The market had cooled, his commissions were down, and he was now sitting on roughly $240,000 in combined debt between the lake house renovation and his own mortgage.
Jolene’s family, the ones who supposedly knew everything about property and investment, had apparently offered zero financial help.
Turns out it’s easy to talk about equity when it’s someone else’s money on the line.
So Jean calls me, the son they didn’t invite to the decision, didn’t include in the ownership, and didn’t bother attending the wedding of, and asked me to help.
The audacity was almost beautiful in its symmetry.
I told my dad I’d think about it.
And I did think about it for about a week, but I wasn’t thinking about whether to help Sutton.
I was thinking about how to help myself.
See, here’s what my father didn’t know.
I didn’t just have a good salary anymore.
The consulting contract from Emit Tras development company had put me in a financial position I never expected to be in at 34.
Waverly and I had savings. Real savings, the kind that makes your financial adviser smile instead of WZ.
And I had connections.
My work in Pittsburgh had introduced me to contractors, inspectors, real estate attorneys, and property specialists who actually knew what they were doing.
I called a real estate lawyer named Sullivan Park.
Sully, as everyone called him, was a guy I’d worked with on the waterfront project when we hit a zoning dispute.
He was sharp, efficient, and had the kind of calm demeanor that made you feel like everything was going to be fine, even when it absolutely wasn’t.
I told him the situation.
He asked me one question.
“Do you want the house?”
I said, “Yes.”
Not for revenge. Not to prove a point.
I wanted it because it was Grandpa Hank’s house, and it deserved to be taken care of by someone who actually cared about it.
Not someone who saw it as a renovation project for social media content.
Which, by the way, Jolene had been posting progress photos of the renovation on her pages until the contractor ghosted them, at which point the posts mysteriously stopped.
Sully laid out the options.
He said the cleanest path was a direct purchase.
If Sutton was drowning in debt and the house was half destroyed, he might be willing to sell, especially if the alternative was losing it to creditors or letting it rot.
But Sully warned me that family deals are messy, and I needed to be strategic.
So I made a plan.
Step one, I had a property inspector I trusted, a woman named Delaney Voss, go assess the house.
She drove up to Racetown Lake on a Wednesday, spent 4 hours there, and came back with a report that made me want to cry.
The structural damage from the botched renovation was significant.
The porch supports were compromised.
The plumbing had been partially ripped out and never reconnected properly.
There was water damage in the basement from a drainage issue the contractor had created and never fixed.
Delaney estimated the cost to properly finish the renovation and repair the damage at around $120,000.
She also estimated the current market value of the house in its present condition at about 90,000, less than half what it would be worth if it were intact.
Step two, I called Calter.
Not for business advice, but because he was the closest thing I had to a mentor, and I needed someone to gut-check me.
I told him what I was thinking.
He listened, then said, “Ol, are you buying a house or buying closure?”
I thought about it and said, “Both.”
He said, “Then make sure you negotiate like it’s business. The closure comes after.”
Step three, I talked to Waverly.
She knew how much that house meant to me.
She’d heard the stories about Grandpa Hank, about the dock, about the fireflies, about the summers that shaped who I was.
She looked at the numbers, looked at me, and said, “Let’s get your house back.”
Have I mentioned I love this woman?
Because I really love this woman.
Step four, I reached out to Sutton, not through my parents.
I unblocked his number and sent him one text.
“I heard the lake house is in rough shape. I’d like to talk about it, just us.”