A real estate consultant who bought an abandoned house for less than $20,000 and renovated it into a space worth 10 times more is sharing her journey in an effort to draw attention to the value of older homes.
Betsy Sweeny, 31, moved to Wheeling, West Virginia, in 2019 after leaving her job to work in community development and historic preservation in the city.
It was then when a A 3,400-square-foot, century-old property called the McLain House caught his eye. While he needed a serious job, this made him even more interesting.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Sweeny said: “I’ve loved history since I was a little girl. And then as I got older I really focused on what fascinated me most actually was the spaces that these people occupied.
McLain House is located in East Wheeling, a historically underserved community where many older homes have fallen into disarray.
Betsy Sweeny, 31, bought an abandoned house in Wheeling, West Virginia, for $18,500, and it’s now worth more than $200,000.
The McLain House, located at 115 14th Street, was in desperate need of renovations and was largely forgotten despite its rich history.
As Sweeny wrote in his book of the same name website: “I wanted my neighbors to know that something different was starting to happen.”
The property had a wealth of history dating back to the late 19th century. Its namesake, Thomas McLain, moved to Wheeling with his parents when he was just two years old.
McLain’s father was a printer and editor of The Wheeling Argus, one of the city’s first newspapers, until his death in 1849.
His brother, Robert, opened the family’s first pharmacy six years later, and Thomas eventually joined him with his two other brothers. They all left the business in the early 1890s, around the same time the house of Number 115 14th Street was built.
McLain lived in the home for about 10 years while running his medical supply company and died at a different address. After a series of other residents passed through its doors over the next century, the house sat empty.
The house was on the block, rotting and forgotten, and was about to be demolished. But in 2013, Brian and Stephanie Wilson came along.
They began the restoration process, making extensive repairs to the basement and purchasing the abandoned lot next door.
The Wilsons owned the home until May 2020, when it was placed in Sweeny’s care. At just 26 years old, he closed on the property for $18,500 and, knowing the renovations would be expensive, took out a $100,000 construction loan.
“It’s a pretty unique house for its time,” Sweeny said. ‘I just haven’t seen many examples like this. And it was exciting enough that I didn’t really care what the condition was.”
At just 26 years old, Sweeny closed on the property for $18,500 and took out an additional $100,000 construction loan.
The consultant explained that her initial goal was simply to stabilize the house. “It was fun to dream about what it would be like the day I moved in. But for the first year, it was just about making sure it didn’t fall,” she said.
The first task was to protect the house from further water damage, which involved sealing openings and installing windows.
The house was appraised for $202,000 after initial repairs, meaning it could be worth even more when Sweeny finishes working on it.
At the time of purchase, Sweeny explained, his goal was simply to stabilize it.
“I knew exactly what I was getting into,” he said. “It was fun to dream about what it would be like the day I moved in. But for the first year, it was just about making sure it didn’t fall.”
And so began a laborious renovation process. The first order of business was to ensure the house didn’t take on any more water, which meant sealing up openings, adding gutters, and installing lots of windows.
‘Because the house was in quite critical condition. It was also pretty easy to determine the hierarchy of needs,” Sweeny said.
During that first year, he worked tirelessly to clean up the yard and remove moldy leaves and debris from the basement entrance. She removed the plaster and rotted boards from the walls throughout the house.
After initial repairs, the property was appraised for $202,000, a staggering jump from the $20,000 appraisal at the time of purchase. Once the renovations are fully completed, it could be worth even more.
But that reassessment was enough to encourage Sweeny to refinance the house. He used an extra loan to renovate the kitchen, agonizing over wallpaper and meticulously replacing the tin ceiling with the help of a metal artist who lived across the street.
The finished product was unveiled in a blog post in May 2023, to much fanfare. The house was photographed and included in the Cheap Old Houses guide published in October.
From 2020 to 2021, he removed drywall and rotted boards throughout the house.
One of their accomplishments was the addition of a cozy nook in the bedroom (pictured).
The 31-year-old used an extra loan to renovate the kitchen, poring over wallpaper samples and repairing the tin ceiling.
The finished kitchen was revealed in a May 2023 blog post on its eponymous website.
Sweeny still has big projects on the horizon, including one that carried over from the previous year: landscaping. This includes breathing new life into the vacant land that accompanied the property.
“Being able to incorporate that lot in a thoughtful way and make it look intentional and have outdoor space was really exciting to me,” Sweeny said, describing the process as “very uninviting infrastructure.”
“This year, the goal is to completely connect that side lot to my property and make the whole space look intentional and add historic gardens and things like that.”
There is also the matter of the third floor, which is largely intact, and an unfinished bedroom on the second floor that is used as a workshop.
“When you have a big old house, it’s hard to find places to store things,” Sweeny said with a laugh.
She is just one of many young Americans who are renovating their living spaces. A 2023 study of Today’s homeowner surveyed 1,000 people and found that 55 percent renovated some space in their homes in the past year.
The majority of renovators were Generation X or millennial homeowners, making up more than 55 percent of respondents.
Sweeny works full time as a consultant and maintains a contract with the Wheeling National Heritage Area, seeking to preserve and protect old houses like the McLain house.
Upcoming projects include beautifying the abandoned lot next door and finishing the largely intact third floor.
embarked on a backyard ‘mini renovation’ in summer 2021
The small house at the back of the property “required very little beyond a new coat of paint,” Sweeny wrote on his blog.
For Sweeny, the passion runs deep. He has degrees in art history and anthropology and began his career working in museums beforeEarn a master’s degree in historic preservation.
Today, she works full time as a consultant and maintains a contract with the Wheeling National Heritage Area.
“I always would have done this project, but one of the main reasons I’m willing to share it is simply because I think it’s very important to show the counternarrative of what small towns and post-industrial cities are like.” She explained.
‘You see all the pornography about poverty and dilapidated buildings in the mainstream media, and that’s not what’s happening in most of these communities.
‘There are certainly challenges, but there are a lot of people working very, very hard to keep their communities alive and historic preservation is a big part of that.
‘So for me, it’s a huge platform to show people that West Virginia is not what you think it is. Restoring a historic home is not necessarily what you think it is. You just have to have an open mind.’