The Railroad House We Almost Bought

I want to show you the old farmhouse we almost bought a few years ago.

We saw this old farmhouse online when we were still living in Austin but knew that we’d be moving soon to East Texas.

I fell in love with it immediately.

I loved everything about it (and still do):  the classic farmhouse architecture, the white paint and green roof, how far it sat back from the road, the picket fence out front.

When I contacted the realtor, she told me that the house was still available.  She also gave the a little history:  the owners had divorced and the house had been on the market for 6 months but at a higher price.       It had been run as a bed and breakfast for a short time.

I thought:  “Fabulous!  What a perfect business for me (a homebody) and Mark (a professional photographer)!”

You see, it’s located a hop, skip and jump from the Texas State Railroad which attracts train lovers from all over the nation.  For that reason, I’ll always think of it as ‘the railroad house’.

The house is also located in Palestine, Texas, and that small town is home to a Walmart distribution facility and multiple state prisons.  We figured we wouldn’t have a problem attracting overnight guests.

When we found out that the home had been owned by Osjetea Briggs, a internationally known photographer, writer, newspaper editor, and author, for 40 years, we felt it was ‘meant to be’.

old farmhouse, circa 1970

The owner had already done several improvements like updating the electrical and plumbing, including installing a new septic system, and the house had been leveled and the the roof replaced.  All, huge pluses.

We were finally able to tour the home in June, 2011.

Let me tell you more about it.  (The rest of the photos in this post were on MLS.)

The house, originally built in 1898, was sitting on 7.74 acres and was a 4 bedroom, 3 bath house.

It also had a small guest house.

Here are two of the bedrooms.

I loved the gorgeous foyer and staircase.

The doorway you see to the right led to the dining room.

Of course, I loved the wood walls, and knew that they could be lightened up with paint.

The kitchen had been completely remodeled.  It was small but was very nice.   Some of the finishes I didn’t care for, but that would have been easy to change. It had tons of cabinetry going all the way up to the tall ceiling — I think it was 12′ tall? — and it had two large refrigerators (perfect for running a B&B).

The kitchen pantry area was large and already outfitted with a very nice (and expensive) dog wash sink — similar to this one — so of course, we liked that.

The property also had a very nice, new detached garage.  Another huge plus.

So why didn’t we buy this old place with all its pluses?

Well, it had some pretty major minuses.   The price was fairly high for the area at the time and the inspection revealed more problems than we were willing to tackle, given the price.

I still think about what our lives would have been like to live in this place, but I think we made the best financial decision not to buy it.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, the house did finally sell … just last month.