ANN ARBOR, MI - In Ann Arbor, a gutted home is listed for sale at $425,000.

Visitors to the chipped yellow-and-blue house at 717 W. Liberty St. will find doors and radiators stacked against the remnants of walls from at least the 1860s. A newer addition on the back, likely 100 years old, now sports peeling, patterned lime green and white wallpaper. Dust and dirt coat the floor.

The home has been vacant for 50 years and, though the city assessor’s records say it dates back to 1864, owner Michael Bielby says a newspaper found in the wall, along with dozens of shoes, shows it was built in 1858.

Buyers will need to invest at least half of a million dollars, on top of the buying price, to fix up and add onto the 1,052-square-foot Old West Side home, said Bielby, an Ann Arbor landlord who bought the historic Greek Revival in 2008.

Bielby says the price is right with the quarter-of-an-acre lot and central location - a 5- to 10-minute walk to downtown and a property line away from the Bach Elementary School playground.

A photo provided by landlord and developer Michael Bielby shows shoes found in the wall of a historic home up for sale at 717 W. Liberty St. in Ann Arbor. According to a report by the BBC, shoes were placed in walls to ward off evil. Bielby noted the number of shoes was unusual, however.

It’s one of the larger lots and has distance from neighbors, large walnut trees and a raspberry patch used for making pies, he said.

"The land and the location are what I think would be the big draw, but unfortunately the historic district is a huge obstacle," Bielby said. "It's difficult to replace even windows, much less the scope of work that would have to be done here. I mean, this is just a shell."

Ann Arbor Historic District Commission member John Beeson, who just completed his tenure as chairman, disagreed with Bielby’s assessment of the historic district and commission.

"We're not there to be an adversary," he said. "We're there to work with neighbors to make sure that the resource is being protected and they're getting what they want."

In September 2019, single-family homes were sold at $434,072 on average in Ann Arbor, according to the Ann Arbor Area Board of Realtors. Across the U.S., the average sales price for new single-family homes in September was $362,700 while the median was $299,400, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Pointing to his own purchase of 213 Beakes Street, Bielby said several homes outside the historic district with significantly smaller lots were recently bought between $300,000 - $400,000 with the intention of tearing the structures down. He argued his price for the property could be even higher if it wasn't in a historic district.

In the historic district, a finished 1,052-square-foot home, built in 1910 and situated just off Liberty on a lot 7,802-square-feet smaller than the gutted Liberty house was listed just below $425,000 on Wednesday, Oct. 30. Another nearby finished 1910 home, with 1,078 square feet of livable space and a 0.07-acre lot, is listed at $450,000.

Bielby, who already fixed-up and rented out the neighboring property, tried in 2014 to submit plans to the commission for an addition. He previously had aluminum awning, concrete block and a tree approved for removal, city records show.

Bielby envisioned turning the property into a duplex, using the original structure as a living room and building livable space into the ground and out to a carriage house, for which a portion of foundation remains.

It would've expanded the square footage by an estimated 1,635 square feet below the house and 716 square feet above grade, according to a staff report from the historic commission.

The staff report recommended the project be denied, saying the addition would expand the footprint 200% - 43% if the living space below the patio was not counted - and that a massive garage where the carriage house was and a patio wall would change the rear view of the historic space.

Beeson, who was a commissioner when the proposal was raised, said he was concerned about the view from Bach Elementary School. A hill, building into the ground and a living wall would have kept the historic vision intact, said Bielby.

The two disagreed on other concerns raised when the commission met five years ago, though Beeson said the passage of time might limit his memory.

Beeson said the historic district is a benefit to possible home buyers.

"You're buying in the historic district for a certain type of mindset and living," Beeson said. "You're trying to live in a smaller footprint, by and large trying to be downtown in walkable communities and the resources that are in the Old West Side particularly - they're not the 4,000-square-foot homes that people think they need. So, if you want that, don’t buy in the historic district."

Bielby said he’s had a number of people interested in the home, but no offers yet.