A new bed and breakfast option is planned for Gainesville once renovations to the 135-year-old building are complete.
The McCreary House (815 E University Ave.) was purchased for $1 before being hoisted onto a truck and rolled several blocks east of downtown Gainesville in 1975. The plan was to renovate the historic house and reopen it. However, documents show that the costs exceeded expectations and, after some initial work, the building remained unfinished and unused for the last 50 years.
Fiances Steven Lara and Jianne Apostol bought the McCreary House and the adjacent vacant lot in August, and workers soon installed a new roof, gutted the interior and began repairing the facade under the supervision of the city's Historic Preservation Board.
The house had been vacant for longer than Lara was alive, and he said the condition was rough, particularly with a broken roof and badly moldy drywall. He said clearing the moldy drywall was the worst part of the project so far, but plans were moving forward as expected.
“I felt like I had the team to tackle this project, so I'm just super happy that everyone in the community is also excited that the issue is finally being fixed,” Lara said.
He said the overall structure of the house was in good condition. With the interior gutted down to the original beams and a brick fireplace, Lara focuses on securing the exterior before moving inside.
As a contributing structure to the Southeast Residential Historic District, Lara must initiate facade changes through the Gainesville Historic Preservation Board. The board is ensuring the renovation preserves the historic character, but Lara said some parts of the history are difficult to repeat.
The columns along the porch are decorative and not load-bearing. Lara said today no one sells identical-looking columns, which requires a much more expensive custom build or finding a column that is similar but not identical.
While the city government is only considering the exterior, Lara plans to showcase its historic roots inside the building with brass finishes and other historic features. The original wooden floor and wooden staircase remain.
Lara said he hopes to complete the renovations in January, but he knows that's an ambitious schedule. He said the work is progressing well despite the additional historical hurdles. His ultimate goal is to open the McCreary House as a four-unit bed and breakfast and build a new eight-unit guesthouse on the empty lot.
He also wants to add a cafe to allow the public, not just tenants, access to the site.
Lara worked in the local bed and breakfast scene before moving into real estate, managing several Airbnb properties. He said he was also overseeing construction further down the road on another property.
He sees the McCreary House as a larger version of what he did, with 12 units spread across the two buildings. Construction would not begin until the renovated McCreary House opens. A land use and zoning change is also underway.
Lara said he plans to call the business Hamilton Club.
The name comes from Henry Hamilton McCreary, who owned the house and served in the Florida legislature. Called “Mr. Mack” by Gainesville residents, McCreary worked in the newspaper business and merged two local newspapers – the Alachua Advocate and the Gainesville Daily Bee – to form the Gainesville Daily Sun, which he edited and owned for many years before selling it.
According to handwritten notes at the Matheson Library & Archives, the house is a mix of vernacular and Victorian Queen Anne architecture. When Alachua County purchased several blocks to build a new court and administrative building, the McCreary House was included and the county planned to demolish it.
But a group of preservationists intervened.
The plan was to move the house, renovate it for $100,000 and rent out the rooms. Eventually, the group planned to sell the building and recoup the costs through interest for investors.
Under the name Gainesville Historic Restoration Ltd. The first part of the group's plan, moving the house, took place in June 1975.
The Independent Florida Alligator published a photo of the truck loaded with the large, two-story home. “History on wheels” was the big headline. A headline followed that read, “Be careful folks, there's a piece of Gainesville history in the back of this truck.”
But instead of a full renovation, the group tried a different plan: a $50,000 renovation before renting space and using that income to complete the repairs.
Charles and Dolores Krausche were the main drivers of the project. They also purchased the Fowler House, which stood and still stands next to the McCreary House property.
In 1975, the Gainesville Daily Sun wrote about the young couple's ambitious plan.
“I don’t see what’s here… I see what it’s going to be,” Dolores Krausche said in the article, specifically about the Fowler House.
In a letter to investors in 1978, the Krausche couple said that renovation work was progressing slowly as interest increased in addition to principal payments. The couple said they believed in the project and offered to buy the share with interest to anyone who wanted to get out of the contract. However, the payment would be made from the Krusche's personal salaries and could not be made all at once.
“We had hoped at this time that we would be able to celebrate the successful completion of our restoration efforts,” the letter said. “The financial situation was so difficult that we were unable to make any visible construction progress this year.”
After that the property simply stood still. In 2003, the Gainesville Sun published another article answering a reader's question about what happened to the old house.
The answer at the time: nothing. But Lara hopes to welcome the public into the room soon.
