We are still planning to move forward with St. Gertrude’s Cottage. Lately, we’ve been finding suitable properties in various locations. And our adventures have been interesting, sometimes amusing.
There is a 5400 sq ft house on 6 acres in Nebraska that would be wonderful. The cost: $30,000. The problem is this: Not only would it take about $250,000 to make it liveable, it is not close to essential services like vet care and supplies.
There is another property in North Carolina for $52,000. It is a 4000 sq ft three-story Queen Anne Victorian with a liveable cottage on the grounds and a large two-story two-car garage that could be built out. But the cost to restore the house is going to be around $180,000, and although the house is zoned commercial, there is some question about restoring the interior to accommodate cats; there might be a violation of the historic property and restoration requirements if we finished off the third floor into kitty rooms at each of the three gables and at the huge turret. We found another nice property in the NC mountains, too, but are uncertain about the essential resources nearby.
We found an unfinished 5200 sq ft home in Kentucky on 25 acres for $160,000. But when we visited, we discovered that the previous owner had built this huge house right over a house trailer. It looked like the structure had been torpedoed by the trailer with both ends sticking out!
Kentucky seems to have quite a number of properties that could be suitable. We seem to gravitate to the region south of Louisville, but there is always some feature that is not appropriate for our intentions.
We found two restored properties just south of Cincinnati selling together for $180,000. This one looks promising, but the properties are not contiguous; they are across the street from one another.
There is one in Georgia that looks lovely at 3800 sq ft. Plenty of room for the caretaker and the kitties. It needs some work, but we don’t have even informal estimates on refurbishing yet.
North East Texas has two properties, each having two homes on the acerage. We’re going to visit there soon.
I guess what we’re trying to say is that we are being particular about the property, the structures on it, and the community resources. We continue to explore opportunities in various regions of the country. In our discussions with other such facilities, we learned of impediments they encountered that we want to avoid — the lack of space and the inability expand because there is not enough acerage or because of county or city regulations. We want to avoid these; thus, we seek large structures on decent-sized parcels of land in rural areas or in small towns that would welcome such a facility.
If you know of something, leave us a message!
