Nicole Curtis: It’s now easier to renovate in Detroit

Nicole Curtis, the Lake Orion native who’s the star of cable TV’s “Rehab Addict” home restoration show, has brought a national eye to the effort to preserve historic Detroit houses left abandoned amid the city’s decline.

She and her crew have a knack for making renovating older homes look quick and somewhat easy. But in reality, her Detroit projects have run into some snags, one in which the city says Curtis is to blame that has left one house unoccupied.

North Campbell

Her first Detroit home rehabilitation, in the 4000 block of North Campbell in southwest Detroit, was a two-story 1929 Tudor duplex that was partially burned and long abandoned. She bought it for $1 from the man who owned it and said she would invest $50,000-$60,000 to renovate it. The restoration aired on her show’s fourth season two years ago.

While the episodes indicated the house would eventually go on the market, city records show it’s not ready for sale.

While later news articles indicated work was completed on the house, it remains out of compliance and has no certification to occupy it, according to Detroit’s Building, Safety Engineering and Environmental Department.

Responding to a complaint, inspectors visited the home in July 2013 as Curtis was working to restore it.

“It was obvious that they were doing plumbing and electrical work without permits,” said David Bell, deputy director of Detroit’s Building, Safety Engineering and Environmental Department. “There should have been permits pulled for all work being done at the house, but they did not do that.”

Records show Curtis and her crew later pulled the permits for plumbing and electrical work, but they have yet to submit the work to a final inspection on those issues or others. And in April 2014, the city issued a stop-work order on roof repairs that had begun without a permit, records show.

Curtis didn’t directly address when the home inspections might be finalized or why permits weren’t pulled first; she said she wasn’t aware of the stop-work order for the roof repairs. She said she’s holding onto the home for now as a commitment to the neighborhood and regularly tends to its landscaping and other maintenance.

571 E. Grand Blvd.

Like others who’ve purchased homes through the Detroit Land Bank Authority, Curtis got most but not all of the required renovations done on time at 571 E. Grand Blvd., a stately 3,000-square-foot 1913 Tudor she purchased in June 2014 for $62,600.

Land Bank rules say home buyers have 30 days from the closing date to present plans to have restoration done within six months — nine months if the home is in a historic district — or risk forfeiting the home. The deadline passed for Curtis’ house, which is in a historic district, but she still has work to do: A segment of sewer pipe burst in the home, damaging a pantry she had already revamped.

Curtis said she has received an extension from the land bank and will have the pantry redone in time to put the house on the market next month.

Land bank spokesman Craig Fahle confirmed Curtis’ extension and said other land bank home buyers have struggled to find financing or available contractors to get the work done in timely fashion.

“We are committed to working with people to make sure they complete the renovations,” Fahle said. “Our No. 1 interest is to make sure these homes are occupied and up to code. When buyers are putting in a good-faith effort, we will always work with them to complete the renovations, and if that requires an extension, we are always willing to consider that.”

Mayor Mike Duggan concurred, saying that of the 443 homes sold and closed on through the land bank, only a handful have been forfeited back to the land bank, mostly because little work had been done.

“If you’re making good-faith effort and you’re making progress, nobody’s putting you out because you’re 75% of the way done,” Duggan said. “If there’s any reasonable basis to keep you in the house, we try to do it.”

Curtis said the process involved in dealing with city government has improved significantly since she bought the duplex on North Campbell in 2013.

“Three to four years ago, I was working with a city that had no rhyme or reason for how anything gets done,” she told the Free Press last week.

205 Alfred

The renovations to this historic Brush Park mansion have had issues as well.

The Free Press began inquiring about whether proper permits had been pulled before work began. Curtis said she was criticized in social media after the Free Press reported that work had begun on the Ransom-Gillis mansion.

But, in fact, the mistake wasn’t hers. The work is being handled by a group of developers led by Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock Development, which is also behind a $70-million project to build more than 300 new units of housing and retail in the area.

City officials said the Brush Park Development Co. started work to stabilize the Ransom-Gillis mansion — which will be renovated into a duplex — without pulling proper permits. A spokeswoman for Gilbert’s Rock Ventures said the developers have since sought permits from the city and work continues.

Curtis said her role on that project is as the watchdog, a consultant who will do her best to make sure the place is rebuilt in a way that reflects the pre-automobile era in which it was built.

“I’m there to preserve that home,” she said. “There wasn’t much of it left, but I’m doing my best to (restore) everything that it represented. It’s a whole different era of Detroit.”

Contact Matt Helms: 313-222-1450 or mhelms@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @matthelms.