A new bed and breakfast option is planned for Gainesville once renovations are finished on the 135-year-old building.  

The McCreary House (815 E University Ave.) was bought for $1 before being hoisted onto a truck in 1975 and rolled several blocks east of downtown Gainesville. The plan was to renovate and reopen the historic home. But documents show the costs exceeded expectations, and after some initial work, the building remained unfinished and unused for the past 50 years.  

Steven Lara and Jianne Apostol, fiancés, purchased the McCreary House and the adjacent empty lot in August, and workers soon installed a new roof, gutted the interior and started fixing the facade with oversight from the city’s Historic Preservation Board.  

The house sat empty for longer than Lara has been alive, and he said the condition was rough, especially with a failing roof and severely moldy drywall. He said clearing the moldy drywall was the worst part of the project so far, but the plans continue as expected. 

“I felt like I had the team to take this project on, so I’m just super happy that everyone’s also thrilled within the community that this is finally getting fixed,” Lara said. 

He said the overall structure of the house was in good shape. With the inside gutted back to original beams and a brick fireplace, Lara is focusing on securing the exterior before moving inside. 

As a contributing structure to the Southeast Residential Historic District, Lara needs to route facade changes through the Gainesville Historic Preservation Board. The board ensures the renovation keeps the historical character, but Lara said some parts of history are hard to repeat.  

The columns along the porch are decorative and not load-bearing. Lara said no one sells the same-looking columns today, requiring a much more expensive custom job or finding a column that is similar but not identical.  

While the city board only considers the exterior, Lara said he plans to have the building’s interior showcase its historic roots as well, with brass finishes and other period features. The original wooden floor will stay, along with the wooden staircase.  

Lara said he hopes to finish the renovations in January, but he knows that’s an ambitious timeline. He said the work is moving well, even with the extra historical hurdles. His ultimate goal is to open the McCreary House as a four-unit bed and breakfast and to build a new lodging house with eight units on the empty lot.  

He also wants to incorporate a cafe to allow the public, and not just lodgers, onto the grounds. 

Lara worked in the local bed and breakfast scene before turning to real estate and managing several Airbnb properties. He said he’s also overseeing construction down the street on a different property.  

He views the McCreary House as a larger version of what he’s been doing, with 12 units spread between the two buildings. The new building wouldn’t be started until after the renovated McCreary House opens. A land use and zoning change is also in progress.  

 Lara said he plans to call the business the Hamilton Club.  

The name comes from Henry Hamilton McCreary, who owned the home and served in the Florida Legislature. Called Mr. Mack by Gainesville residents, McCreary worked in the newspaper business and merged two local papers—the Alachua Advocate and the Gainesville Daily Bee—to create the Gainesville Daily Sun, which he edited and owned for many years before selling.   

According to handwritten notes in the Matheson Library & Archives, the home is a blend of vernacular and Queen Anne Victorian architecture. When Alachua County bought several blocks to build a new courthouse and administration building, the McCreary House was included, and the county planned to tear it down.  

But a group of preservationists stepped in.  

The plan was to move the house, renovate it for $100,000 and rent the rooms. Eventually, the group planned to sell the building and recoup their costs with interest for the investors.  

Called Gainesville Historic Restoration Ltd., the first part of the group’s plan, moving the house, happened in June 1975.  

The Independent Florida Alligator ran a photo of the truck burdened with the big, two-story home. “History on wheels,” the big headline said. A caption followed saying, “Careful, fellas, there’s a chunk of Gainesville history on the back of that truck.” 

But instead of a full renovation, the group tried another plan: to renovate for $50,000 before renting rooms and using that income to finish repairs.  

Charles and Dolores Krausche were the primary drivers of the project. They also purchased the Fowler House, which sat and still sits next to the McCreary House lot.  

In 1975, the Gainesville Sun wrote about the ambitious plan of the young couple.  

“I don’t see what’s here….I see what it’s going to be,” Dolores Krausche said in the article about the Fowler House in particular. 

In a 1978 letter to the investors, the Krausche couple said that renovations were moving slowly as interest increased on top of principal payments. The couple said they believed in the project and offered to buy anyone’s share, with interest, who wanted out of the contract. But the payout would come from the Krausche’s personal salaries and couldn’t all be done at once. 

“We had hoped, by this time, that we would be able to share in celebrating the successful completion of our restoration effort,” the letter read. “The financial situation has been so difficult that we have not been able to make any visible construction progress this year.”   

After that, the property simply sat. In 2003, the Gainesville Sun followed up with another piece, answering a reader’s question about what was happening with the old house.  

The answer at the time: nothing. But before long, Lara hopes to welcome the public into the space.