What to do with a large, old estate?

[Roy N.]

I had originally posted this in a thread belonging to Ashley Harris, but to avoid dragging her thread off-topic, I've moved it here.

Yesterday, I walked one of the oldest private estate houses in the Maritimes  (built c1850) which is still in-tact and still owned by the original family.  William Parks (1800 - 1870) was a local merchant, ship owner, co-owner of the local gas-light utility, and founder of two textile mills which operated from the the 1860s through to ~1974 (though the family lost control of the mills in the early 1900s).

The house - exterior

The 1/2 - 3/4 acre garden surrounding the house is overgrown, but there are some amazing old plants hidden amongst the chaos - I found a rhododendron with a 30' spread, whose trunk was 8" in diameter - quite a specimen this far north.  There were also a very old chestnut and a butternut  standing by the carriage house.

There is an ~5' x 10' section of stone in the east gable which needs repointed and a couple of loose stones moved back into place.  There is also evidence of moisture along the soffit line here which is likely coming from the near by chimney.

The house - interior

Structurally the place was amazingly as straight and true as when it was built. The trompe l'oeil wall treatment on both stories of the great hall is still in very good shape despite a handful of small cracks in the plaster.  The grand hall still had most of its gas light fixtures which had been converted to electric.

The original kitchen on the back of the house and the servants quarters above have been converted into an 2-bedroom apartment (I would guess back in the 40s based upon the age of the appliances - there's a 1930s/40s electric range which is in like-new condition).

Similarly, the gardener's quarters in the walk-out basement has been turned into a 1-bedroom apartment - probably in the 1950s. 

The main house has seen the anteroom and library/smoking room (on the right-hand side of the main entrance) turned into two bedrooms - with a washroom and laundry closet added between them. Judging by the grab bars and other paraphernalia, this likely happened when the last lady of the house grew to frail to navigate the grand staircase to the master suite on the second floor.

The second floor has the master suite (~800 - 1000 ft^2) on the left-hand side of the house and two smaller bedrooms (each about 400 ft^2) on the right-hand side. The original dressing rooms off each bedroom were converted into bathrooms as far back as the 1930s/40s/ - so each bedroom has its own bathroom.

The original "bathroom" - with its copper bathtub - sites through a door off a landing on the grand stairwell and is actually in the servants wing of the building over the kitchen.

Much of the bedroom furniture, and some of the other original furniture is still present in the house (either still in its room of use or stored in the third-floor attic or in the carriage house. There are some gems of antiques here.

Above the attic is a Belvedere which gives a panoramic of the city - at the time the house was built the owner would have been able to observe both the dockyard and, later, his cotton mill from here.

There is also a 2-story plus walk-out basement carriage house (800 ft^2 / floor) on the property which could be turned into a triplex - once you cleared all of the old tack and antique furniture out of it.

It was like a trip back in time - the grandeur of the place was impressive.

The house - future?

The house is on the edge of Mount Pleasant, which is still in the tony part of town 160 years later.   The house and (some/most of) its contents can be had for an amazing price - but what would you do with it? 

Any effort to modernize and make {somewhat} energy efficient would involve disrupting / destroying a portion of the woodwork, mouldings and trompe l'oeil.

Likewise, transforming the main house into {4} apartments or condominiums would necessitate a similar or greater sacrifice to meed modern fire codes; to add kitchens to the individual units, and to insulate and install separate HVAC for each unit.  Surprisingly when the house was (re)wired in the 1950s, fuse panels were put into each quadrant of each floor of the main house (essentially each room) and the rooms were wired to the local panel rather than trying to pull wiring back to the mechanical room in the basement.

The last remaining descendants, who themselves are getting on - live quite some distance away, and have been maintaining the house since their parents have passed away {I'm told the property has/had its own trust fund}, but now want to be rid of the burden.

I could turn it into six nice apartments - but unless I destroyed the character of the building in the process, the current operating costs {10K/year to heat) would make it un-viable.

You could keep it as an expansive single family home (~6500 ft^2), but the existing layout is not geared for modern living - a 20' wide grand stairway w/ 16' ceilings just isn't in demand these days.  One could keep the external historic charm, but modernize the internal layout.

It would be a shame to see it sit empty - but this time, unloved - for another decade, but I do not readily see a profitable way to save it.

@Will Barnard - this is more in your wheel house ... any ideas?