Single Mom Bought an Abandoned Hotel for $5000 — What She Found in the Penthouse Was Worth $180M…!
Claire Donovan didn’t notice what the rest of the town saw when she first passed the former Riverside Grand Hotel.
Most residents of Dayton, Ohio, saw it as a ruin with ivy growing over its faded white exterior, shattered windows, and a drooping roof.
After a kitchen fire and several subsequent bankruptcies, it has been closed for more than 20 years.
However, thirty-eight-year-old Claire, a single mother who works two jobs, recognized potential.
She had been raising her eight-year-old son, Mason, in a small two-bedroom apartment since her divorce three years prior, living money to paycheck.
She was browsing the listings late at night when the county declared that a number of abandoned properties will be put up for auction to collect unpaid taxes.
The majority of the houses were still far out of her financial range.
The Riverside Grand Hotel, however, caught her attention.
$5,000 is the starting offer.
A whole hotel for less than the cost of a used car seems ridiculous.
Claire did her homework.
The plumbing and electrical systems were antiquated, the house was condemned, and it was covered in mold.
She wouldn’t have the money to restore it.
Nevertheless, she had a gut feeling that the risk was worthwhile.
She raised her paddle on the day of the auction, her hands trembling and Mason by her side.
Nobody else placed a bid.
The gavel dropped.
She now owned a twenty-four-room hotel that had been abandoned.
She was both proud and afraid when she first unlocked the rusted front doors.
The lobby had a mildew and wet wood odor, yet the marble floors showed through the dirt.
The grand staircase curled gracefully toward the second story despite being covered in dust.
Claire pictured weddings there in the past, with jazz resonating in the ballroom and passengers arriving with bulky leather bags.
But soon, reality hit in.
To collect rainwater from the leaky roof, buckets were placed around the corridors.
Several rooms featured rubbish and graffiti from squatters.
As if sensing her mixture of fear and resolve, Mason wrinkled his nose but tightened his grip on her palm.
The locked entrance to the penthouse suite was then discovered as they made their way through the upper stories.
The hinges were rusted shut, and the key did not fit.
Claire hesitated for some reason.
She promised herself that she would go back to it later, when she was braver and had the means to pry it open.
For the moment, she concentrated on the magnitude of her task.
She didn’t know it yet, but that door contained the secret that would transform their lives forever.
Owning the hotel was one thing.
Fixing it was another.
After paying the auction costs and basic inspections, Claire’s savings were nearly depleted.
Each contractor she contacted provided her with outrageous estimates, requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars to restore the building to livable conditions.
She suffered for weeks as a result of her choice.
Her friends referred to her as insane.
Her sister even advised her to sell the property for scrap in order to cut her losses.
Claire, however, wasn’t prepared to quit up.
She squeezed in hours at the hotel whenever she could, working mornings as a clerk at the county office and nights as a waitress.
Mason assisted, playing the experience like a game and sweeping garbage into trash bags.
Gradually, progress was made.
Curious by her audacious purchase, community volunteers started dropping by.
An elderly carpenter volunteered to fix several windows at no cost.
She was guided through the process of rewiring a small portion of the foyer by a retired electrician.
One Saturday, even the young group from the local church arrived with paint rollers.
Although it was insufficient to repair the entire hotel, it preserved her dream.
But she kept thinking about that penthouse door.
The lock would not budge, even after she tried many keys and even borrowed bolt cutters from a neighbor.
She eventually borrowed a crowbar and used it to pry it open one rainy evening.
The door swung inward, the hinges groaning.
In contrast to the rest of the building, the room seemed surprisingly undisturbed despite being dusty.
The furniture was still in place, albeit covered with sheets, and the lofty windows were still draped with heavy velvet curtains.
Mason ran to where a big trunk was sitting in the far corner.
“Look, Mom!” he yelled out.
The trunk, secured with an iron clasp, was heavy.
As Claire forced it open, her heart raced.
She didn’t discover any lost clothing or moldy bedding within.
Rather, she discovered a number of meticulously labeled boxes, tubes of rolled canvas, and a collection of leather-bound portfolios.
She froze as she saw the name on the first folder: “E. Sargent.”
Although she didn’t recognize it right away, the sketches within were beautiful and included landscapes, portraits, and ink and charcoal studies of individuals.
Mason picked up one coiled canvas and opened it to see a picture of a busy city street from the 1920s that was bright even in the dust.
Claire gasped.
These decorations weren’t from a motel.
They were artistic creations.
She felt they were extremely valuable, even if she didn’t yet know whose hands had made them.
What she had discovered was a secret archive, not simply an old trunk.
Claire took the portfolios home throughout the course of the following week, spending the evenings after Mason had gone to sleep investigating names and signatures.
She was astounded when she entered “E. Sargent paintings” into the search bar.
One of the most well-known American artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was John Singer Sargent.
At auction, his pieces brought in millions of dollars.
Is it possible that these pieces are authentic?
She downplayed the finding as “a few old paintings” discovered in an abandoned building and called an art appraiser in Columbus.
Richard Levine, a careful appraiser, consented to come.
His look changed from one of interest to one of disbelief as soon as he opened the first painting.
“These are authentics,” he muttered.
“Unrecorded works.” This is just remarkable.
Richard cataloged the pieces for three days, getting more and more excited with every portfolio.
There were more than a hundred sketches and forty-six paintings, all of which had never been exhibited to the general public.
He surmised that they might have been concealed by a wealthy collector who passed away without leaving any descendants, and that they had been kept at the hotel for decades.
They had stayed hidden on the penthouse, forgotten as the structure deteriorated around them, for reasons that history has forgotten.
Claire almost passed out at the last valuation.
The estimated value of the collection was $180 million.
News got around fast.
Art institutions fought for the opportunity to display the pieces, and reporters crowded the hotel.
Overwhelmed, Claire turned to Richard and a lawyer he suggested to help her through the chaos.
Museums in New York, Los Angeles, and even abroad made offers.
Claire, however, stayed anchored throughout.
She had battled for years to give Mason security, barely making ends meet and holding out hope for more.
She promised to make good use of her newfound wealth.
She established a trust to ensure Mason’s future while agreeing to lend the majority of the collection to prominent museums for public viewing.
A portion of the revenues was used to rebuild the hotel, which was formerly a dilapidated artifact.
Five years later, the Riverside Grand reopened as a boutique hotel and a cultural icon, with art exhibits and galas held in its ballroom.
Claire was praised as a visionary by the locals, who had previously referred to her as reckless.
On opening night, Claire clutched Mason’s hand while flashbulbs popped in the refurbished lobby.
Fearful but hopeful, she recalled the moment she lifted her paddle at the auction.
She had acquired a wreck for five thousand dollars.
Inside, she discovered not just $180 million worth of art, but also a future she had never dared to dream about.
