![]() They didn’t want the house,” Keating said. Most potential buyers made extremely low offers on the house because they intended to tear it down and build something more profitable on the land, Keating said. “Until you could find somebody who could appreciate the house for what it was as a staple in the community, it just wasn’t going to work.” “The work that needs to be done in it far exceeds what the property was worth,” Keating said. But each time, the deal fell through due to the enormous cost of the repairs needed, Keating said. There was a lot of interest in the house, and Anderson did over 100 showings for prospective buyers. With the love and the heart and the hard work, even if we lacked the major funds, we were able to jump in and save this one so it wouldn’t come to the same fate,” Anderson said. We saw all the vacant lots and houses being torn down. “That was one of the things my family was trying to prevent. But, out of options, she decided to put the house on the market to find a buyer who could afford to preserve the house so the community would not lose another piece of Austin’s history. With the help of realtor Jeanne Keating, she launched a GoFundMe in 2019 to raise money for the repairs, but “it wasn’t enough to even put a dent in it,” Anderson said.Īnderson wanted dearly to keep the house in the family. Anderson spent the past decade seeking help from groups like Habitat for Humanity and applying for grants to pay for the repairs, but never received any funds, she said. Since then, the house has been in dire need of a new roof and repairs to the wraparound porch. In 2005, a fire damaged the roof, and the Anderson family just didn’t have the financial resources to fix it up and prevent the building from deteriorating further.Īnderson’s father also grew older and unable to keep up with the considerable maintenance the house needed before he died in 2017, leaving nobody with the skills to keep up the delicate old home. Credit: Pascal Sabino/Block Club Chicagoīut the family - and the house - fell on hard times. The pink house became a treasure for the Anderson family and for the surrounding neighborhood. It’s not like your regular repair,” Anderson said. Especially with older houses, you have to get special materials because of the way the house is built. “We’ve had all kinds of foibles with the house. ![]() He painted it pink because it was the favorite color of Anderson’s mother. Her father became home’s caretaker, and he restored it piece by piece with his own hands. If they hadn’t purchased it, the home likely would have been condemned and demolished, Anderson said. They got the house at an auction where nobody else made a bid. The old house was in terrible shape when Anderson’s parents initially bought it in the 1980s. It sits along one of the main thoroughfares in Austin, contributing to the neighborhood’s character with a unique look that gives that area a distinct sense of place. Its pink and white pallete makes it an unmistakable landmark for locals. ![]() ![]() is one that most who have lived in Austin would recognize in an instant. It was a lifelong dream of keeping it in the family and continuing to present it to the neighborhood because so many people love it,” Anderson said. “It’s the next best thing outside of doing it ourselves. The 127-year-old house was buckling beneath its age, and Yolanda Anderson’s family couldn’t afford the laundry list of urgent repairs, so the prospects of saving the home seemed dim.īut just days before throwing in the towel and giving up hope of saving their house, the Anderson family found a buyer with the skills and the will to restore it. AUSTIN - The family that lived for decades in one of Austin’s most iconic homes, an old pink-and-white Victorian, fought for years to save it from being torn down.
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