You can see things growing in the gutters. But that balcony must have been so cool!
Now that we are getting known as people who are interested in fixing up historically significant properties, we are occasionally called in to support other renovators’ projects. That’s what happened last Friday, when a colleague asked our team to come take a look at a former mansion in Cameron that her family purchased not too long ago.
We’re really interested in looking at local properties, to get ideas for the Gillis house, so of course Lee agreed to take a look. We brought along Melanie Reed, from the Chamber of Commerce in her role as a member of the redevelopment committee in Cameron (and she’d also been in the house during its glory years).
The house looks really cool from a distance, like a haunted house (which it actually served as for a few years). It definitely had fallen on hard times with its previous reclusive occupant, who was repeatedly pestered by vandals. Thus, most windows in the house are gone, and there have been people more recently going through searching for copper wiring and generally making a mess.
The current owners have done a lot of work on the property, getting rid of vegetation that was hiding the house, and making the grounds safe. The reason we were brought in to consult was to give the current owners feedback on what can be done with the house itself. They were wondering if the house could be saved or not, and wanted an idea of how much it would cost to renovate.
