Renovation Realities

How a dilapidated house and Wheeling’s welcoming nature caused Betsy Sweeny to put down West Virginia roots and work to help revitalize the community.

written by Betsy Sweeny
photographed by Betsy Sweeny and Wheeling Heritage Media

One October evening in 2018, I sat scrolling on Instagram, exploring geotags of a place I had barely spent any time—Wheeling, West Virginia.

Days earlier, I had visited Wheeling to explore the possibility of a position at Wheeling Heritage. I was impressed with the staff and the momentum the town seemed to have. The architecture was impressive, and the croissant I had at Sarah’s on Main was the best I’ve tasted outside of Paris.

Wheeling was looking more and more like a possibility for me, and, as I scrolled through the geotags of the many historic districts in Wheeling, I saw a glimpse of what life might look like in this little city. I saw festivals at the waterfront, craft cocktails in a fairy-lit courtyard at Later Alligator, and, at one point, a photo of a tile fireplace surround depicting a hunting scene, with hounds running across the top.

As a proud owner of a hound and a researcher of vernacular dog housing, this stood out in my memory, and I thought to myself, “Wow. Wheeling is the kind of place where I might be able to afford something that unique in my own house one day.” This was an idea that hardly seemed plausible in my current situation, working at a museum in central Virginia where the cost of living rendered me nearly broke each month.

To that point, I had spent my career working in architectural history and preservation at James Madison’s Montpelier. I’d completed my master’s degree in historic preservation from the Savannah College of Art and Design and dedicated all of my time to the study and understanding of historic structures—even dog houses.

While my love of old buildings was not waning, my desire to work in museums was. I felt myself shifting towards community and towards a desire to help people save the buildings that mattered most to them. Wheeling, and Wheeling Heritage, looked like a perfect fit.

Upon relocating, I soon recognized my suspicion was correct. Wheeling immediately impressed me with the sheer quantity of historic buildings primed for rehabilitation. Coupled with critical incentives like historic and new market tax credits, state and federal grants, and an invested local preservation community, I was thrust into the thick of a community ready for large scale revitalization.

Despite a wildly rewarding professional life, I wanted my own project. One day in September 2019, I was on a walk with a friend when I stopped in front of a house on 14th Street in East Wheeling. I looked at it and said to no one in particular: “That one is really beautiful, and it looks empty—I wonder if it’s available?”

Little did I know, not only was it available, but I had dozens of mutual friends with the owners. A preservationist couple, the Wilsons, were longtime friends of Wheeling Heritage and had recently moved out of town for a job at a historic site. We set a date to walk through and, on a cold November day, I stepped inside for the first time.

The house was in rough shape. Years of missing gutters and an ailing roof had caused significant water damage, but, when we swung the front door open, I didn’t see any of that. The first feature that caught my eye was the fireplace under the stairs. A molded tile fireplace surround, with a hunting scene depicting hounds running across the top.

From that point on, the house seemed fated. I spent a period of several months doing due diligence, getting estimates from contractors, and working with local banks to finance the rehabilitation of the home.

One of the biggest challenges with residential historic rehab is the financing. Many historic homes are in such disrepair that they are not able to be financed with a traditional mortgage. In the case of my home, its assessed value was negligible, which spells risk to most banks.

State and local community development efforts made the purchase and rehabilitation of my home possible. Working with Belmont Savings Bank, I was able to supplement my savings to buy the home outright, at $18,500. Once I secured the property, I was able to apply for a Friends of Wheeling loan for $25,000. Friends of Wheeling funds improvements to qualifying historic buildings, and, in my case, that $25,000 loan was used as a down payment for my larger construction loan. Acting as my own general contractor and doing a significant amount of work myself, I figured $100,000 in construction financing would get the house livable. Using the Friends of Wheeling loan as my down payment, I worked with my lender to secure the much larger construction loan.

Working from the top down and outside in, I slowly began to rehabilitate my house.  From June to November, we rebuilt areas of masonry that had suffered the most damage, reconstructed a complete wood box gutter system, and repaired the original slate roof. Water was the biggest concern, so, after stopping new water from coming in, we began to demo and repair the interior structure and framing that had been damaged. Once the house was dry and systems like heat, electric, and plumbing were updated, we were able to repair and replace the walls and refinish the hardwood floors.

Of course, there were some surprises along the way, from predictable things like previously unnoticed damage to completely unexpected detours like filming a TV show for the Magnolia Network. All of these twists and turns affected my timeline but made the experience all the more rich.

I was able to move in during the 2021 holidays, and, while I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to say the house is “finished,” it does finally feel like home. When people ask if I would do it all again, or if it was all worth it, my answer is a resounding, “Yes.” Houses like mine cannot be replaced. Once our historic buildings are gone, they are gone forever. It is critically important to me to preserve the very things that first drew me to Wheeling: Architecture, culture, and community.

READ MORE ARTICLES FROM WV LIVING’S SPRING 2022 ISSUE