We have received the inside working of the transaction from one of the activists who worked, with great dedication and in close cooperation with the local authorities, to save the house for posterity.
It has been sold by the composer’s heritage-proof grandson to a weekender couple who intend, it is understood, to knock it down and replace it with a customised modern dwelling for their leisure and opleasure. petition to persuade Mr Tyler to think again has gather close to 1,000 signatures. It appears that the vendor needed an instant cash deal.
Here are the grim details:
- About two weeks ago, the Charles Ives Society, the Town of Redding and the Redding Land Trust jointly offered US $1.32 million for the Ives House, which has been listed with real estate broker Paul Lutz of Coldwell Banker (Paul.Lutz@coldwellbankermoves.com) for an asking price of $1.5 million since sometime in 2011.
- The offer was rejected by Charles Ives Tyler, the owner of the Ives House (the composer’s grandson), which motivated the Ives Society buyers’ group to increase its offer to $1.52 million, $20,000 MORE than the asking price.
- This higher offer from the Ives Society was also rejected last week, with the broker informing them that Mr. Tyler had instead accepted a cash offer (i.e. no mortgage contingency) from a family who wants to use the residence as a weekend home.
- It is not clear how much the family has agreed to pay for the House, although we believe that one of the reasons Tyler (and the broker) preferred the private party transaction was that it could be consummated more quickly.
welcome to the USA. greed wins.
I have been acquainted with financial straits, though certainly not measured in 6-7 figures. I am also acquainted with familial posterity and responsibility. Perhaps Mr. Tyler should make the deal complete and change his first and middle names as well to something more fitting to his liking. Dollars, like a vase of flowers, is fleeting indeed. To think that the work space of a major 20th century musical and creative mind was left virtually untouched, and is now going to be gone is still unthinkable.
We had a similar issue out here in Oregon, too.
The well regarded American composer Ernest Bloch lived for years out on the Oregon Coast and his home also was lost to private hands. It’s sad to see these things happen.
http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/ernest_bloch_house/
Is it possible to have the state exercise eminent domain to protect such an essential portion of our nations cultural heritage?
Sickening. And I had not known that Bloch’s place on the Oregon coast was similarly lost.
But the Oregon Encyclopedia entry makes it clear that Bloch’s house, though no longer in private hands, has been treated with respect and safeguarded as a property of ‘national significance’.
Oops, right…I was going on inference and couldn’t follow the link due to time constraint. Hmm…I wonder if there is signage to indicate its significance and if it stands to point people to Bloch and his music.
You wonder what goes through the minds of a couple like the one you describe above. Have they ever heard of Ives? Probably not. Do they know about all the outcry that has surrounded this? They must. But they simply don’t care about anything beside their own narrow, narcissistic world-view.
I hope the news media is there to cover the house’s demolition if and when it happens. It stands as a cautionary tale about our nation’s cultural heritage.
All is not lost. The closing on the property has not yet taken place, and the citizens of Redding are becoming active. They don’t want to lose this priceless piece of Redding history, and they don’t want to be embarrassed in front of the whole world. Don’t count them out.
“My business is good for my music and my music is good for my business”
— Charles Ives
Here in Poland, Szymanowski’s little villa — Villa Atma — down in the mountains in Zakopane, is getting a new roof. And there’s not a lot of money around here, mostly.