Free Victorian home being offered in Minnesota comes with a catch

JORDAN, Minn. - If you're looking for a new home within your price range, a Minnesota woman is giving away her historic four-bedroom house for free.

But as always, there's a catch.

The new homeowner will have to foot the bill on relocating the structure due to zoning issues, the current owner said.

“It’s gonna cost $50,000 to move it, and $150,000 to fix it up,” owner Barbara Kochlin told the New York Post. “So, I’m not giving away some hidden gem.”

Kochlin inherited the home from her grandmother, Gail Andersen, who had the house built in the early 1900s, according to the website. Andersen relocated the Victorian style home in 2002 to the side of the highway leading into the town of Jordan.

The house is located on the side of a winding road against a steep hill. It has no space for parking, which is problematic, because the home is zoned for commercial use and “must have ample parking,” according to the New York Post.

Kochlin said she has tried to fight the city’s stance on this, but without success.

Her grandmother was the town’s first female mayor and spent thousands of dollars to renovate it, although never had it connected to a water and sewage line.

“She was in her mid-80s when she moved this house and wasn’t thinking 100 percent logically at the time,” Kochlin, a property manager, told The Post.

As far as the design aesthetic inside the house, Kochlin said it comes “from an era when nobody had any taste” and it needs to be gutted.

“There’s a cork backsplash, orange countertops in the kitchen, and nobody wants that today,” she told the newspaper. “It’s pretty hodge-podgy, I’m not going to sugar coat it.”

According to a local newspaper, the Jordan City Council gave Kochlin three months to either sell, renovate, move or demolish the house. As a last ditch effort, Kochlin is now offering the house for free to someone who can pay to move it.

The now-vacant house sits on a historic brewery complex, also owned by Kochlin, the paper reports.

“It’s gotta be someone who loves old houses and wants to preserve something like this,” she told the New York Post.

Those interested can contact her at breeproperties@yahoo.com.

This story was reported from Los Angeles.