Victorian Style Mansions/Houses

[ChrisL]

While cool to look at can you imagine the maintenance?

I know. Some people do it though! They buy them and restore them and even live in them too sometimes. I would LOVE to have a tour of the insides of some of the old Victorian houses that I drive past every day.

I'd like to live in one of those houses View attachment 126260

Until the utility bills came. My city has several of them. They do not fetch top dollar any more because they are "historical" which prevents a lot of the updates that will keep the bills low. My old boss was shelling out over $3K a month in winter to heat his.

Yes, well it's probably easier to afford if you live in a warm climate. Some people do own and live in them, and you don't have to have them on the historical register. That is a choice. If you decide to register your house, then the historical society will help you with renovations (at least that's how it is around here).

Not a choice here. The areas where they are mostly located have historical zoning overlays and have a historical committee that has to approve everything. That committee has a tendency to approve very little. It would take one of them being gutted by fire or having a structural collapse before they would let you update anything about them. There aren't a lot of them outside the historical districts that are not in ghetto areas nobody would put that kind of money into.

We have some really nice ones around here and some are in very rich neighborhoods and are very well kept up.

 

[Dekster]

I know. Some people do it though! They buy them and restore them and even live in them too sometimes. I would LOVE to have a tour of the insides of some of the old Victorian houses that I drive past every day.

I'd like to live in one of those houses View attachment 126260

Until the utility bills came. My city has several of them. They do not fetch top dollar any more because they are "historical" which prevents a lot of the updates that will keep the bills low. My old boss was shelling out over $3K a month in winter to heat his.

Yes, well it's probably easier to afford if you live in a warm climate. Some people do own and live in them, and you don't have to have them on the historical register. That is a choice. If you decide to register your house, then the historical society will help you with renovations (at least that's how it is around here).

Not a choice here. The areas where they are mostly located have historical zoning overlays and have a historical committee that has to approve everything. That committee has a tendency to approve very little. It would take one of them being gutted by fire or having a structural collapse before they would let you update anything about them. There aren't a lot of them outside the historical districts that are not in ghetto areas nobody would put that kind of money into.

We have some really nice ones around here and some are in very rich neighborhoods and are very well kept up.

Georgian, colonial, and Tudor style houses are more common among the wealthy who have old houses around here. Most of them are building new blah blah brick McMansions now though