movie folks and most I come across weren't interested in restoring old homes but love the shiny new designer stuff. That kept us going for many years and much easier to control. I am getting done with them too and slowly moving back into Pasadena and La Canada due to west side traffic. I am not really interested in restoring an old house anymore, unlike before I was chasing fame within that community. Depending on the owner and the designer, ofcourse. I still do some work in Los Feliz and Silverlake. Maybe I will run into you sometimes.

Which Lauther house did your friend restore? There's a Lauther house within walking distance from my home and I love to restore that to the teeth. Its in pretty bad shape. Since I am out of the loop, they would never hire me.