The Renovation Of A Building Into A House Would Be Interesting

All I can say is that my husband, Marshell, and I must be the eternal optimists. After renovating a 1920's gas station into our home you would think we would remember all of the Murphy's Laws that came true.

In this story over the course of the next few weeks I will try to let you know all the perils, pitfalls, work and love that goes into the renovation/restoration of a historic building into a home. Along the way you will learn a little bit about re-purposing an old structure, a few decorating tips and come to the realization that you could do this too. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is currently running a campaign called This Place Matters. All the historic building, homes, and other sites matter because they are the history of our country.  They all played an important part in people's lives and deserve to be saved. Good thing I am a firm believer in this or I would have given up years ago.

Marshell and I have both been "Big City" for all of our adult lives. He lived in places like Ventura, Ca,, New Orleans and the Dallas-Ft. Worth area  I managed to live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Detroit and Norman, Oklahoma.  When he decided to retire in 2003 we got the brilliant idea that we did not need to live in the big city anymore. I had an interior design business in Oklahoma City and Dallas so it would be nice to live somewhere in between.  So off we went for the perfect building in rural Oklahoma.

Driving on the back roads between Dallas and Oklahoma City we hoped to find a building that was not in too bad of shape and fit closely to what we thought we needed.  There were not a lot of requirements, just the ability to camp out in it while we worked since we were not going to commute back to Texas.  Too many of the really neat old buildings had no wiring, no usable bathroom facilities or worse - no roofs. Others were too small or in really poor locations.  Then we happened to drive into Wynnewood, Oklahoma.

The town of Wynnewood lies about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City and 135 miles north of Dallas.  Great location and just a mile or so off the Interstate. Most small towns don't have any industry or are too far to commute so they slowly die.  Wynnewood has a refinery (stable income), two banks, a tree lined boulevard and a three block downtown with some neat buildings.  The population of 2500 residents are mostly families that have lived here all their lives. Sitting on the corner, one block from THE stoplight,  was a building for sale.

Well, it does not take long in a small town for people to notice strangers looking in the windows of an empty building. A woman from the business next door came out almost immediately and asked if we were going to be her new neighbors.  A few minutes later the real estate agent was on hand to show us the building. She even let us have a key so we could come back the next weekend and look on our own since it was getting late. Ah - how often would that happen in the big city?

We liked the building and the price. Here is where I will stick in a little history that we learned later.
It was built in 1896 as the First National Bank of Wynnewood. Since Oklahoma did not become a state until 1907, it was chartered as a bank in Indian Territory.  The bank was on the first floor and upstairs were a couple of doctors offices, a lawyer and a printing company. When the Masonic Lodge down the street burned in the 1920's the bank President gave the upstairs to the Masons and all the offices were turned into one large room for their activities.

It remained a bank downstairs until 1969 when the bank moved across the street.  The Masons took the whole building over as their Lodge.  At this time all the windows were removed and filled in with halite blocks.  They stayed until until 1996 when some people  from Oklahoma City bought the building.  They did replace the windows, put on a new roof and supposedly did plumbing and wiring They opened a Beanie Baby/Antique/Flower shop downstairs and a tanning salon upstairs. Guess none of the ventures worked out very well. The building had sat vacant for several years when we happened into town.

 The pictures above are of the upstairs with the tanning booths and the lovely beach scene on the wall.

This is the downstairs when we looked at the building. reminders of the flower/antique store. Doesn't look too bad until you get the stars out of your eyes and realize you just bought the place.

There were several weekend trips to Wynnewood to look over the building and check out the town. It did not have some things we needed.  Here is where the optimism kicked in.  It had one powder room, that is a toilet and a sink.  No shower or bathtub.  It did not have a garage which we needed for a couple of classic cars we own.  It did not have a kitchen. It needed quite a bit of work and there was no place to work but in the building. No Problem.  We bought the building for the asking price with a stove thrown into the contract.

We spent the next month moving stuff every weekend. When we brought a truck filled with framed pictures and paintings the rumor around town was that we were opening an art gallery. We knew we were known as the crazy people from Dallas when we stopped to eat in a small town just inside the Oklahoma state line.  That particular trip we had driven our 1957 pink Cadillac up since it could hold almost as much stuff as the pickup.  When we came out of the restaurant a gentleman in a cowboy hat, vest and jeans tucked into his red boots was admiring the car.  In the course of the conversation he found out that we were going to Wynnewood.  His reply was something to the effect that had he had hea,rd about the crazy people from Dallas that were going to live in an old building - like those people in New York City. Don't think we admitted that we knew them.

Marshell's last day at work was the day before Thanksgiving and by the end of the weekend we were in Oklahoma with all of our possessions. It had been six weeks since we first looked at the building that was now our home. The building plus eight storage units.

Check back in next weekend to learn more about the fun of creating our home - against the odds.