Nearly a year after an abandoned 1912 house in Highland Square sold at auction for $185,000 plus fees, its sale has closed — to a different buyer, for $100,000 more.
Holly Wiley said Friday that she bought the seven-bedroom house at 74 Maplewood Ave. for $289,000 to turn it into a transitional home for survivors of abuse. The property, known as the Parker House, will be called Willows Haven. Wiley intends to live there full time, while also housing four to five other women for up to six months at a time.
Wiley herself escaped an abusive relationship after eight years, she said, and her experience led her to want to create a home where women could go to regain their footing after leaving abusive partners. The house will be a nonclinical space, but Wiley expects to have group discussions and peer support opportunities. She’s also planning to study trauma therapy at the University of Akron, she said.
Construction on the house likely won’t start for four or five months, and Wiley said she knows there’s a lot to do. A year ago, when a reporter and photographer from Signal Akron toured the house, the three-story building had a three-story hole caused by water damage. Real estate agents referred to one bedroom as the raccoon room, based on its one-time occupants.
Monday, Wiley welcomed a reporter to the property saying, “Welcome to my mess.” The home is in even worse shape now than it was a year ago, she said, with more broken windows, graffiti and walls that are full of bees.
“You can see the honeycomb,” she said Friday. “I think the bees will be my biggest issue.”
Still, she said, “there’s just something about” the house that called to her.
“It definitely draws you to it,” she said. “It was left abandoned, and it says a lot about what the women go through. They feel alone and abandoned. To me, it is the perfect fit, to bring a home like that back.”
Helping survivors heal
Wiley’s contractor estimated it would cost $428,000 to refurbish the home, she said. She plans to keep as many of the original pieces as she can, but there are some parts that are too far gone. Still, she said, “I’m saving as much as I can,” including the woodwork, flooring and fireplaces. She plans to keep a stage in the basement and to restore some of the paintings on the walls.
She bought the house using a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, which operates the Office on Violence Against Women. Federal grants will also pay for the renovation costs, Wiley said.
Women will come to Willows Haven after they’ve already gone to a shelter like Hope and Healing Survivor Resource Center, Wiley said. She said while there’s a lot of help in the community, there’s also a lot of need — Wiley spent four years trying to leave her own situation, she said, because she couldn’t find a landing place.
Shelters often have bunk beds and small spaces, she said, and in her experience, the transition can cause anxiety. She wanted people to have their own rooms and feel more like they were in a comfortable space.
Teresa Stafford-Wright, Hope and Healing’s CEO, said she hadn’t talked to Wiley about her plans but that there’s always a need for housing support for survivors.
Stafford-Wright said congregant living in a shelter isn’t for everyone, so having a place like Willows Haven can provide more opportunities for people to feel safe and comfortable.
“Survivors need different avenues for healing,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to make sure we have more space for individuals.”
Wiley said in addition to renovating the house, she plans to bring in willow trees and plant a lavender garden on the property. The 1.65-acre lot will have several garden areas where people can wander.
Additionally, she said, she intends to make and sell candles and lotions using some of what she grows. Wiley said if they want to, women who stay there can do the same to earn money while they get back on their feet.
Many people who are fleeing abusive situations have employment gaps, Stafford-Wright said, so it can be hard to get jobs. A set-up like Wiley’s could be helpful.
An old house with a lot of potential
The home already has a new roof, and Wiley said the previous owner had done other work in the last year to warrant the increased price tag from what the house was due to sell for at auction. When it was re-listed, the price was set at $315,000, she said. It last sold, at auction, for $412,500 in 2021.
Jack Davis, a senior auctioneer with Dutton Auctioneers, said the original buyer at last summer’s auction couldn’t obtain financing. Another buyer also fell through before Wiley arrived. She had a plan and a vision, Davis said, and is “going to do some pretty nice things restoring it.”
“I think it’s fantastic,” he said. “It’s good for everyone.”
The house was built by Mahlon S. Long, whose 1923 obituary in the Akron Beacon Journal called him one of the city’s “leading merchants and citizens.” Long was responsible for erecting Akron’s Flatiron building in 1907 (it was demolished 60 years later). He also helped create a park and the Summit County fairgrounds.
Later, the home was owned by Murray Parker, a one-time state senator and Summit County commissioner who was both a cowboy and a grocer. Parker’s daughter Edna owned the house until 2013, following a lengthy court battle after her father’s 1987 death. It went into a trust before property manager Bob Crawford lived in it until his 2021 death. That’s when Matt Lerner and a business partner first bought it at auction.
Lerner told Signal Akron previously that his purchase was “kind of dumb” but that he falls in love with the house every time he sees it.
“I still think the house has a lot of potential,” Lerner said last year. “I hope whoever gets it lets me come in and see it.”
Wiley said she plans to have before-and-after gatherings so people can see what kind of shape it’s in now and what it looks like when she’s done.
Making house livable ‘very important’ to new owner
Wiley knows she has a big task ahead of her in restoring the house. She said she wanted the challenge, in part, to show her 18- and 20-year-old daughters that no matter what someone goes through, their hard work can pay off.
Wiley didn’t bid on the house at auction. At that time, she said, she had been looking at a property in Canton that’s still going through probate. When she saw the Akron house was back on the market, Wiley said, it seemed like the right place for her work.
Wiley said she expects to fundraise to help run the house but won’t take a salary from it.
Once renovations to an on-site apartment are completed, she’ll move in there. In the future, that and a larger upstairs room with a sitting area will be available for women with children. She’s also adding cameras to deter break-ins and is securing the house against intruders.
The enormity of Wiley’s plan doesn’t escape her, she said.
“I’m not going into this with blinders thinking we’re not going to hit obstacles; we will,” she said. “I don’t know what we have to uncover yet.”
But she’s determined that, after several false starts, this time, the old mansion will be lived-in again. She expects it to be about 18 months before that happens.
“It’s definitely a big goal, I know,” she said. “This is something that’s very important to me.”
