A real estate consultant who bought an abandoned house for less than $20,000 and converted it into a space worth ten 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 in community development and historic preservation in the city.
It was then that A The more than 300 square meter, century-old building called McLain House caught her attention. Although some serious work was needed, this made it all the more interesting.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Sweeny said: ‘I’ve loved history since I was a little girl. And as I grew up, I really delved into what fascinated me most: the spaces these people occupied.”
The McLain House is located in East Wheeling, a historically disadvantaged 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’s worth more than $200,000
The McLain house, located at 115 14th Street, was in dire need of renovation and largely forgotten despite its rich history
As Sweeny wrote on her self-titled title website: ‘I wanted my neighbors to know that something else was starting to happen.’
The building had a rich history dating back to the end of the 19th century. The 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 city’s first newspapers, until his death in 1849.
His brother, Robert, started the family’s first drugstore six years later, with Thomas eventually joining him along with their two other brothers. They all left the company in the early 1890s, around the same time they left home 115 14th Street was built.
McLain lived in the house for about a decade while running his medical supply business and died at another address. After a series of other residents passed through its doors over the next century, the house stood empty.
The house sat on the block, rotting and forgotten, about to be demolished. But in 2013, Brian and Stephanie Wilson came in.
They began the restoration process, made extensive repairs to the basement and purchased the abandoned lot next door.
The Wilsons owned the home until May 2020, when it came into Sweeny’s care. At just 26 years old, she closed on the property for $18,500, and knowing renovations would be expensive, she obtained a $100,000 construction loan.
“It’s a pretty unique house for its time period,” Sweeny said. ‘I haven’t seen many examples like this. And it was so exciting that I didn’t really care what the situation 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 original 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 about making sure the thing didn’t fall,” she said.
The first task was to protect the house from further water damage, which meant closing openings and installing windows
The house was reappraised for $202,000 after initial repairs, meaning it may be worth even more when Sweeny is done with work.
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 the first year it was all about making sure the thing didn’t fall over.’
And so began a difficult renovation process. The first order of business was to ensure that the house would no longer absorb water, which meant sealing openings, installing gutters and installing sufficient windows.
‘Because the house was in quite critical condition. It was also quite easy to determine the hierarchy of needs,” Sweeny said.
The first year she worked tirelessly cleaning up the yard and removing moldy leaves and debris from the basement entrance. She removed plaster and rotting planks 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 the total renovations are completed, it could be worth even more.
But that revaluation was enough to encourage Sweeny to refinance the house. She used an additional loan to renovate the kitchen, fussing over the wallpaper and painstakingly replacing the tin ceiling with the help of a metal artist who lived across the street.
The final product was unveiled to much fanfare in a blog post in May 2023. The house was photographed and included in the Cheap Old Houses guide published in October.
From 2020 to 2021, she removed 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 sifting through wallpaper samples and repairing the tin ceiling
The completed kitchen was revealed in a May 2023 blog post on her self-titled website
Sweeny still has big projects on the horizon, including one carried over from the previous year: hardscaping. This includes revitalizing the vacant lot associated with the property.
“It was really exciting for me to be able to integrate that lot in a thoughtful way and make it look intentional and have outdoor space,” said Sweeny, who described the process as “very unsexy infrastructure work.”
“This year the goal is to fully connect that side lot to my property and give the whole space an intentional look and add historic gardens and things like that.”
Then there’s the matter of the third floor, which is largely untouched, and an unfinished second-floor bedroom 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 out Today’s homeowner surveyed 1,000 people and found that 55 percent had renovated some space in their home in the past year.
The majority of renovators were Generation 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
started a ‘mini makeover’ of the backyard in the summer of 2021
The small house at the rear of the property “required very little other than a new coat of paint,” Sweeny wrote on her blog
For Sweeny, the passion runs deep. She holds degrees in art history and anthropology and began her career in museum work before aobtaining 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.
“I would have always done this project, but one of the main reasons I want to share it is simply because I think it is so important to show the counter-narrative of what small towns and post-industrial cities are,” she explained.
“You see all the poverty porn and dilapidated buildings in the mainstream media, and that’s not what’s happening in most of these communities.
“Certainly there are challenges, but there are a lot of people working very, very hard to keep their communities alive and historic preservation is a big part of that.”
“So for me it’s a huge platform to show people that West Virginia is not what you think it is. Restoring a historic home isn’t necessarily what you think it is. You just have to be open-minded.’
