James Barnett made a $250,000 offer last fall for a dilapidated mansion in Akron’s Highland Square neighborhood. But he didn’t get the house. Instead, the sellers took it off the market.
When it went up for auction Friday, Barnett had a second chance to buy the 1912 home at 74 Maplewood Ave. Again, he came up short.
This time, it was his decision to walk away. The house sold to an online bidder for $185,000, plus a 10% fee, for a total of $203,500. Barnett’s top bid was $175,000.
Since he last looked at the home, it was broken into and stripped of copper and other metals. Leaded-glass windows were smashed, and graffiti defaced the walls.
“Did you see it?” Barnett asked. “When we were here in October, it wasn’t that bad.”
Matt Lerner and his business partner also bought the house at auction, in 2021. They got caught up in the bidding and paid $412,500 for it. Barnett, a former Akron resident who drove up from North Carolina to bid on the house, said he feels better about not getting the property than he does about having bid $175,000 for it.
“I wasn’t willing to go that high, but I did,” he said.
Lerner, after the auction, said he’d rather not talk about the sale until after it closed.
‘This house is going to need a lot’
Auctioneer Jack Davis from Dutton Realtors-Auctioneers said there were about 40 people who attended an open house before Friday’s 3 p.m. fire sale. Half were interested neighbors and half were possible buyers. He wouldn’t identify the winning bidder until the sale closed, but said it’s a “local construction guy” who had come to the open house and seen the property.
“I think it’s a fair price because of the condition,” Davis said of the sale. “Not everyone can handle it.”
Christy Staats is someone who can’t. The Stow resident had been eyeing the property since it went on the market last year. Her dream was to turn the house into a bed and breakfast. But then she saw the inside.
Staats said she can fix drywall, but a three-story hole that real estate agents said would be a great place for an elevator shaft is beyond her capabilities. Her father, whom she brought to the auction with her, talked her out of bidding Thursday night. Then, with the price so low, he was tempted.
“I like the house,” David Staats said. “I have physical problems, otherwise I might’ve been up there bidding. I’m glad I passed on it. This house is going to need a lot.”
Christy Staats, who had come previously to peer in the windows, said she hopes the buyers do something amazing with it. If she had bought it, she said, the cost and complications would quickly take it from a gratifying undertaking to something far more difficult.
“I think this would be a less fun project,” she said.
‘Looking for $185,000’
At 3 p.m. Friday, more than 30 people filled the front yard of the 1.76-acre, boot-shaped property. Some sat in lawn or folding chairs in front of two red tents for Dutton Realtors-Auctioneers that sat at the edge of the lawn. On a table underneath one tent, a laptop with a webcam was set up so online bidders could take in the in-person scene.
To the left of the tents, Auctioneer Jared Dutton stood behind a podium, next to a large sign full of property information.
Davis called the sale a “fantastic opportunity” for the historic home. The seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom property with a carriage house and garage 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. He was president of the Akron merchants’ association and Portage Rubber Co.
“Good luck to everyone,” Davis said before the bidding began at 3:08 p.m.
It started at $50,000. It didn’t take long for the price to rise to $185,000, with Dutton calling, “I’ll take $165,000” as the values rose.
“Would you give $175,000?” he asked.
“Looking for $185,000 online. New bidder in.”
Davis and Joel Dutton roamed the crowd, the latter saying the property was “a great location, a great lot” as they tried to rev up bidders.
But when the price hit $185,000, the auction stagnated.
$200,000? $190,000? $187,500? What about $186,000? No one else would budge.
“When you’re done, we’re done,” Jared Dutton declared, while Davis said, “Last call, last chance,” as he walked the lawn. The sale took fewer than 10 minutes.
Twelve people registered, seven bid at auction
Lerner and his partner have the option to accept or counter the high bid, Davis said at the auction’s conclusion. There had been 12 bidders registered at the beginning of the sale; in the end, three bid in person and four online.
“They ran the numbers,” Davis said of those who were willing to spend on the house. “Construction guys know what it costs.”
Barnett, who stopped his bidding at $175,000, estimated last year that it would take $400,000 to restore the home. He had hoped to live in the carriage house while he did the work. That was also Lerner’s original plan for the person he expected to work on the house.
Erica Hoosic and Tim Peyton, who live in the neighborhood, attended the auction because they were curious about what the house might go for. They had no intentions of bidding, but when the price stayed low, Peyton said the possibility of doing so crossed his mind.
“Then I started immediately adding it up,” he said. “There’s no way.”
Hoosic said she’s worried that the house will be torn down. So is Toni Bradford, who’s had her eye on the home since it was last auctioned four years ago.
“Who knows what the new owner is going to do?” she asked.
Bradford, who lives in Akron, said she was surprised the price was so low.
“They really tried to sell it for more,” she said of the auctioneers. “It needs so much work.”
Davis said he didn’t know why Lerner waited so long before he decided to sell the property. The delay let the house continue to deteriorate. Still, he considers the auction a success.
“We had a good response,” Davis said. “There wasn’t anybody in Akron that didn’t know this house was selling today.”