Seriously Cheap, Seriously Cool: WSJ House of Year 2016

A classic mansion built for a refrigerator magnate Elmer Ellsworth McCray in the 1920s – and still possessing its original, functioning eight-door refrigerator, plus many other vintage details – has blown away the competition for the Wall Street Journal’s House of the Year.

The 10,000-square-foot McCray Mansion sold in May to a surgeon and his wife, a physician assistant, for just $430,000. It’s in Kendallville, a town of less than 10,000 people that’s 25 miles north of Fort Wayne, 60 miles east of South Bend, and 150-plus miles from Indianapolis, Chicago and Detroit.

Throughout the year, the Wall Street Journal picks a House of the Day from residences for sale, and its online readers vote on their favorite each week. Then in December, the Journal posts an online poll pitting the weekly winners against each other in head-to-head matchups.

In three weeks of voting that closed Jan. 4, the McCray Mansion won 80.6 percent of the votes in its matchups, the Wall Street Journal said. (Side note, in case you’re wondering if such exposure matters: Within 15 minutes of the Journal’s first featuring the home back in February, the listing brokers’ phone began ringing, and within 48 hours, two prospective buyers had flown in from out of state, according to the online marketplace Find Everything Historic. That website had just launched when, as marketing partner for the listing agents, it scored the Journal coup. And of course, the House of the Year title was “basically the equivalent of winning the Super Bowl” for the husband-and-wife startup.)

The new owners bought the house from Mike Post and Michael Nelaborige, who spent years restoring it — including a long time just on the kitchen’s showpiece.

[Click here or on a photo for a slideshow full of colorful details.]

“Having the original eight-door McCray built-in refrigerator restored to full working order was a major highlight for us,” Nelaborige told the local KPCNews last year. “Our plumber (and new best friend) Dick Krull from J. O. Mory took over a year, but it runs perfectly.”

Other period curiosities in the mansion include a voluptuously curved staircase 18 feet across; a 1927 Walker Super-Sink Dishwasher; clothing and fur vaults on the top floor; and a still-working 1920s intercom system hooked up to the old chauffeur’s quarters over the carriage house (used in recent years as a rental).

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Post and Nelaborige, a couple for nearly 20 years, bought the home for $219,000 in 2004 and then poured an estimated $200,000 into restoration. They sold it because they wanted to downsize and move closer to family in Fort Wayne, Post told KPCNews, but they were pained to leave the Kendallville community:

“When we first moved to Kendallville, we wondered how we might be received — a gay couple from out of town buying a prominent home. Well, we were overwhelmed with kindness, support and encouragement from everyone we met, from our very first day here.

“Living in this town and in this house and meeting so many wonderful people has been amazing and so much fun. From the welcome letter we received from Mayor Handshoe, to the friendly conversation and home baked goods and garden vegetables from the absolute world’s best neighbors, we knew then that our life here would be happy and peaceful.”

Now the new owners, Ohio transplants Kevin and Nicole Lowe, are looking forward to building their own lives in Kendallville. She’s even hoping one of their children will get married there someday, inspired by a 1936 photograph of Elmer McCray’s daughter, Sarah, at the foot of the stairs in her wedding gown. Post and Nelaborige have passed the picture along to the Lowes, just as the previous owner did for them. It still sits in the foyer.

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