Want To Buy A House?

February 1st, 2007 · 6 Comments · Local, Main

“Anyone interested in buying a historic 18th-century building that houses an old museum and costs a small fortune to maintain?”

“Perhaps.”

“Well, be advised that it’ll be difficult for you to do much with the building, especially the exterior, unless you conform to a legally binding preservation restriction agreement aimed at keeping the structure looking pretty much the way it did in the days when a blast furnace operated across the street.”

That’s a fictitious example of the kind of conversation that might take place between a real estate broker and a prospective buyer of the Holley Williams House, which the Salisbury Association announced last week it intends to sell to the highest bidder willing to preserve it. Click here to read my news story on the association’s decision last month to peddle the aging structure, its out-buildings and 4.75 acres on Millerton Road.

I’m not an expert on real estate (although I have covered the industry for a couple of years at the LJ). Still, my instincts tell me this will be a difficult deal to close. At the very least, The Holley Williams House will be, in the words of Salisbury Association President Bill Morrill, “in a specialty market.” At the worst, it will sit idle for years awaiting a buyer who may never come calling.

In his Jan. 28 show, talk show host Mike Flint planted the seeds of what he suspects will become an ongoing rallying cry from some in Salisbury: The town should buy the historic building if no one else will. Mike may be on to something.

Of course, there is a recent precedent for such a sentiment. Late in 2004, the town signed an option to purchase the 16-acre Rudd property and two historic dwellings on the north shore of Lake Wononscopomuc from John Rudd for $3.4 million. The selectmen, the 89-year-old Rudd and many town residents felt it was important to protect the land from development and perhaps use part of it to expand the neighboring Town Grove.

But it soon became evident that there was no widespread support in the town for using taxpayers funds for the purchase, so the selectmen dropped the idea. The property has since been purchased by New Canaan businessman Lewis Bakes, who is building a home there, but so far has been unable to work out a satisfactory conservation restriction with the Salisbury Association.

If indeed there are any of you out there in cyberspace who think the town should buy the property, what do think it could be used for? And how would you justify sinking taxpayer funds into what could become a money pit?

While I very much value the preservation of our iron-producing heritage, I think a town purchase — much like the sale of the building itself — would be a “tough sell.”

There are too many other pressing needs for Salisbury: a new firehouse; an aging and inexpensively constructed elementary school building in need of constant repair; a new site for a transfer station; the deteriorating Amesville bridge; affordable housing — just to name a few. I wish the Salisbury Association luck in finding a suitable buyer, but I suspect a movement for a town purchase will go the way of the Rudd property — nowhere.

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6 responses so far ↓

1 Marshall Miles // Feb 1, 2007 at 11:55 am

If the town of Salisbury will give me $25,000 I will investigate the possibility of buying the property….

(tongue socketed in cheek!)

Marshall
2 Geoff Brown // Feb 1, 2007 at 2:18 pm

First off, I think the Salisbury Association is right in putting this building up for sale for a number of reasons beside its money-pit characteristics — largely historical ones, but not entirely so.

Second, I don’t think that the Holley Williams House is a suitable purchase for the town. Some of the same historical arguments that justify its sale also support the notion that it’s not a suitable town purchase (I expect we will get into the historical reasons later on as this discussion unfolds).

As Terry points out, there are plenty of better place for Salisbury to put its money. Also, no one has identified a Town use for the structure now that it’s been demonstrated that it’s not going to be economically viable as a museum.

And yes, it might be a bit difficult to sell — but not, as the realtors are fond of saying “to the right buyer” and “for the right price”. That person — or group — might be one for whom a historic structure is important in terms of image, whether personal or corporate. And the price might be less than five acres with a house on it in the middle of “Furnace Village” (a/k/a Lakeville) might otherwise fetch.

My suspicion is that this discussion will go on for a while, both on this blog and in “real life” but that’s my opening shot……..
3 Tom Shachtman // Feb 2, 2007 at 11:02 am

Well, my main comment will be in next week’s LJ as an op-ed, and I hope y’all will read it. Bottom line: The closing of the museum is far from a necessity; the Salisbury Association can afford its upkeep but is choosing not to do so — an accounting-type mentality that bores me. A million here, a million there for Dark Hollow and other properties was easy to raise and spend, but history at $50K a year is too expensive? Give me a break. For years, as chair of the museum committee, I’ve been trying to ditch the name Holley Williams House and turn it into an area-wide museum for iron heritage, etc., but that was too ambitious, so on the block the old place goes.

I agree with Geoff and others that the House is not an appropriate purchase for the town except at the price of $1. Even then, it would cost between $50-$75,000 per year to keep it open as a museum, and I can’t see the selectmen or voters approving that.

And I agree with Terry that this is a tough sale at any price, given the restrictions that are supposed to be put on it.

But it was/is a lovely museum, and this area could afford it — we’re just collectively choosing not to. It’s another casualty of the price of land; the SA needs to keep its bucks aside to buy land and keep it out of the developers’ hands.
4 Tim Abbott // Feb 2, 2007 at 11:46 am

Houses subject to an historic preservation “faÃ§ade” easement have come under fire in recent years during a Senate Finance Committee hearing into conservation restrictions with inflated estimates of value or little conservation benefit. Those already in place do not generally prohibit completely altering the interior of the structure, potentially a greater “historic” loss than what might be done outside. A buyer of a house with a faÃ§ade easement could completely modernize the interior, tear down walls, remove original architectural details, without violating the terms of the easement. I do not know the restrictions that apply to the Holley Williams House or that the Salisbury Association would wish to apply as conditions of sale, but I do know the Association and suspect it would be willing to work with the buyer to meet mutual goals. It is still a white elephant, but houses and properties that are lived in can often receive better stewardship and care than those that are not and that is an importnat consideration.
5 Tom Shachtman // Feb 2, 2007 at 12:57 pm

Dear Tim:
I’m told by the current chairman of the HWHM committee that the interior restrictions are quite stringent; it is not only the facade that must be preserved. But, as the motto of an in-law family of mine suggest, “We’ll see.”
6 Geoff Brown // Feb 10, 2007 at 9:58 am

Tom Schachtman’s article in the LJ was interesting, and I have to say that I learned a bit by reading it — as I always do when I read something Mr. Schactman writes.

I’m thinking that one reason that the museum wasn’t economically viable is that it tended to come across more as a celebration of a family (the Holley family) than a museum of the area, or of the iron industry, or even of the place of the Holley family in the iron industry.

I’m not suggesting that the Holley family did not play an important role in that industry — they certainly did, and they produced a governor as well. However, the Holley family did have the advantage of an in-house family historian, in the person of the late Malcolm Day Rudd, who had the (unfortunate but not uncommon) tendency to neglect other families who were at least as prominent in that industry while celebrating his own.

The first research project I was personally aware of at the Holley-Williams house was transcribing the personal correspondence of a Holley family member. This is certainly an interesting and worthwhile activity.

However, it might have been more appropriate and even-handed to undertake a project to collect material on some other families of as great or greater importance in the iron industry in the Town of Salisbury (and the nation) about whom little information is currently available. An effort to capture information about the workers in the iron industry would have also been a very valuable undertaking.

Such projects might have helped create a museum of interest to people in the neglected parts of the Town of Salisbury (Amesville, Lime Rock, Taconic, Mt. Riga) and areas beyond.

Terry Cowgill

The View From Connecticut’s Northwest Corner