A family converts a decommissioned school into a home and bed-and-breakfast

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/real-estate/toronto-family-ditches-the-city-for-home-schooling-in-prince-edwardcounty/article28428562/

by myth_drannon • 10 years ago

137 92 10 years ago

theglobeandmail.com

scrumper2• 10 years ago

This looks great, and their kids will look back and feel very lucky to have grown up here. As a US resident, I can't help but wonder whether:

- Property taxes (it's huge)

- Building code

- Zoning

Would prevent something like that happening here.

wk_end• 10 years ago

We have all of those things in Canada.

logfromblammo3• 10 years ago

Americans just assume that in Canada, taxes are slightly higher, corruption in local government less prevalent, and land use restrictions less severe.

Of course, some of us may also believe that Canadian taxes may be paid in maple syrup, Molson lager, or ketchup chips, and that the revenue agency is required to sincerely apologize for every remittance accepted.

As a national aggregate, we don't get out much, even to visit the neighbors.

guyzero2• 10 years ago

The headline says "Toronto family" but the school itself is pretty rural and not that near Toronto. I expect taxes are lower than their urban house and zoning is pretty relaxed.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Milford,+ON+K0K,+Canada/@4...

They can nearly see Mexico from their house! (Mexico, NY that is)

jbob2000• 10 years ago

That's a 1.5 hour drive from Toronto, not even considered the Greater Toronto Area. I am sure the Globe is putting them under the Toronto umbrella to get views; who the hell could afford to do this in Toronto... oh wait it's not Toronto, but you already gave them your traffic.

gtk402• 10 years ago

The headline is "Toronto family ditches the city for old school fixer-upper in country" (at least in the <title>) and the tagline says "the obstacles they overcame in moving to the country." It seems quite clearly to be talking about a family who moved from Toronto, the city, to the country, not that their endpoint is in the city.

dsp1234• 10 years ago

For $400k in Oregon, you can do that now.

https://www.redfin.com/OR/Beavercreek/23931-S-Schuebel-Schoo...

Just have to get an occupancy permit. Taxes were $5k for 2014.

clock_tower• 10 years ago

You could also buy a houseplane:

http://www.columbiapacificaviation.com/trainingsalesetc/airc...

qahs_user• 10 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Anne_High_School,_Seattl...

ctdonath• 10 years ago

Bravo on the out-of-the-box thinking. Nice to see someone make such an opportunity happen, showing others that status quo need not be adhered to.

I once seriously considered buying a defunct health club for the same domestic purpose. Adapting the locker rooms seemed the most daunting aspect, but the 3-lane full-length indoor pool was awful tempting.

Notice how far out the family had to go to make it work: fully insulating walls, wood heat, and a large garden among other factors.

slantyyz• 10 years ago

> Notice how far out the family had to go to make it work: fully insulating walls, wood heat, and a large garden among other factors.

On the plus side, I'm guessing that the sale of their Toronto home left them with a lot of budget to do that work though.

IIRC, the average selling price of a home in Toronto is floating around $1M these days, and the school cost "only" $190K.

the_unknown• 10 years ago

And not just any part of Toronto - High Park. They were pretty well off to start with going with that as the base.

Good for them on using their money to fund a great learning/growing experience for their kids.

giarc5• 10 years ago

I hope the wood splitting picture was staged. Those girls are a few feet from a man swinging an axe splitting wood. That's an accident waiting to happen.

rubidium• 10 years ago

They're 7+ feet away. He's facing them and can see swing zone well. They're not dumb and know not to get too close.

They'll be fine.

protomyth2• 10 years ago

Yep, the girls are fine, but I'm more worried about his posture. Either they took that picture at the exact wrong time or he is doing it wrong.

Looking at the girls, the oldest could probably start chopping wood herself. Not, much, but she looks close to big enough.

giarc5• 10 years ago

I would argue she is much closer than 7 feet. She is likely 4 feet tall and it appears as if she laid down, she would be a few inches away.

Considering that when splitting wood you should at a minimum be wearing safety glasses, I'm pretty sure this can all be done much safer.

lcr94• 10 years ago

I do not believe it was staged. While there is a risk of danger, I believe it is a small risk. Perhaps a the axe head flies off, or a block of wood shoots out and hits the kid. But those risks are small, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to spare a child the experience of physically working to heat your dwelling in order to insure they are safe from an unlikely accident.

Anecdotally, my dad and I drove into the woods and cut down trees for the fireplace in my family's house. After he cut down the tree, he would cut the tree into 1 foot rounds and then split them with a maul. The cut, triangular pieces had to be loaded and stacked into the back of a pickup, and it was back breaking work.

However, every time the work was done, I remember feeling a sense of accomplishment and contemplating how it was the drudgery that ultimately created that feeling.

I think that we should not spare our children these enormously valuable learning experiences in the name of safety.

maxerickson• 10 years ago

It's not that big a job to stay out of the plane of the moving ax and stack the wood.

logfromblammo3• 10 years ago

Your dad could have stacked logs in the truck and cut them to length and split them near the permanent stack location. Otherwise, you're stacking once in the truck bed and then again at the woodpile. Perhaps he was building your character instead of seeking efficiency.

A little bit of gratuitous labor helps the lesson sink in. So maybe you set up a little contest with your victi-er, kid. You each take half the logs and whoever finishes first wins. You even let the kid get a head start. They're concentrating hard because they want to win. But behind their back, you're using a log splitter instead of a maul. When you yell out "done!" they look around, and see that you "cheated". Hopefully, they learn the value of appropriate technology over brow sweat.

That guy shouldn't be swinging that maul so close to his kids, not for safety reasons, because he should be using at least a lever-operated log splitter instead.

giarc5• 10 years ago

I guess risk acceptance is different person to person. I know that when splitting wood, there is often pieces flying in random directions. I would at least have my kids wearing safety glasses. It doesn't take much to lose vision in an eye and all because you don't want to wear safety glasses?! Not for me.

virmundi• 10 years ago

This seems to be a modern, Western approach to thing. I've seen South American tribal folk give a 5 year old a machete to do actual work. I didn't see a lot of dismembered children.

A lot of it comes down to family training. The older kids teach the younger kids what to do and not do. This doesn't protect from every little thing, but life is not that safe.

You do need training however. I was in Montana as a child with my dad on business. The client lived way out in the middle of nowhere. He was a big man (bigger than my father who's 6' 1"). He reached into a drawer, pulled out two bear size handfuls of .22lr, showed me how to load the riffle (fortunately I'd been trained by my dad and grandfather on hunting small game around the farm) and told me the adults need to talk. What he didn't tell me is that it was a modified .22lr: full auto. I was in for a surprise when 10 rounds cracked out at supersonic speed. I was fine and had fun. It could have been bad though.

tamana3• 10 years ago

Modern westerners really do love our low childhood casualty rate, even though it gets expensive. Other cultures can be more casual about losing a few.

nobody_nowhere• 10 years ago

"In the last year of its operation, the heating oil bill for the school was $38,000 and the electricity was another $10,000. They needed a better system."

danans• 10 years ago

I think this is a great example of a growing societal acceptance of people experimenting and choosing alternative styles of housing and also city organization, especially ones that involve reclaiming/re-purposing space. The article's particular example focuses on redefinition and reuse of an existing structure in a very sparsely populated area.

In dense areas, other ways of re-purposing space are happening. Everyone has seen former industrial facilities converted into multi-unit housing. But these ideas are even creeping into traditional neighborhoods. In my case, I would love to convert my second parking spot into additional living space.

The idea is, with urban neighborhood land values so high (at least in booming areas), it's hard to justify providing housing for a second car).

Of course, this isn't even a new idea. For decades people have been kicking their cars to the curb so they can use their garages for other purposes (gym, workshop, playroom,...). In the coming decades, as people move more towards uber/lyft style services for transportation, I can see a lot of prime space formerly occupied by cars being freed up for creative re-use.

jerf• 10 years ago

Who do you think is, I don't even know what, harrumphing at the idea of people buying old things and repurposing them? I live in the midwest and have a pretty good idea of what the stodgiest old-fogiest ideas about housing could be, and all I can think of even the retired guys around here thinking is "Hmm, that would be an interesting challenge." Repurposing barns is a cottage industry around here. (From what I gather, the farms are doing fine, but improved logistics has rendered a lot of storage excess to requirements.)

Repurposing space is basically what happens to space.

roel_v2• 10 years ago

Renovating is more expensive than rebuilding. Renovated nice old buildings are a luxury, not a savings measure (I live in one, which we renovated ourselves - would've been cheaper and better to knock down and rebuild)

danjayh• 10 years ago

Depends on the building. We bought a house from the 40's on the small side (1500sf) that needed plumbing, electric service, all flooring surfaces replaced, kitchen guttend/replaced, both baths guttened/replaced, all appliances, and significant mechanical (furnace, water softener+filter), addition of closets, replaced deck, and probably stuff that I'm forgetting. Had a good roof, which was critical, because water damage would have sunk it (har har har). We did a lot of the work ourselves, saves a bundle. Contracted for about $40k of it up front to get it livable quickly.

Somewhat related to the story - I bought a pellet boiler off craigslist for $2800 and did 100% of the installation myself (electrical, plumbing [heat + water heater], control) all-in was about $3900, and I'm already in the black on it after 3 years use (vs. propane). I decided to burn lpg this year because it was 'only' $1.70/gal, and it turns out that even at that low price (compared to the last three years) I'd probably have been better off on pellets, but probably not better off enough to make up for all of the labor that it takes.

I set it up to automatically switch between the propane furnace and the boiler (I have a water/air hx) based on the boiler's temperature to make it seamless for my wife to use :). It's a Central Boiler Maxim M175 ... cranked all the way up, it might be able to heat his school (just barely) -- I run it at its lowest setting. Burns very clean, no smoke, happy neighbors.

Renovation can be done for a reasonable financial cost with an investment of time. Our house isn't super-luxury now, but it's perfectly serviceable and now we have a house on 11 acres that we couldn't have touched if it hadn't been a dump when we bought it.

sandworm101• 10 years ago

Note the firewood. Lots and lots of firewood. Those high ceilings and cavernous rooms are a nightmare to heat. That wood stove must run 24/7.

I'm all for re-purposing, but there is a point at which a building built for one purpose just isn't suitable for any other. Elementary school into residence/home might be that line.

anon01292016• 10 years ago

It works for some (with means). The Human Genome Project's Eric Lander lives in a converted 10k ft^2 schoolhouse in Cambridge:

http://connect.bostonmagazine.com/articles/?p=3392

Architect's photos: http://www.maryannthompson.com/projects/proj25.html

ZeroGravitas2• 10 years ago

Moving into a giant, expensive-to-heat home is one thing, claiming as they do in the article that it's part of a quest for sustainability is a little bizarre.

utefan001• 10 years ago

Similar story.

These Vegas transplants bought a small-town Nebraska schoolhouse and let their artistic flags fly.

http://www.omaha.com/living/these-vegas-transplants-bought-a...

bane5• 10 years ago

I always like these kinds of stories, and then I wonder what the after-story is. A couple hundred thousand in repairs, renovation and remodeling, I'm guessing the occasional B&B guest doesn't provide a huge amount of income. What do people who do this (move out to extreme rural areas and buy enormous and expensive to maintain offbeat homes like schools, churches, power plants and missile silos) do for a living to afford this?

I'd love to go out to random-rural-county and buy 20 acres of land and a school and turn it into a huge home, but then I'd be hours away from where I need to go to make the money to do that.

There's always some other parts of the financial story that never seems to come through in these kinds of articles.

ljk2• 10 years ago

this is just a guess - maybe they're not doing it for money, but as a form of a hobby

scott_s2• 10 years ago

That's fine, but that still doesn't answer bane's question: how does this family earn the income which they use to live?

mhurron• 10 years ago

Well yes, but they still have to pay for it. For most people that means working, and that's time out of a day, most days a week.

They included what it used to cost to heat and power the school for a year, but never mention what it is now. Details that are interesting to the story but probably take away from the 'feel good' type of article they were trying to make.

DanBC• 10 years ago

UK TV series Grand Designs features people who self-build homes, or sometimes convert weird buildings (water towers for example) into homes.

The show talks a little bit about the finances, and how people often start over-spending on details.

In England this can save some money over just buying something as big / distinctive. And if the homeowners DIY there are further savings. And some people are just very fussy about details, so self-build or conversions allow them to have total control.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Designs

ZeroGravitas2• 10 years ago

I was expecting you to bring up the point about how many of the people featured simply seem to have much more money than sense.

One that particularly sticks in the mind for me was a nice old gent who got heavily into drugs in his teens so his family trust fund was taken out of his control. He had to ask permission from the trustees to build a £350,000 custom designed house,specifically designed around him, even though he hated houses and had lived most of his life in a mobile houseboat and never spent much time in one place.

vram222• 10 years ago

people who self-build homes

There seem to be some people doing it. I've been reading about this a bit lately, and also had been to a remote place recently, where someone had built a rather big "earthship" and was living pretty much off the grid. It looked, very roughly, like the Brighton Earthship shown in the Example section here, but was round, not rectangular:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship

zyxley• 10 years ago

Why do people open restaurants when the overwhelming majority of new restaurants go bankrupt in short order?

radnor• 10 years ago

I imagine a lot of them think, "It can't be that hard!"

After the money disappears they realize that yes, it is very hard.

Then someone else comes along, sees their failed restaurant and says, "It can't be that hard..."

rayiner• 10 years ago

I'd love to go out to random-rural-county and buy 20 acres of land and a school and turn it into a huge home, but then I'd be hours away from where I need to go to make the money to do that.

Being a rural doctor is a sweet gig. They get paid as much or more than doctors in urban areas, so you can be making $300k in the middle of nowhere, Iowa.

Scoundreller4• 10 years ago

Same in Ontario. You might even get paid more for working in a rural area than one would in the city. Plus no worry about insurance paying or whether your patients can afford the co-pay (that's all someone else's problem).

cgh3• 10 years ago

They sold their house in Toronto, one of the most expensive cities in North America, and probably made a couple of million or so. The school was only $190,000 plus whatever it took to fix it up.

As the article states, the area is a tourism hub so their B&B is probably quite busy. Otherwise, assuming they own the school free and clear and grow a lot of their own food, I imagine they don't have many expenses.

bane5• 10 years ago

I mean, that's cool. It'd be interesting if the article mentioned how much they made from selling their home. They could have sold their house underwater and are still servicing their old mortgage too. We don't know from the article what the story is.

Suppose they made money and have a million in the bank, how long can they ride on that before they have to pack it in and move back to a place where they can get jobs? What about their kid's future expenses, how are those sorted out?

The article mentions a couple things about their B&B:

- 3 rooms

- they get overflow from other B&Bs, not their own business.

- they only operate during the summer

So that puts an upper limit to what they can earn from that.

Going rate for Milford, ON B&B is about $200/night.

That's about $600/day. That's $54k/year before costs assuming full occupancy 7 days per week during the in-season.

goodJobWalrus• 10 years ago

You seem to think that they owned their house in Toronto outright, which is rare for a young family, especially in such expensive area. Also, median detached house price in Toronto is just over a million, so if they got a couple of million, they had above average house as well, so it's still not clear how are they affording all of that. But, I don't think that's the point of the article, maybe they are trust fund babies, who cares.

ChuckMcM• 10 years ago

That is a great question, but it kind of takes the shine off don't you think? :-)

One of the things I look at from time to time is what sort of burn rate I'd be willing to tolerate while 'retired' (which is code for just doing what ever the hell I want without having to fit it into other agendas). And, because it showed up here on HN once, ran the numbers on a missile silo. The one I was looking at was less than a million dollars to purchase but my brother in law, the civil engineer, gave me a list of things that would have to be vetted/fixed before occupancy. Since it was a vertical silo I was thinking a 10 story living arrangement built inside the silo itself, with floors going down from the circular top floor and an elevator in the middle.

We figured that construction, retrofits, and infrastructure would cost about 3 - 6 million (depending on how much corrosion and toxic waste cleanup was required to remediate). Power for pumps to keep it dry during the wet season, insurance, maintenance about 7K a month (it costs a lot to pump water up a 100'). We figured you'd have to start with about $10M to exit the other side with a "self sustaining" environment you could live and work in (but a seriously "fun" environment to hang out in. You could pay someone $12K a year just to come out once a week and restock the larder with consumables.

The school looks like a much simpler setup.

bane5• 10 years ago

It would definitely be something I'd explore if I had sufficient FU money. Drop out, drop off and just do whatever I felt like. I have enough things I'm interested in to keep me self-occupied for at least 20-30 years I'm sure.

mey• 10 years ago

McMenamins did this in east Portland http://www.mcmenamins.com/427-kennedy-school-home

prawn• 10 years ago

I'm from Australia and stayed there one trip. It was great - free cinema, soaking pool, etc. We chose it for the novelty.

scotje• 10 years ago

They also recently did a similar project in Bothell, WA: http://www.mcmenamins.com/AndersonSchool

thenipper• 10 years ago

In an old job I worked for an affordable housing developer who did this with properties down in New Bedford, MA. We'd turn old schools into affordable housing units. Same with a hospital in Connecticut. It's a great way to increase the number of affordable units while using old buildings.

EDIT: Here is an example: http://www.wihed.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Acushnet-Com...

logn• 10 years ago

Church converted to condos: https://www.coldwellbankerhomes.com/ky/bellevue/320-poplar-s...

shirro• 10 years ago

I would love to live in an unconventional house. There are schools closing in surrounding farming areas regularly but most are too much travelling time and poor Internet access.

When there are some good ones with decent services not far from population, the government seems to have problems getting the schools on the market. By the time anyone can buy them they would be ruins.

Scoundreller4• 10 years ago

Chances are the nearest school for the 3 daughters could not be further away...

dalke• 10 years ago

No more than 16km to the nearest public elementary school, according to https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Queen+Elizabeth+Public+Schoo... .

The secondary school is further, at about 50km to Belleville.

c3534l• 10 years ago

Now that I think about it, every old schoolhouse I've come across was turned into a bar.

A family converts a decommissioned school into a home and bed-and-breakfast

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