They'll Do Anything For a Dollar House

Buyers Attracted From Britain, Across U.S.

By Tara Bahrampour

Sunday, May 3, 2009

"Finally, a mortgage I can afford." That was more or less the thought of thousands of people around the country who read online about an old, sprawling two-story farmhouse in Leesburg on sale for a dollar.

There is a catch: The buyer must be able to afford to move the house. But after The Washington Post reported on the house last Sunday, Yahoo.com linked to the article on its home page and suddenly, it seemed, the whole world wanted in.

The article received 1.47 million hits on washingtonpost.com that day.

"I have to get there first," said one man, adding that he would have no problem towing the more than 2,500-square-foot structure to California.

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Loudoun Country Day School

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When Loudoun Country Day School moves to a new location this summer, it will leave behind this 1880s farmhouse. The new owners, H. H. Hunt, plan to build an assisted living facility there and are offering the farmhouse for a dollar to anyone who can cart it away. (Tara Bahrampour)

Larger Version

When Loudoun Country Day School moves to a new location this summer, it will leave behind this 1880s farmhouse. The new owners, H. H. Hunt, plan to build an assisted living facility there and are offering the farmhouse for a dollar to anyone who can cart it away. (Tara Bahrampour)

Larger Version

When Loudoun Country Day School moves to a new location this summer, it will leave behind this 1880s farmhouse. The new owners, H. H. Hunt, plan to build an assisted living facility there and are offering the farmhouse for a dollar to anyone who can cart it away. (Tara Bahrampour)

Larger Version

When Loudoun Country Day School moves to a new location this summer, it will leave behind this 1880s farmhouse. The new owners, H. H. Hunt, plan to build an assisted living facility there and are offering the farmhouse for a dollar to anyone who can cart it away. (Tara Bahrampour)

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An actress in New York said she had always "dreamed of owning a big house like 'The Waltons' lived in." One woman offered to hitch it to her tractor-trailer, and a Texas man mused that there must be "some born-again Christians out there willing to help a 50-year-old man get a home to retire in if he is willing to be a part of their wonderful community."

E-mails flooded in from as far as Alaska and Great Britain from prospective buyers of the house, which is on property occupied by Loudoun Country Day School. The school plans to move to a $32 million, 70-acre campus this summer, and the eight-acre lot it is vacating will be used for an assisted-living facility.

H.H. Hunt, the company that bought the property from the school and plans to build the assisted-living residence, placed ads in local papers, but they failed to elicit the response the Internet did.

Some inquiries were brief and businesslike. Others told heartfelt stories of need.

Dawn Hanlin, a 40-year-old single mother of two in Wintersville, Ohio, wrote that she had dreamed of owning a home but couldn't get a loan. "My aunt and uncle have property they own and would allow me to put the house on! I can just picture it! Makes me cry."

Edna Curry-Johnson, a mother of two in Alton, Ill., wrote, "If I can only wave a magic wand too, and say hey kids look, we don't have to be homeless now."

A buyer will need not only a dollar, but also the "financial means and a good understanding of what approvals are necessary" at the local and state levels, said Bo Cook, H.H. Hunt's director of development, adding that the company would hold an open inspection this month for serious bidders.

Jeffrey Carnes-Jones, a potential buyer from Beverly Hills who professed a "fond passion" for older homes, said the estimates for moving the home to California have run about $120,000.

Another interested party, sounding suspiciously like one of those Nigerian e-mail scams, wrote, "YES I'LL PAY YOU THE $1.00 AND WILL THERE BE A TIME AND PLACE FOR US TO MEET ON TRANSACTION." Turns out that the writer was a woman in Abilene, Tex., who hoped to transport the structure by boat to house her 18 grandchildren.

One woman said the house would let her finally escape Vermont. The caller from California who was in a hurry asked a reporter to describe what she had "felt" upon entering the house, adding that he was asking "because you are a woman."

Randy Hollister, headmaster of Loudoun Country Day School, said that he, too, has received inquiries from around the country and that he has taken flak from his teenage daughter, who grew up in the house and is concerned about its fate.

He said he thought pricing the house at a dollar, rather than giving it away, had helped spark the interest.

"If you say something is free, nobody looks at it," he said. "But if you pick your price at a dollar – I mean, this is the best dollar item in the country right now."

Tagged: Loudoun Country Day School, real estate

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