For $5,000, a single mother acquired a motel that had been empty for a long time. The penthouse had something worth $180 million.
When Claire Donovan first drove by the old Riverside Grand Hotel, she didn’t see what everyone else in town did. The place was a mess for most folks in Dayton, Ohio. The roof collapsed in some places, the windows were broken, and ivy grew over the white walls that were starting to fade. Since a fire in the kitchen and a string of bankruptcies, it has been shuttered for more than twenty years. Claire, a 38-year-old single mother who worked two jobs, still had hope.
She has been living paycheck to paycheck with her eight-year-old son Mason in a cramped two-bedroom apartment since her divorce three years ago. She started going through the postings late at night when the county stated that many properties that had been neglected would be liquidated at auction for unpaid taxes. She still couldn’t afford most of the houses. But then she saw it: the Riverside Grand Hotel. The first offer is for $5,000.
It seemed absurd that an entire hotel could cost less than a used car. Claire did some research. The place was condemned because it had a lot of mold and the plumbing and electrical systems were obsolete. She didn’t have the cash to fix it. But a voice inside her persuaded her it was worth the risk. On the day of the auction, she lifted her paddle with Mason by her side and shook hands. There were no other bids. The gavel hit the table. She now owned a motel with twenty-four rooms that had fallen into disrepair.
She felt proud and afraid when she first unlocked the rusted front doors. The lobby smelled like mold and wet wood, but you could see the marble floors through the filth. The grand staircase curled nicely up to the second story, even though it was covered with dust. Claire thought about the weddings that had happened there, the jazz music that was playing in the ballroom, and the visitors who were checking in with enormous leather bags.
But the truth hit quickly. There were buckets in the halls to catch rainwater that dripped from the roof. There were some rooms with graffiti and trash left by squatters. Mason scrunched up his nose but grabbed her hand tighter, as if he could feel how scared and determined she was.
They found the penthouse suite’s closed door as they checked around the top floors. The hinges were rusty, and the key didn’t work. Claire halted for a time because of something. She told herself she would come back to it later, when she was stronger and had the necessary tools to open it. She thought about how large the job she had taken on was for now. She didn’t know it yet, but that door held the key that would change their lives forever.
It was one thing to have the hotel. Fixing it was a whole other affair. After paying for the auction and basic inspections, Claire’s savings were almost gone. Every contractor she talked to gave her outrageous figures, saying it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars only to make the building safe to live in again.
She thought her choice was too much for her to take for weeks. People who knew her thought she was out of her mind. Her sister encouraged her to give up and sell the house for parts. Claire, on the other hand, wasn’t ready to give up. At night, she worked as a waitress, and in the morning, she worked as a clerk at the county office. She also worked at the hotel whenever she could. Mason helped by cleaning up trash and acting like the trip was a game.
Things got better bit by little. People from the area who were curious about her big purchase began to stop by. A carpenter who was no longer working stated he would fix some windows for free. A retired electrician showed her how to rewire a small area of the foyer. On a Saturday, even the church’s youth group came with paint rollers. It didn’t fix the whole hotel, but it kept her hopes up.
That door to the penthouse still made her uneasy. She tried a lot of keys and even borrowed bolt cutters from a neighbor, but the lock wouldn’t budge. Finally, on a rainy night, she took a crowbar and busted it open. When the door opened, it creaked.
The room was dusty, but it was cleaner than most of the other rooms in the building. The big windows still had heavy velvet curtains hanging from them, and the furniture was still there, though it was covered in sheets. Mason raced to the furthest corner, where there was a large trunk. “Look, Mom!” he yelled.
The trunk was heavy and had a lock made of iron on it. Claire’s heart raced as she pushed it open. There were no clothes or linens that had been left behind that were moldy. She didn’t find what she was looking for, though. Instead, she found a stack of leather-bound portfolios, rolled-up tubes of canvas, and a few crates with clear labels on them. She stopped in her steps when she saw the name “E. Sargent” on the first folder.
At first, she didn’t know what it was, but the drawings inside were exquisite. They were charcoal and ink drawings of people, landscapes, and portraits. Mason opened up a rolled-up canvas to expose a painting of a busy street in a city in the 1920s. Even though it was covered with dust, the picture was still vivid. Claire’s breath caught. These weren’t decorations for the hotel. They were works of art.
She didn’t know who had produced them yet, but she could tell they were worth a lot. What she found wasn’t just an old trunk; it was a hidden file cabinet.
Claire brought the portfolios home and looked up names and signatures at night after Mason went to bed for the following week. When she typed in “E. Sargent paintings,” her jaw fell. One of the most well-known American artists from the late 1800s to the early 1900s was John Singer Sargent. At auction, his paintings sold for millions of dollars. Could these things really be true?
She called an art appraiser in Columbus and downplayed the find by saying it was just “a few old paintings” that were found in an empty building. Richard Levine, the cautious appraiser, said he would come. His face turned from intrigued to astonished when he opened the first canvas.
He said under his breath, “These are the real deal.” “Works that haven’t been written down.” This is incredible.
Richard spent three days preparing a list of the pieces, and with each portfolio, he got more and more excited. People have never seen the 46 paintings and over 100 sketches before. He imagined that maybe a wealthy collector had kept them in the hotel for decades before dying without leaving any heirs. For reasons that are no longer clear, they stayed locked up in the penthouse while the rest of the building came apart.
When the final valuation came, Claire almost passed out. People thought the collection was worth more than $180 million.
The news got around quickly. There were a lot of reporters at the hotel, and art galleries competed for the right to present the works. Claire was counting on Richard and a lawyer he had suggested to assist her get through the storm. Schools in New York, Los Angeles, and even other countries made offers.
Despite everything, Claire stayed anchored. She had been trying to offer Mason a stable home for years, but she was having a hard time making finances meet. She said she would use her new money wisely now that she had it. She consented to let big museums borrow much of the collection so that other people might see it. She also made trusts to protect Mason’s future.
Some of the money went to sprucing up the hotel, which was a deteriorating old building. Five years later, the Riverside Grand reopened as a cultural landmark and a small hotel. There were galas and art displays in its ballroom. People who used to believe Claire was insane now felt she was a genius.
Claire stood in the newly refurbished lobby on the night of the opening, holding Mason’s hand and watching flashbulbs go off. She thought back to the auction when she raised her paddle, afraid but hopeful. She paid $5,000 for a broken-down house. She found more than just $180 million worth of art within; she found a future she never dreamed was attainable.