Couple Accidentally Buys 120-Year-Old Crumbling Mansion at Auction

By Amanda Thomason March 29, 2019 at 12:11pm

Many couples say they have a sense of adventure, and while that may be true, it certainly seems to be a relative term. Cal Hunter and Claire Segeren are adventurous by just about anyone’s definition.

“We’re a couple who are determined to make life an adventure,” they wrote on their website on Dec. 11.

“We met in the French Alps while on ski season, and over the past two years, we’ve road tripped and camped across Europe, found the freshest powder on breathtaking mountains during a second season together, and spent a summer living, camping and canoeing in Canada.”

Clearly bitten by the travel bug, the two have weathered many journeys together, and in 2018 decided to create a home base with their pup, Dexter. They went to an auction in Scotland to bid on an apartment, but had a bit of confusion regarding the number, and ended up with quite a different building.

“We went to Auction and, quite accidentally, ended up buying Jameswood Villa, a stone building from 1900, located in Sandbank, Dunoon,” they explained on their website.

“This small loch-side village is about an hour and a half west of Glasgow, nestled adjacent to the gorgeous Trossachs National Park.”

“To say we’ve taken on an enormous task is not an understatement. Jameswood Villa has been left empty for 20 years.

“Our roof has gaping holes that have left our timbers exposed and rotten after years of West-Scotland rain, and drainage issues left our land waterlogged, leading to serious structural problems caused by subsidence. The councillors and locals have advised us to knock it down and start over. What Have We Dunoon?”

The going has been slow. The first order of business was “simply” to clear the vegetation so they could get to the sorry house. Twenty years of abandonment gave the plants plenty of time to take over the property the two are now calling their “beautiful mistake.”

The house itself was falling apart, with rotting insulation, no electricity and plenty of trash. It took lots of help from friends and five trips to the dump with their Ford Transit to dispose of the rotting furniture and rusty appliances.

The couple now lives in a small camper trailer, which was a step up from the Ford Transit they were in before. But even though it has been a rough start, they are starting to see progress little by little.

“The first, and arguably, the best win we’ve had in the past week has been finding the cut electricity wire, that used to connect the property to mains electricity,” they wrote on their website on Feb. 18.

They’d been trying to locate the wire since November and would have had to shell out to get reconnected to the main line.

Their story has spread far and wide and they’ve gained plenty of supporters. The couple hopes to eventually get the derelict house into working order again, parcel it into three apartments and rent out two of those apartments to help with their costs.

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