In the News!

Recovering homes' varied treasures

New nonprofit demolishes donated houses and offers up the interesting parts
May 22, 2005

BY SUZETTE HACKNEY
FREE PRESS REAL ESTATE WRITER

It's tucked away in an alley at Grand River and Warren, on Detroit's near west side. You'd never know that behind a tattered metal door is a warehouse stocked full of architectural treasures salvaged from aging houses around the metro area.

Inside you'll find vintage gems such as leaded windows, cherry fireplace mantels, oak crown molding, clawfoot tubs, classic light fixtures and wrought-iron trusses. There are stacks of practical materials such as lumber, hardwood floor boards, stainless steel sinks and wooden doors.

The Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit has been open for three weeks now. It's in the nonprofit business of deconstructing homes, salvaging all the usable materials and reselling them to cover costs. The goal is save landfill space while encouraging others to reuse building materials.

The salvage warehouse was designated a 501(c)(3) nonprofit by the Internal Revenue Service last year and is one of the first deconstruction companies in the state. A six-person crew is trained to take down homes piece by piece. It's a laborious process, one that often is overlooked when home remodeling or demolition is considered.

But the warehouse wants homeowners to know there are options, and that 80% to 90% of home contents can be salvaged.

"People are starting to realize that environmentally we can't go on as we are doing," said company president Carolyn Mosher. She said the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 136 million tons of construction rubbish goes into landfills each year. "Detroit's history is going into our landfills."

Two down so far
The Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit has deconstructed two houses in Grosse Pointe Farms so far, one built on Muir in 1910 and one built on Lewiston in the 1950s. All that's left are virtual shells of the homes. The crew is scheduled to begin taking apart a home in Birmingham next week.

Instead of hiring demolition crews, a homeowner can donate a home and contract with the salvage warehouse to strip the house. The owner of the 2,800-square-foot house on Lewiston paid nearly $25,000 for the deconstruction. Of that total, about $16,000 went to the company for labor, $4,500 was for excavation and another $2,000 was spent on asbestos surveys and abatement.

Though the salvage process is pricier than a straight demolition, tax laws allow a homeowner who donates a home to the charity to receive a tax credit for the fair market value of the home, excluding the land. If a person is deconstructing the house for renovation, the homeowner can deduct the value of the materials taken out of the home. In either case, a tax attorney should be consulted to make sure the proper deductions are filed. The scope of work includes providing a detailed inventory for the homeowner.

The salvage warehouse does not make a profit from sales of salvaged house parts. The company funds training for work crews, absorbs the cost of the deconstruction -- including hauling away materials and debris -- pays warehousing costs and provides insurance coverage.

Gutting without guilt
For Jack McCormick, choosing the salvage process was simply a matter of recognizing the value of what he has in his 1910 Grosse Pointe Farms home. He hired the salvage warehouse to deconstruct the 985-square-foot, 2-story house that will be redesigned into his 2,000-square-foot retirement home.

"It started out as just a simple project, but we decided to add another component to it," said McCormick, who now lives in Grosse Pointe Park. "We are building our retirement home here, but we realized how wasteful it would be to get rid of the wavy glass windows and pine flooring. All these things would just be thrown away."

Mosher said the salvage warehouse has been embraced by suburbanites, mostly folks who are tearing down old homes and rebuilding larger infill homes in some of metro Detroit's historic neighborhoods. Some call the trend bigfooting.

"It's really been a challenge for the last three years to get acceptance," said Mosher, 63, a Grosse Pointe resident. "People don't have to feel guilty about what they're doing now. They used to feel guilty about taking down a perfectly good house."

To get the company off the ground, a board was formed and members donated $33,000. The organization received a $25,000 loan from the Michigan Interfaith Trust Fund and board members plan to apply for some federal grants.

Nationally, the practice of deconstructing has grown in recent years. There are numerous companies that do the work in cities such as Baltimore, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Portland, Ore. In all, there are about 1,500 reuse centers nationwide.

Still the board members haven't been able to convince City of Detroit officials that a pilot program would be beneficial because of the large number of houses the city is demolishing. Mosher said city officials were concerned about the added time it takes to deconstruct a home as opposed to demolition. Deconstruction can take up to four weeks, depending on the size of the home.

"People are slow to settle in to this concept," Mosher said. "You have to realize that you'll have people floating around that property for a month.

"Most people are afraid of deconstruction because it does take training and know-how," she said. "There is a tremendous amount of insurance issues. That's what eats up most of our money.

"It's been discouraging that there hasn't been more local support for what we're doing," she said.

Still, the company continues to bid. Its latest bid, just in the first phases, is to deconstruct the Crescent Sail Yacht Club architect Albert Kahn designed in Grosse Pointe Shores off Lake Shore Drive.

And there has been good news. Last week, board members solidified the purchase of a 13,000-square-foot warehouse the company will move into. The new warehouse, on the corner of Warren and 16th, across the street from where it is now, will be open in about three months.

For now, shoppers can visit the smaller warehouse, though it's not easy to navigate through all the materials. Mosher said the salvage warehouse sold about $3,000 in goods during the first two weekends. As for pricing, Mosher said she tries to work with each customer by seeing what the market can bear.

"If I have a $10 price tag on a piece and I see a young person hesitate, I'll say, 'How about $8,' " she said. "This is a depressed area. I'm not helping people if I'm pricing things that they can't afford."

Some examples of prices are $350 for a fireplace mantel, $50 for a leaded window, $1.25 per square foot for wood flooring.

"The people have just been beautiful," Mosher said. "They are thrilled, so happy when they walk out clutching some little treasure they've found."

For more information about the Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit, call 313-885-1136 or e-mail Mosher at cmosheraswd@aol.com. The warehouse, at 4884 15th Street, is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays. Contact SUZETTE HACKNEY at 313-222-6614 or hackney@freepress.com.

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