Few people truly understand the frustrations you face in this unique real estate market. Many times it is impossible to sell home for what you owe because of the current market conditions. A SHORT SALE might be a solution!
WHY CONSIDER A SHORT SALE?
You may qualify for one or ALL of the items below:
Bank Programs that allow you to receive money at closing to help with your relocation. Who wouldn’t want a few thousand dollars? This money is paid to you directly!
No Cash at Closing –even if you sell for a lot less than you owe
No Cost – the Bank pays attorneys and realtor’s fees
No Deficiency Judgment– the Bank will forgive the balance of your mortgage if you sell it for less than you owe
Please contact me for a confidential call to understand how you can AVOID a foreclosure.
It is not too late!
Let’s sit down and discuss getting your home SOLD so you can get on with those plans you put on hold.
Governor Steve Beshear and the Kentucky Housing Corporation have announced an initiative to provide up to a $4,500 for a down payment and closing costs for first time home buyers who obtain a loan through the KY Housing Corporation. The program will be administered by the KY Housing Corporation and will begin on May 1, 2009 and run through November 30, 2009. The First Home Advantage Program offers a 10 year loan that defers payment with a zero percent interest rate until July 1, 2010. After the initial deferment period, the loan will fully amortize over ten years at the rate of 6 percent. If the borrower pays off the loan before July 1, 2010, KY Housing Corporation will forgive $300 of the principal balance (Office of Governor Steve Beshear).
Waverly Hills was built in the early 1900s and was a tuberculosis hospital. During this time the hospital was one of the most modern in the United States. Many people were cured but more than 63,000 people died there.
There was a body chute that was a tunnel that ran from the hospital down the hill. During the time of when so many people were dying each day from tuberculosis- the bodies were taken out through the tunnel as not to upset the remaining patients.
After closing in the 1960s rumors of ghost and strange sightings began to surface.
Plans for Waverly Hills Sanitarium
(from the Courier Journal)
The rooms may be standard, and the location is a bit out-of-the-way, but Charlie Mattingly thinks his planned hotel in southwest Jefferson County will have a unique draw:
It’s a creepy, old, five-story building with a morgue, a “body chute” and guest rooms where people once lay dying of tuberculosis.
Mattingly and his architect, Kevin Milburn of Urban Designz, are dead serious about turning the old Waverly Hills Sanatorium into a 78-room boutique hotel with a spa, fitness center and meeting space for business groups.
The former hospital off Dixie Highway already is a mecca for ghost hunters, who come by the thousands each year to search for paranormal activity. A film crew from the Travel Channel was there last month, and talk-show host Maury Povich sent a crew this week.
Its haunted history was the focus of a six-hour special on the Sci Fi Channel last fall, and the property regularly turns up on lists of the nation’s most haunted places. Web sites dedicated to the property feature photos of people who mysteriously appear in windows, and audio files of unexplained noises.
Mattingly, who bought the 30-acre property for $225,000 in 2001 with his wife, Tina, said preserving the site’s haunted character will be a key part of what he estimates will be an $18 million renovation. Project details were to be announced to local officials and the media at 4:30 p.m. today.
“My intent is for this to be first class all the way,” Mattingly said of the hotel, which he said could open in early 2010 — assuming financing is arranged.
Mattingly, who grew up in Shively and until recently worked at Ford Motor Co., said that banks “more or less laughed at me” when he first began applying for loans to renovate the property.
But after seven years of upgrades, historical research and architectural studies, he said conversations about financing now are under way with Porter Bancorp, StockYards Bank & Trust, Republic Bancorp and JP Morgan Chase, and he’s confident he’ll be able to start construction late this year.
Milburn said the project should qualify for federal tax credits because of its historical significance. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places, though it remains heavily damaged by years of vandalism and decay. Already, Mattingly has had dozens of windows replaced, rooftops and mortar repaired and ceilings insulated. And Milburn said they soon will select contractors to oversee further construction.
Chris Poynter, a spokesman for Louisville Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson, called the project “exciting for south Louisville and for the entire city.”
He’s a believer
Mattingly, 49, said he wasn’t a believer in Waverly Hills’ haunted reputation until he bought the place and began recording video inside. He said his films show streaks of light and glowing orbs at times when footage of the surrounding neighborhood was perfectly normal.
For the last year, the Mattinglys have lived on the property, where Tina Mattingly runs the nonprofit Waverly Hills Historical Society. The couple has relatives on both sides of the family who were treated for tuberculosis at the sanatorium.
The main hospital building, with 160,000 square feet, was built in 1926. It sits on a ridge just a few hundred yards from the bustling auto dealers, apartments and restaurants of Dixie Highway, but is shrouded in trees and dense undergrowth.
Signs posted at the entrances warn trespassers, and cameras mounted on the hospital’s exterior are there to catch would-be vandals.
The hotel plans call for a solar-powered electric system, floors made of sustainable materials such as cork or recycled rubber, and a geothermal heating and cooling system.
A parking structure would be built in front of the hospital, with a rooftop garden visible from the long concrete sun porches where patients once spent their days lying in bed. The infamous body chute is an underground steam tunnel that hospital officials used to remove bodies on gurneys, out of sight of the surviving patients.
About 3,000 people tour Waverly Hills annually, with most of them paying a $20 donation. Ghost hunters also can pay $100 each to roam the hallways all night in search of spooky noises and paranormal activity.
Jim Wood, president of the Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau, said ghost tours are a growing tourism draw, and he called Waverly Hills “an architectural wonder.”
But since haunted hotels cater to a niche market, Wood said Waverly Hills may need to attract a wider audience to be a viable business.
That’s the approach at The Lemp Mansion, a bed and breakfast in St. Louis in a home where three members of the Lemp family committed suicide between 1902 and 1949. About two-thirds of the mansion’s guests today come for the haunted history, but spokeswoman Mary Wolff said the property also holds wedding receptions, private parties and other events.
Read more about the ghost investigations at Waverly Hills
I thought I would share these photos with you. I found them in a photo album while going through some of my father’s belongings. I think some of the pictures were taken on River Road but not sure of the year or which flood this might have been. The boat in the second picture does look very old.
I wanted to share this book with you as it paints a very good picture of what Shippingport, Portland and Louisville was like in the early years. It also has some interesting photos.
A Memorial Building was designed by John Russell Pope for the birthplace site of Abraham Lincoln. In 1909 the cornerstone was laid by President Theodore Roosevelt and the building was dedicated in 1911 by William Howard Taft.
Almost a hundred years after Thomas Lincoln moved from Sinking Spring Farm, the log cabin was placed inside the Memorial Building. The Memorial Building features 16 windows, 16 rosettes on the ceiling, and 16 fence poles, representing Lincoln being the 16th president. There are 56 steps leading up to the building, representing his age at the time of his death.
Harrodsburg is one of Kentucky’s first permanent settlement. James Harrod, a Pennsylvanian, led 31 men into Kentucky in 1774. They traveled down the Ohio and Kentucky Rivers to present-day Mercer County. On June 16, 1774 they began constructing Harrodsburg.
Boonesborough was an early settlement, famous because of it’s well-known frontiersman Daniel Boone. Judge Daniel Henderson, who went against government orders to negotiate a piece Kentucky land from the Cherokees, founded the town. Because of his considerable knowledge of the area, Henderson employed Daniel Boone to guide a group of settlers. In March of 1775, Boone left Virginia for Kentucky with 35 men, his wife Susannah, and a slave woman. Boone led the company, and hunted for food along the way. Boone traveled through the Cumberland Gap and continued west, suffering attacks by Indians that took the lives of some of the men. Boone chose a site on the south bank of the Kentucky River to settle, and Henderson joined them soon after. Henderson was so pleased with Boone that he allotted him 5,000 acres and named the new settlement after him.
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