The Untold Story Behind That Huge Abandoned Texas Mansion
On a 15-acre lot in Manvel, Texas, a 60,175-square-foot brick home with some 46-bedrooms has sat empty ever since it was built in 2001. When the house, with around 55 bathrooms, a nine-car garage, a swimming pool, an indoor spa, and an elevator, went on the market, it made headlines for its massive size. Still, no one wanted to buy the building. Sadly, the longer it remained vacant, the more vandals broke in, smashing windows, breaking sheetrock, and ripping out electrical wires and AC duct work. Recently, several news sources reported that the property now had a purpose, as a veteran's facility, but we have learned that is no longer the case. The real story is a bit more complicated — and even more inspiring.
A Veteran's Dream
Christa Mode had big dreams for the big house. The former U.S. Navy Seabees veteran and single mom wanted to use it for her new nonprofit, a veteran's facility. She even had the perfect name picked out: The Bailey House, after the character of George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart was a veteran, after all, and in a scene in the film, his character throws rocks at an old abandoned house. Plus, as Mode discovered one summer day when she popped the DVD in by mistake, the movie's message of hope makes it just as much a suicide prevention film as it is a Christmas movie.
"It was just too perfect and I was literally bawling by the end of the movie," Mode tells CountryLiving.com. "I had the name. It was like a lightbulb went off in my head—why had I never seen it that way before? … There's so much hope there."
Mode's goal? To bridge the gap between existing veterans' services, providing counseling to veterans before they reach the point of suicide or homelessness, a hotline and transportation funds for immediate support, and after-care programs for both veterans and their families.
She had her 501(c)(3) in hand, and the owners of the mansion, real estate investors Jim Youngblood and Richard Drake, were on board to lease her space in the house. She even held a meet-and-greet at the property to answer questions about the organization.
Falling Apart
But, after a zoning hearing, where Mode and the owners hoped to change the tract of land from Open Single Family Residential (OSFR) to Light Commercial, those plans fell apart.
"There were probably 60 people in the room and 58 of them were opposed to The Bailey House," Youngblood tells CountryLiving.com, "and the other two were myself and my partner. Current members of the city council and the mayor were opposed to it. So in order to get my Light Commercial zoning, I had to take The Bailey House off the table."
Youngblood and Mode say the Manvel citizens voiced concerns about having homeless veterans in the neighborhood. "Clarity and transparency" about the "type of 'Light Commercial' business" was the reason Melissa Sifuentes, Manvel City Councilwoman, listed in a Facebook post.
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Ultimately, the council concluded that the proposed purpose for the building, as an "inpatient treatment facility," would require a different zoning request, Sifuentes explained: "Light Commercial with a Specific Use Permit".
So, although the zoning change was granted, the veteran's center still could not be housed in the Manvel mansion. At first, Mode was crushed. She knows firsthand how many vets need help: After her nine-year deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mode came home with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) from concussions, plus Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from witnessing fellow soldiers die.
"The longer this takes for me to get this up and running and start helping my vets, the more people are dying, and I can help stop that," Mode says. "These are my brothers and sisters, and I have been to more funerals than I care to attend. It hurts every time. I just lost another one yesterday."
Falling Into Place
Thankfully, Youngblood and Drake came up with a plan B.
"We feel strongly about helping the veterans in any way we can, and we gave Christa our word that we would help her get a place to help veterans," Youngblood says. "And if a 60,000-square-foot house in Manvel didn't work out, we just decided to give her our space close to downtown Houston."
Youngblood and Drake are planning to lease their realty company's current office space to Mode for free and move their business into the Manvel mansion instead, essentially swapping spaces.
"In the military we say 'adapt and overcome', so that's what we did," Mode says. "The vision for the Bailey House is still going forward, and it still will happen, but in a different location."
Being based in Houston will actually be even better for The Bailey House: The bus system will make transportation easier for veterans, the lower cost of living will give Mode access to better grants, and there's even a VA hospital nearby.
"It's definitely a win-win, even though I had huge visions for the mansion, and I just felt like God was calling me there," Mode says. "But God works in mysterious ways … everything happens for a reason. This is God's project, and I'm just the one being honored to be the catalyst to move it along. I'm just going where he's leading me."
Now, Mode is working on getting her certifications in place, applying for grants, and collecting donations. She hopes to be able to open her doors in Houston in six to eight months. And though the organization will no longer live in the mansion, the name will remain The Bailey House.
"Clarence's quote at the end when he opens up the book — 'No man is a failure who has friends '— that totally spoke to me," Mode recalls of the It's a Wonderful Life scene. "That's what I want this to be. That's what I want to create."
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