Jake Butcher Mansion: The 2nd Condo Conversion

This is the north wing of the Jake Butcher Mansion. If you're standing at the Marina looking up the hill, if you could see past the house built in front of it, and the trees behind that house, the left side of the Mansion is the north wing.

The north wing was Jake's office. It held the ball room, the conference room, 2 offices, a reception area and Jake's secretary's office. From Jake's private office there was a spiral staircase leading to a second floor which opened to a bedroom and a balcony with a large jacuzzi tub. If you read the book, Whirlwind: The Butcher Banking Scandal by Sandra Lea, there was some scandalous stuff going on in that office suite.

Mmm-hmmm.

Just off the conference room was the helicopter pad. Jake used to fly to Knoxville via helicopter. And the dignitaries the Butcher's would entertain would fly right up to the house. There was also an airstrip closer to the river, but that's gone. There was some gossip flying around about that airstrip, but you'd have to read Sandra Lea's book to learn more.

It's scan-da-louuuus!

This is the condo the realtor had us enter when we went to look at the home. There's a covered porch at this entrance and you can smell the mold and mildew as soon as the door opens. The smell is overwhelming.

The room opens into a breakfast area in a dated kitchen. The appliances are old, the flooring is 6" tile, the backsplash is 4" square tile, the countertops, as I recall, are either a solid surface Corian or formica. There's a florescent light over the sink. Wallpaper galore. And there's really no natural light in the room. It's depressing. Not the kind of place you'd expect friends and family to gather.

Off the kitchen to the right, are 3 bedrooms,
the smell of mold gets increasingly worse as you approach these bedrooms. The mold is in the walls, it's behind the wall paper, it's in the garage, it's everywhere. And it's enough of a smell that you have to cover your nose and mouth as you tour the home. It's bad.

The bedrooms are dark, the wall paper is dark, the heavy shades and shutters make it even darker and the trees looming over the house make it gloomy. Because this condo is North facing, you're not getting a whole lot of light. But you could remove the heaviness of the drapes and the blinds and really brighten up the space.

Again, the wallpaper is an issue. It's everywhere in this unit and mold grows behind it. The paper peels back in some areas and you can see it. You can even see the mold bleeding through in some areas.

Unfortunately, this whole side of the house would have to be gutted. And you'd need to have hazmat professionals handling the work.

Once mold is disturbed, it gets airborne. If there is any toxic mold in the house, it will attract the airborne mold and feed off it, developing into a really bad situation within hours.

More pictures of this particular condo to come...