Nothing Down, $0 a Month, Hammer Required
The New York Times, August 30th, 2007
Why would some people willingly spend decades — and hundreds of
thousands of dollars — renovating houses they will never own? For a
small but growing number of so-called resident curators living in old
and cherished state-owned houses up and down the East Coast, the
answers include the pleasure of bringing an abandoned landmark back to
life, freedom from mortgage payments and the chance to live in the kind
of home that would otherwise be out of reach.
“We’re people of modest means,” said Darrold Endres, a nursing home
administrator who has been living in and restoring an 1860s farmhouse
near Boston with his family for 12 years. “We could not afford to live
in an incredible spot like this, in a town with wonderful public
schools for the girls, if not for the curatorship program.”
Programs
like the one in Massachusetts have come about because many state
governments own more houses of historical interest than they can afford
to maintain, mainly on farms acquired decades ago and converted to
parkland. Now a few states have begun turning these properties, along
with some of the surrounding land, over to live-in curators, who take
on restoration responsibilities in lieu of paying rent or taxes.
More
states are looking to resident curator programs as a way to hold onto
history, especially since a more familiar approach — opening the old
houses to the public as museums — is on the wane, mainly because of a
decline in visitors.
The houses mostly date to the 19th century,
and have often sat vacant for years in remote forested areas; their
tenants — typically married couples — often do much of the renovation
themselves. Many have professional experience in construction as well
as “creative skills that are especially good for dealing with the finer
details in the house,” said Kevin M. Allen, who oversees the 28
properties in the Massachusetts Historic Curatorship Program, founded
in 1994.
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