A property consultant who bought an abandoned house for under $20,000 and renovated it into a space worth 10 times as much is sharing her journey in an effort to draw attention to the value of old homes.
Betsy Sweeny, 31, moved to Wheeling, West Virginia, in 2019 after quitting her job to work on community development and historic preservation in the city.
It was then that a 3,400-square-foot, century-old property called the McLain House caught her eye. While it was in need of some serious work, this made it all the more interesting.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Sweeny said: ‘I have loved history since I was a little girl. And then as I grew up, I kind of really honed in on the thing that fascinated me the most was actually the spaces that these people were occupying.’
The McLain House is situated in East Wheeling, a historically underserved community where many old homes have fallen into disarray.
Betsy Sweeny, 31, bought an abandoned house in Wheeling, West Virginia for $18,500 – and now it is worth over $200,000
The McLain house, located at 115 14th Street, was in dire need of renovations and was largely forgotten despite its rich history
As Sweeny wrote on her self-titled website: ‘I wanted my neighbors to know something different was beginning to take place.’
The property had a wealth of history dating back to the late 19th century. Its namesake, Thomas McLain, moved to Wheeling with his parents when he was just two years old.
McLain’s father was a printer and publisher of The Wheeling Argus, one of the first newspapers in the city, until his death in 1849.
His brother, Robert, began the family’s first drug store six years later, with Thomas ultimately joining him with their two other brothers. They all left the business in the early 1890s, around the same time the house at 115 14th Street was built.
McLain lived at the house for roughly 10 years as he ran his medical supply company and died at a different address. After a string of other residents passed through its doors over the next century, the house was left vacant.
The house sat on the block, rotting and forgotten, and was set to be demolished. But in 2013, Brian and Stephanie Wilson swooped in.
They began the restoration process, carrying out extensive repairs to the basement and purchasing the abandoned lot next door.
The Wilsons owned the house until May 2020, when it came under Sweeny’s care. At just 26 years old, she closed on the property for $18,500, and, knowing renovations would be pricey, secured a $100,000 construction loan.
‘It is a pretty unique home for its time period,’ Sweeny said. ‘I just haven’t seen a ton of examples like it. And it was exciting enough that I didn’t really care what the condition was.’
At just 26 years old, Sweeny closed on the property for $18,500 and secured an additional $100,000 construction loan
The consultant explained that her initial goal was simply to stabilize the house. ‘It was fun to dream about what it would look like the day I moved in. But in the first year, it was just about making sure the thing was not going to fall down,’ she said
The first task at hand was to protect the house from further water damage, which meant sealing up openings and installing windows
The home was reappraised for $202,000 after initial repairs, meaning it might be worth even more when Sweeny finishes working on it
At the time of the purchase, Sweeny explained, her goal was simply to stabilize it.
‘I knew exactly what I was getting into,’ she said. ‘It was fun to dream about what it would look like the day I moved in. But in the first year, it was just about making sure the thing was not going to fall down.’
And so began a laborious renovation process. The first order of business was ensuring the house would not take on any more water, which meant sealing openings, adding gutters and installing plenty of windows.
‘Because the house was in pretty critical condition. It was also pretty easy to determine the hierarchy of needs,’ Sweeny said.
Over that first year, she worked tirelessly to clean up the yard and remove moldy leaves and debris from the cellar entrance. She stripped plaster and rotting boards from the walls throughout the house.
After initial repairs, the property was reappraised for $202,000 – a staggering jump from the $20,000 appraisal at the time of purchase. Once renovations are completed in total, it could be worth even more.
But that reevaluation was enough to encourage Sweeny to refinance the home. She used an additional loan to renovate the kitchen, agonizing over wallpaper and meticulously replacing the tin ceiling with the help of a metal artist who lived across the street.
The finished product was unveiled in a blog post in May 2023, to great fanfare. The home was photographed and included in the Cheap Old Houses guide published that October.
From 2020 to 2021, she stripped plaster and rotting wall boards throughout the house
One of her achievements was the addition of a cozy bedroom nook (pictured)
The 31-year-old used an additional loan to renovate the kitchen, painstakingly combing through wallpaper samples and repairing the tin ceiling
The finished kitchen was revealed in a May 2023 blog post on her self-titled website
Sweeny still has big projects on the horizon, including one that has carried over from the previous year: hardscaping. This includes breathing new life into the vacant lot that came with the property.
‘Being able to incorporate that lot into a thoughtful way and make it look intentional and have outdoor space was really exciting to me,’ Sweeny said, describing the process as ‘very unsexy infrastructure stuff.’
‘This year, the goal is to completely connect that side lot to my property and make the whole space feel intentional and add historic gardens and things like that.’
There is also the matter of the third story, which is largely untouched, and an unfinished bedroom on the second floor that is being used as a workshop.
‘When you have a really big old house, it’s hard to find places to store things,’ Sweeny said with a laugh.
She is just one of a number of young Americans renovating their living spaces. A 2023 study from Today’s Homeowner surveyed 1,000 people and found that 55 percent renovated some space in their homes over the previous year.
The majority of renovators were Gen X or millennial homeowners, accounting for more than 55 percent of respondents.
Sweeny works full-time as a consultant and maintains a contract with the Wheeling National Heritage Area, seeking to preserve and protect old homes like the McLain house
Upcoming projects include beautifying the abandoned lot next door and finishing the largely untouched third floor
embarked on a ‘mini makeover’ of the backyard in summer 2021
The small house at the rear of the property ‘required very little beyond a fresh coat of paint,’ Sweeny wrote on her blog
For Sweeny, the passion runs deep. She boasts degrees in art history and anthropology and began her career in museum work before attaining a master’s degree in historic preservation.
Today, she works full-time as a consultant and maintains a contract with the Wheeling National Heritage Area.
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‘I always would have done this project, but one of the big reasons that I’m willing to share it is simply because I think it is so important to showcase the counter-narrative to what small towns and post-industrial cities are,’ she explained.
‘You see all of the poverty porn and dilapidated buildings in the mainstream media, and that is not what is happening in most of these communities.
‘Certainly there are challenges, but there are a lot of people working really, really hard to keep their communities alive and historic preservation is a huge part of that.
‘So, for me, it’s a huge platform to just show people that West Virginia isn’t what you think it is. Restoring a historic home isn’t necessarily what you think it is. You just have to be open-minded.’