Teri Lussier

Dayton Ohio’s Oregon District is arguably the most well-known historic district in the area. The combination of vibrant entertainment and restored historic homes gives many Dayton visitors a reason to be at least somewhat familiar with the area. If you’ve never had the opportunity to look inside one of these gorgeous homes, the Oregon District’s Holiday Candlelight Tour is your chance!

Each of Dayton’s historic districts has a unique flavor, and the Holiday Home Tours are no different. The Oregon District Holiday Tour, held on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Dec. 6, 7, 8 combines a home tour and a dinner at one of the Oregon Districts wonderful restaurants. *Please note, as of this writing, the dinner tours are full! But you can still participate in the home tours. Tour participants will gather at “The Meeting House” which is 23 Van Buren Street, and end with a dessert at one of the hosting homes. Tickets for the home tour only are $25.00, payable at the door. The tours will begin at 6:30 pm, 7:00 pm, 7:30 pm and 8:00 pm each evening. Call Eileen at 937-223-5607 for details and reservations.

Each home on the tour promises to give participants a unique glimpse of modern living in an historic setting at its finest. You visit the OD for fun and entertainment, now visit for the quieter side of life in Dayton’s oldest neighborhood, and first designated historic district.

Painting of Griswold Home by Loretta Puncer, used by permission of owner.

We continue our look at 2010 Holiday Home Tours of Dayton neighborhoods with Grafton Hill. Dayton’s best kept secret is going to open its doors to the public on Dec. 4 & 5, 2010. What’s on this tour? Seven architecturally significant historic homes including Queen Anne, Craftsman, and American Four-Square styles, in a variety of construction materials and stages of restoration. Expect this guided tour to take two to three hours, including a stop for assorted holiday food and beverages. Tours start at 5pm and 6pm Saturday, 2pm and 3pm Sunday.

From the Grafton Hill Association:

Tickets are $25 and may be purchased online by sending an email to [email protected], and following the PayPal links in the reply message. You can also pay by phone with a credit card by calling Saundra Altman at Past Patterns, 937-223-3722. Get your tickets now — they make a great early Christmas present for friends and family, too!

… Additionally, at least two Open Houses will be available just before or after the tour, at nearby homes for sale. More specific information on Open Houses and other homes for sale will be sent to ticket holders, and available in printed form during the tour.

All the homes are within a short distance of each other, so don’t worry, we won’t have you walking great distances. But with all the beautiful homes in our neighborhood decorated for the holidays, you might want to! If you do, you’ll find our map showing all the tour homes plus all those for sale to come in very handy.

…Grafton Hill was designated an historic district by the city of Dayton in 1988 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

You can friend Grafton Hill Historic District on Facebook!

As a disclosure, I’ll be hosting one of the Open Houses at a listing -please stop by to say Hello!  My personal experience with this district is that meeting the neighbors in the Grafton Hill community has been nothing but positive, and the Holiday Tour should provide a spectacular opportunity for a HouseNerd to enjoy the interiors of these remarkable homes.

Admit it: You sometimes drive out of your way to cruise Dayton’s historic neighborhoods, looking at beautiful homes and gardens, staring in awe at glorious testaments to workmanship the likes of which haven’t been seen in one hundred years. Yeah. Me too. No, we are not a crazy neighborhood creepers, we are HouseNerds and O’ Happy Day! It’s Historic District Holiday Tour time in Dayton and I’m giddy with excitement. Watch this space for the next few weeks as we bring you details of Holiday Tours in several of Dayton’s most beloved historic districts including McPherson Town, Grafton Hill, and the Oregon District. Today, we look at McPherson Town.

McPherson Town is called Dayton’s oldest suburb, located just north of the river, a small community featuring Eastlake and Queen Anne style homes that is tucked just to the west of N. Main St. I spoke with neighborhood resident and Holiday Tour contact person, Rick, about the tour and what he loved about McPherson Town. A resident for two years, Rick said he liked the location “It’s within walking distance to all the cultural venues in Dayton,” but more than that, Rick described the “closeness of the community. We have an active community life with a neighborhood cookout in the summer, monthly dining-out get togethers, and community gardening. It’s really a wonderful place, and I couldn’t ask for more from a neighborhood.”

Curious to find out more about this community and the beautiful homes? The McPherson Town Holiday Tour will be held Thanksgiving weekend on the evenings of Friday November 26th & Saturday November 27th, 2010. This is a guided tour of 10 homes, some have been opened during past tours but Rick told me that there will be a variety of home styles, ages, and sizes, and homes in various stages of repair or disrepair, including an infill house. One of the more interesting homes on the tour is one that was once a complete rehab and made the cover of “Country Living” magazine. After that it was sold, fell into disrepair, and is now being rehabbed again.

Between 500-600 guests are expected, and the tours are guided and scheduled by reservation. Reservations can be paid for in advance for best pricing. Reservations are just $12 in advance and $15 at the door. What a great way to share the beauty of Dayton’s Historic Gems with visiting friends, family, and loved ones who share your HouseNerd passion, contact either Rick or Nelson at 937-938-7176 for details, or sign up online here.

And be sure to share your post (or past) tour thoughts in the comments below.

Photo: Courtesy of McPherson Town Historic District, used with permission.

Frank Coleman wrote an interesting post about some of Dayton’s more famous haunted spaces. As the resident Realtor at DaytonMostMetro.com, I thought I’d take this Halloween Sunday to talk about how haunted or otherwise stigmatized properties might affect property values. But first, a disclaimer: I am not an attorney. I do not play one on TV. This is not intended as legal advice. If you are purchasing or selling a property that has any stigma attached, or have any questions about legal implications of stigmatized property, please consult an attorney for legal advice. I now return you to your regularly scheduled post.

Let’s say you just moved into town, bought a house at a fair market value- that is, it’s not a foreclosure or otherwise discounted price- you paid a fair price for a property you love. You’ve moved in, you are settling in, and one day a neighbor tentatively knocks on your day to say hello and introduce themselves. The conversation naturally turns to your new home and your neighbor shakes their head sadly and says, “It’s so horrible what happened here.” You say…”Huh?” The neighbor explains, “Yeah! Six months ago there was a murder/suicide in the master bedroom. Didn’t you know?”

So you don’t believe in ghosts, poltergeists, spirits, etc, and that’s fine. But. Same thing: You just moved into town, bought a house, blahblahblah, one day your new neighbor excitedly pipes up, “What’s it like to live in a haunted house!?!?” Say what? Congratulations. You are the proud owner of a stigmatized property. Would you want to know before you bought the home? Do you have a right to know? Is the seller legally or ethically obligated to disclose any death that occurred in this home? And what is the statute of limitations for such disclosure?

I was helping a family transfer from California to Wright-Patterson Air Force base. The husband was here, the wife and kids were still in California. One Saturday morning as we were driving to see a home, the husband got a call from his wife, “I have a weird feeling about this home,” she said. “Find out if there’s been a death there.” I had to clarify her concerns. “Any death or a violent death?” I think we can assume that most historic homes have had a death occur in them. People used to die at home, the body would have been prepared in the home, the wake was held in the parlor. To most people, that’s a completely different issue from a violent death.

Violent deaths might attach an emotional or psychological stigma to a property and might impact the perceived value of a property. Again, if this is a concern to you, express this to your Realtor, ask the sellers to disclose any known deaths, and research the property history using internet searches, county auditor websites, and other means, including talking to the neighbors.

When you list a property for sale in the Dayton Area Board of Realtors MLS system, you fill out a Property Disclosure form that discloses material defects of which the sellers are aware. Plumbing issues, roof leaks, foundation problems, etc. There isn’t a “check one, Yes or No” for ghosts or strange unexplained occurrances- these are not material defects, so what would you do if you are selling a home that has what your family jokingly refers to as a ghost, living in it? What about a violent death?

The laws vary from state to state, and from case to case– and again, this is not intended as legal advice, I am not a lawyer- but laws are beginning to lean on seller’s responsibility to disclose. In other words, who knew of the facts, and who has the money? Speak with a lawyer about your responsibility to disclose anything that might affect the value of your property, but as a general rule of thumb, if you know something about the property that might affect a buyer’s decision to purchase, err on the side of disclosure. And Happy Dios de los Muertos, Dayton!

Photo credit: Emma, used with permission.

The area just north of Grafton Hill is another historic Dayton neighborhood called Five Oaks.  Each historic neighborhood in Dayton has its own vibe and to me, Five Oaks is one of the more difficult to get a handle on. Maybe that’s because there are several historic sub-districts within FO, or perhaps the gated streets, while creating “defensible space” throughout the neighborhood, also make it difficult for non-residents to casually wander through, but I’m told these gates do indeed serve their intended purpose of creating a strong sense of community and neighborhood ownership for the residents. This summer that sense of community was increased by one garden plot.

We know there are vacant lots all over the city of Dayton, and we know these lots can be purchased on the cheap. Often this conversation ends with a shrug: “So what? What is the value of one empty lot in Dayton OH?” It’s sad that when real estate is abundant, we devalue it instead of seeing the smaller ways we can make big improvements to our life. Okay fine. One vacant lot might mean nothing to anyone else, but one vacant lot on Manhattan Ave. in Five Oaks  has brought neighbors together in unforeseen ways.

Manhattan Ave has had a few Dayton tear downs. These vacant lots become weed infested, trash-collectors; eyesores that have to be maintained somehow. Typically, this falls on the neighbors to do the day-to-day or weekly maintenance, because as we know, the City of Dayton cannot keep up with these lots. The one thing all historic district residents share regardless of neighborhood, is a propensity towards DIY solutions to neighborhood problems. Finding a productive use for an empty lot is hardly a major problem to a neighborhood who argued for gated streets, and so, a little neighborhood garden was born.

The Five Rivers Metro Parks Grow With Your Neighbors Project pitched in with advice- lasagna gardening to get the thing up and going asap. One neighboring homeowner was persuaded to redirect his rain water downspout into a collection barrel to save watering. Discarded and re-purposed materials like bureau drawers were utilized throughout this little patchwork plot, but the real magic was in how this one lot became a gathering place throughout the summer, as neighbors began to connect with each other.

Neighbors know each other in Five Oaks, or, if you don’t know your neighbors, it’s a good bet they know you. They also know who lived in the home before you moved in, and probably the people before that. The homes have long and storied histories and this community garden allowed the residents to share their own stories with each other, adding to the history here.

I talked about how easy it is to create capital in Dayton. Can you see how that is happening at this garden? There is, at the time of this writing, a large concentration of families in Five Oaks and kids take to gardening like ducks to water so having families involved in the garden was a natural thing. People who only knew of each other, neighbors who may have only nodded politely to each other in passing, were now putting shoulder to shoulder to share skills and materials- this is social capital. As one long-time resident, Jim, told me  “people who didn’t know each other, now know each other well. That’s what a neighborhood should be.”  This is how families put down roots and grow a support network. Neighborhood support is vital to healthy neighborhoods and crucial for creating strong cities. With Lots Links and Grow With Your Neighbors, this social capital can be created for a song! Impossible in many parts of the country.

Manhattan Ave had their Harvest Party last weekend. About 20-30 people attended.  Twenty to thirty people sharing the bounty from one lot? Obvious to the neighbors in Five Oaks, this type of micro-development offers some serious potential to create all kinds of good- a strengthened neighborhood, new friends, better support systems created- in addition to fresh food in a part of Dayton where grocers are scarce. Jim said there is a change in the neighborhood, “People are deciding to stay put. They are choosing to make the best of this situation.” I feel this change as well throughout the area, but it’s more acute in the city of Dayton. In Five Oaks, as in Dayton OH, you really can change the world, one vacant lot at a time.

Photo credits: TLussier