Old Louisville, House by House
1359 S. Third Street, 1300 Block  East Side
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Notes: A sad story on this building.  The mansion served as the Old Louisville Inn from 1990 until well into 2001 when it was sold.  At that time, an argument could be made that the building was in need of some overdue maintenance, but it was largely intact and in nearly original condition, inside & out.  The new owner came from out of town, announcing that he was going to renovate the building initially to the great joy of his Old Louisville neighbors.  Bear in mind however that renovation and restoration are not always the same thing, and the joy soon turned into consternation, then sadness and even some outrage.

In the first few months, work on the interior included removal of a later wall dividing the original parlor.  That was a good thing.  After that, we can't find much nice to say about the work being done.  The original heating system was one of the first things to go.  Ornamental radiators began piling up and rusting in the back yard.  Without heat, we don't need to tell you what happened to the plumbing over the following winter.  The original kitchen and baths were all clad in marble, even marble showers.  All those were torn out/gutted, the marble largely broken and unusable for later use.  The original ornamental Victorian stove hood joined the pile out back to rust away.  The back half of the second floor, and all but a great room on the third floor were gutted, all the walls removed. Even the 3rd floor joists and rafters that served as ceiling and structural supports were removed.  (This type of treatment often results in part of the exterior walls falling away, but luckily so far that hasn't happened.)  A significant amount of flooring was removed.  Electrical wiring was dangling from ceilings for years.  Nothing at all of the work begun in every area (no room was completely spared) of the house had been actually completed.  Then the work stopped for awhile.

Phase II of the "renovation" began after this owner sought a zoning variance to allow condo-i-zation of the building.  Old Louisville is in a "Traditional Neighborhood Zoning" district, where zoning ordinances are written to prevent this type of re-adaptation.  Nevertheless, after a fair amount of legal maneuvering, permission was granted to divide the mansion into a number of condo units.  Next, from the outside it could be seen that the master bedrooms on the front of the 2nd floor had been gutted and re-framed into new rooms.  What else has been done has largely been kept a secret.  We don't know if any of the original rooms of the ground floor remain or if they too got the sledge hammer treatment. 

Makes you wonder....why does a person who doesn't care about a historic building buy a historic building only to wreck the history out of it.....?    People, if you want a California Condo, please buy a California Condo in the first place!

Since the writing above in 2004 even more of the historic fabric of the building has been destroyed. Floor plans have been altered.  The original parlor (the good thing noted above) was divided again and the ornamental ceiling removed and replaced by a common flat ceiling. The entry hall and grand staircase have been divided and enclosed, but even then much of the work has been left incomplete.  The building went into receivership in 2005. Now we're waiting to see what happens next.  We'll keep you up to date on how this goes.

Update October 2006

The Mansion on Third  (as they're calling it now) was auctioned off on Saturday, October 14 at 11:00 AM as condominium parcels.  One condo (the carriage house) has already been sold, eliminating any hopes the property could go to a single buyer who might try to restore the property. 
The results of the auction:
The three floors were sold individually for between $180,000 and $190,000 each.  The same buyer won the bids for all three floors.  Approximately $75-100,000 per floor will need to be spent to finish the condo project, and then the house won't be in quite as good a shape as it was before the whole remuddling began.

We'll have some pictures of the interior at the time of sale along with some comments shortly

 

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