When is a fixer too far gone?

I wrote about a lovely 1893 fixer in Healdsburg a few days ago. There's no question in my mind that a solid restoration is the best choice for that house and the neighborhood. It's a classy three unit building on a large lot on a street with lots of homes from the same era. There are plenty of period details and the decent construction that has helped it survive for 110 years. A week of scrubbing and painting and some new appliances and window glass and it would be a serviceable rental by Halloween. For a price of $525,000 and close to the Healdsburg Plaza it represents an excellent value for a patient investor.

The listing I took over the weekend is in a different category. We've all seen forlorn houses abandoned by owners and left to the mercy of time. We're lucky in Healdsburg and Sonoma County that we don't have snow and freezes and the other weather conditions that accelerate the decline of a house. On the other hand, we're not dry like Vegas or Tucson in the high desert either. Winter rains find their way inside, and small flaws grow into major problems. The house in the birds eye view aerial starts at major problems and gets worse. Still, if there wasn't some innate charm or value to the property I wouldn't have taken the listing. What I see in this place is the seed of a sun-lovers dream house.

The problems with this house are obvious even from a distance. The paint is mainly gone, the siding near the foundation is missing, the deck railings are collapsing, etc. A closer look exposes stairs too dangerous to walk on, walls that are just starting to get a little lean to them, and doors and windows that don't actually keep the weather out. At the same time, when I first saw the house in the full light of day, I could feel the essence of sunshine that has kept this neglected building from falling down. The sun is so sweetly present at this spot that gravity's pull has been resisted for a few extra years. 

The deck you see would go over an updated garage or carport. It's an easy fit. Above that and running the full length of the building I would put in a narrower deck that would run in front of the three windows you can see in the upper left of the house. I would make at least one of those windows into a pair of French doors. 

To cap it off I would rip off the old roof to raise the interior ceiling height to ten feet and create a deck to cover the entire roof area, well over 1,000 square feet. The house is higher than the neighbors so the rooftop privacy would be excellent. I didn't mention it earlier, but the view from the decks looking west is the Russain River in the distance. Directly across from the decks are the hills on the south side of the river. Lovely views and great sun. I think this might be worth the effort to fix.