We have met several people who told us that they “tried to buy that house” with many stories of wanting to turn the property into a wedding venue, bed-and-breakfast, etc. The thing that seems to have stopped them all from moving forward was the Preservation Easement with Indiana Landmarks, which they claimed would not allow them to do what they wanted to do. We read of this stipulation in the real estate listing when we first discovered the home was for sale. Not knowing much about what that would entail, we reached out to Tommy Kleckner, director of the Western Regional Office. He was very kind and informative, truly thrilled that we were considering taking on the property. He explained the purpose of the easement and gave some examples of things we might need to do to make the home a comfortable residence and how they would be achievable within the limitations of the contract. In short, the historical integrity of the home must be preserved which means we must get pre-approval for any and all improvements we want to make to home’s exterior. Things like air conditioning units should not be visible from the front of the home and we can’t just go painting the place chartreuse or something! Of course, we must take care of the property and keep it in good condition overall. Since these stipulations had no conflict with our hope to preserve this piece of history, we had no problems with signing this contract.
That being said, maintaining a home of this age to “first class conditions”, does come with added costs over traditional home ownership as well as some special needs and deadlines. If you’d like to help our efforts, please jump over to our support page!
This article by Indiana Landmarks explains what a preservation easement is and why these are beneficial. The Markle House is just one of many landmarks under these contracts, but the house is featured as the title image!
The Markle House 