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An abandoned hospital in a tiny Northern California town is currently on life support. And a buyer will need much more than a scalpel to bring it back to life.
Located on Elm Street off the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway in Westwood, CA, the hospital was built in 1914 and operated until it was abandoned in 1972, when the last doctor retired.
For the $175,000 list price, a buyer would acquire 14,509 square feet of space on 0.69 acres.
“It’s definitely a fixer and is in rough shape,” says Elizabeth Bill, the co-listing agent along with Cory Meyer. “There is a lot of debris.”
But Bill says you can feel what the former hospital was like and how it could be made grand again. The current owners had planned to turn the place into a resort, but those plans fell through.
“It’s an incredible building, and it’s a shame it is in such disrepair,” she says. The structure is built of cedar and features a number of interesting architectural details. Bill compares it to “stepping back to the past.”
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All of the mechanicals, the plumbing, electrical, and the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, will need to be replaced. There’s a large kitchen area with cabinetry and shelving and plenty of spaces that could serve as bedrooms and family rooms.
“The buyer will be somebody with some ambition and imagination. Somebody who’s got a passion for restoring old historic buildings—or bringing life back into buildings that were amazing—would be ideal,” Bill says. “Somebody with some passion for the history of hospitals and maybe just an imaginative person who has some great business ideas and wants to invest in the community.”
Bill says there may be funding available, especially for the restoration of old hospitals.
“It’s definitely going take somebody who has some insight and getting some funding for it, because it’s a big building. It’s obviously in disrepair, but if you get that funding and get it restored, it’s got a ton of potential.”
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Despite its dilapidated state, Bill says it’s possible to see what the structure could become.
“It’s pretty breathtaking when you walk in. There’s a big open space there. The condition of it is obviously a little bit shocking, but also just the grandness of it when you drive or walk up to it,” she says.
Bill says you can see the window to what used to be the baby nursery, where family members would get their first glimpses of newborn babies.
“It really is like stepping back in time when you walk in there,” she says, noting how it was once a crucial part of the community.
The Red River Logging Company built the hospital as part of the company town and sawmill it operated in Westwood. Published reports say the company needed a place for its physician, Fred J. Davis, to provide medical care, so a 20-bed hospital was built and expanded to 100 beds in the 1920s.
There’s an apartment on the third floor where the doctors used to live.
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The forlorn hospital sits close to a local landmark—a massive statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Blue Ox.
Westwood, in Lassen County, was a bustling logging town when an advertising campaign that featured Bunyan began in the 1910s and noted that jobs were available for lumberjacks.
On the 75th anniversary of the town’s founding in July 1988, Westwood dedicated a huge statue carved from a 22-foot redwood log. It was 12 feet wide and weighed 28,000 pounds. It’s now a popular roadside attraction about a half-mile from the hospital.
The hospital building sits in a residential neighborhood and is zoned for mixed use. Bill says it would make a great resort, because of the lakes and other recreational areas in Lassen and surrounding counties.
“It’s such a neat building. It’s a neat town. It’s a piece of American history that has just kind of been forgotten,” she says. “It would be really neat to see it restored to its former glory and have some sort of contribution to the area.”
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The post Former Hospital in California Looking for a Buyer With Resuscitation Skills appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.
source https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/california-hospital-needs-buyer-with-resuscitation-skills/
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