The House That Got Away (Almost)

This post was written on May 2, 2017.

As a fiction writer, drawing from real life to create stories is nothing unusual. Overheard conversations, random observations, newspaper articles, interactions on planes and at the bus stop--all of this gets filed away. Sometimes it reappears later, occasionally unchanged but more often resculpted, reshaped. (Unless it’s a line like “Where’s the denim jackets with the sleeves tore off?”, asked urgently by a breathless man in a local discount store. You can’t make up a line like that. Why did he need a sleeveless jacket so badly? And why couldn’t he just tear the sleeves off a jacket himself?)

In the novel I’m working on now, which focuses on slum landlording in a small town, this process of inspiration has begun moving in reverse. When I first began planning and plotting my story, I knew I wanted blighted properties to be a focus for my characters. For the past couple of years, each time I’ve visited my hometown, I’ve called up a realtor and had him take me around to some of the terrible properties up for sale--mostly multi-family rentals, but also some single-family homes and commercial properties. The places I’ve seen would be shocking to most of my acquaintances in the New Jersey suburbs, where homes go hundreds of thousands of dollars over million-dollar asking prices. The homes I saw were priced at $30K or less. Several times, the door of the property fell off when the realtor tried to unlock it. The properties in my hometown are often aggressively neglected; landlords (slumlords) squeeze as much money as they can from them, and then leave them for dead.

Or, as it turns out, for someone like me.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before my research began giving way to real-life possibilities. Many of the ruined houses in my hometown were once coal barons’ grand mansions, and they now serve as a reminder of how far the town has fallen--but they’re also absolutely beautiful, in their broken-down way. Unfortunately for us, Andrew and I are both attracted to romantic ruin, cursed with the tendency to see past crumbling walls and holes in the floor to the scant remains of original woodwork, shadows of old moldings. We see a chopped-off attic roof and imagine, giddily, replacing the long-missing turret. Trailing after the realtor, peeking into closets and climbing into attics, we’d look at each other, besotted, Andrew’s eyes already filled with complicated spreadsheets calculating cash, equity, rent, mortgages.

Our one saving grace so far--the one thing keeping us from making offers on these homes--has been the fact that neither of us knows the first thing about property development or construction. We love the idea of restoring old homes, but we have no practical knowledge whatsoever. Plus, we don’t live in the area, making logistics difficult. Still, this hasn’t kept us from frequently dreaming over southwestern PA real estate listings.

 There was one house, in particular, that got away.

 It’s a red-brick behemoth on one of the main thoroughfares in town, one of the old mansions people point to when they talk about Connellsville’s history as a boom town. It’s been a disaster for decades, actively deteriorating every year. It has no electrical work or plumbing--thieves broke in and stole all the wires and pipes. Andrew and I went into the house two years ago. The smell inside--dog and decay--was so intense it was an almost physical force. Still, we were overcome with the desire to restore the house to its former glory, new turret and all. But the asking price was far too much for the work required. This wasn’t just a renovation. This would entail rebuilding the interior entirely. We couldn’t make the leap.

Until now!

 As of this month, we are officially 50% owners of that historic house. Friends of ours (who are much more experienced in property matters) bought the house last year and have been pouring their energy into demolition and planning. We’ve now partnered with them to launch the restoration. It’s exciting in so many ways. We’ll be learning about property matters from our skilled friends, while helping to bring this home back from the brink.

It’s exciting for me creatively as well: this house was the inspiration for the fictional house that is the focus of my work-in-progress. The house in my novel isn’t in as rough shape, but specific aspects--the missing turret, the ruined opulence, the palpable sense of lives badly lived--were inspired by what I saw, and felt, when I went inside.  

How strange that the house is now actually, partly, mine. This is a clear, strange case of life imitating fiction, of fiction inspiring life.