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ALLIANCE AREA PRESERVATION SOCIETY

E-mailed letter from Robb Hyde in lieu of March 26, 2001 Meeting

I am cancelling the meeting of the Haines House/Preservation Society scheduled for this coming Monday, March 26. We are still on hold as we wind through the legal issues surrounding the deed restrictions on the House.

In lieu of the meeting, I'd like to share an update of what's happen over the last few weeks and months. Some may be familiar with this information, while others may not, but I thought a recap is appropriate.

The last nine months have been a challenge trying to work with the Straubhauer family to come to an agreement to sell the House and contents. We faced frustration and obfuscation at almost every turn, but I believe our goal of transforming the Haines House into a rich community asset is still within reach.

We have received additional dollar commitments to our project, but we still have substantial fund raising to do. We will plan to meet as a group on Monday, April 23.

Robb

A Review - - - - - - -

In August of 2000, Attorney Robert Hunter, Jr. advised that we should find appraisers for the Haines House and the antiques so that we could determine a fair price for the Haines House. I made contact with Kathleen Wieschaus of Canton, who agreed to appraise the antiques and who suggested Mr. Tom Bair, of Hunter Realty in Canton to appraise the real estate. We learned that very few of the antiques were still on the premises of the Haines House and that we would need to visit the two locations in Ravenna, in addition to the House in order to see them all. We set up two appointments with Beth Straubhauer to view the antiques that she cancelled at the last minute but were finally able to set a date of Friday, September 29, 2000.

I was also able to set up a lunch appointment with Mrs. Straubhauer. On Monday, September 25, 2000 I had a lunch with Beth Straubhauer and her mother. During this meeting I asked if she had a selling price in mind, but she declined to give me one citing the pending court discussions. I asked if it were possible that in addition to meeting with appraisers, we could also have some of our Project/Preservation Society members an opportunity to go into the House. Mrs. Straubhauer invited anyone interested in seeing the inside of the House to meet on Saturday, September 30.

At the Friday, September 29, 2000 appraisers meeting, we were able to see all of the antiques that were at Mrs. Straubhauer's parents house or store in a nearby barn in Ravenna. There were several antiques which we were not able to see, some of which Mrs. Straubhauer indicated had been stolen from the House and at least one which she told us had never been in the House. We were able to see the rest of the antiques that were at the Haines House the next day.

Kevin Straubhauer showed about nine members of Project/Preservation Society and Ms. Wieschaus all areas of the Haines House on Saturday, September 30. He pointed out places were the House had been vandalized by intruders since they had moved out, as well as areas of the living room that Mr. & Mrs. Straubhauer had begun to strip of wallpaper and paint. The House continued to hold many personal items, books, contemporary furniture and the like of the Straubhauers that apparently had been left in place when they moved out of the House five years before. We were unable to get into the basement because the bottom four stairs had rotted away.

Early in November 2000, I had phone conversations with both Beth Straubhauer and Attorney Gardner indicating that because the Project/Preservation Society was an outside party to their court case, and that we wanted to buy house with all existing deed restrictions intact, we should go ahead and make an offer on the House and property.

I asked Attorney Gardner about a "ballpark number" and he suggested that they hoped to see $60,000 -$70,000. I told him that there was no way that we could offer that amount. I did suggest that something between $40,000 - 50,000 was more likely. He indicated that we should make our best offer. About this time, we also exchanged our appraisals. The appraisal by Dennis Eberhardt for the Straubhauers put a value of approximately $23,000 on the antiques.

At our monthly meeting of the Project/Preservation Society on Monday, November 27, 2000, the group voted to authorize me to make a $30,000 offer. The group discussed the overall state of the property and the appraisal of $9,000 from Kathleen Wieschaus. It was the strongly held position of many of the group that the property in the House actually had no value at all because they could never be sold without the House. While no one felt that the Straubhauers would accept a $30,000 offer, the consensus was that this was the right amount for an initial offer to begin a discussion about purchasing the House.

On December 11, 2000, I sent a letter (a Word file is attached) to the Straubhauers offering $30,000 for House and all property. In early January 2001, a phone call to me from Bob Hunter indicated that the Straubhauers did not receive the letter of December 11. A second letter was sent and one was faxed to Attorney Gardner.

A letter faxed to Bob Hunter from Attorney Gardner's office rejected the offer and offered to sell the House for $40,000 and the antiques for an additional sum based on the consensus of the appraisals done by Ms. Wieschaus & Mr. Eberhardt. It also stated that the Straubhauers would finance a purchase for 15 years.

Based on this response, further discussions were held among members of the Project/Preservation Society to make a formal second offer. I advocated an offer of $42,000 based on our belief that this was what we believed to be the amount owed on the mortgage, and this offer would give the Straubhauers the opportunity to get out from under their loan. This offer was approved at our monthly meeting. The group also believed that we needed to get the parties involved in the court action to finally determine the outstanding issue of whether the Straubhauers were able to sell the antiques separate from the House itself. We decided to stipulate that our offer would be good until February 15, 2001 at which time we would advocate a return to the Judge for a final hearing on this matter. The second offer letter dated January 23, 2001 was mailed to the Straubhauers and faxed to Attorney Gardner.

The response from Attorney Gardner to this offer was again a rejection but this time suggested that if no consensus could be reached on certain pieces, those would be auctioned and we could bid on them.

After a discussion with Attorney Gardner, the two parties remaining in the foreclosure proceeding, the Straubhauers and the Alliance Historical Society, agreed to ask the Judge to rule on the issue of the deed restrictions. A meeting was held in Judge Reinbold's chambers on Thursday, March 1. The Judge agreed to decide the matter and set a hearing date in his chambers for March 30. He asked for any motions by March 8th. Attorney Gardner files an 18-page motion. It's hard to summarize 18 pages of legalese, but quick summary is that the Alliance Historical Society and its stonewalling, obstructive behavior was the primary reason the Straubhauers had been unable to sell the House. They further suggested that the Historical Society had reneged on an agreement to buy the House over the course of the last eight months. Bob Hunter's 20-plus-page response clarified that the Alliance Historical Society had never wanted to buy the House, and that the Historical Society's only interest was to see that the House and antiques were maintained and sold together (once again, I've shortened dramatically). The Judge will meet with both attorneys on March 30th and Bob Hunter says that he should rule with two or three weeks.

© 2001 - Alliance Area Preservation Society. For additional information contact the webmaster at rhyde@neo.rr.com. All rights reserved. Substantial penalty for early withdrawal. Subject to availability. Your mileage may vary.

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