ST. JOHNS, Mich. — The historic Hicks Mansion, located at 205 west State St. in St. Johns, is a 5,400-square-foot home built in 1873 on four city plots, 1.2 acres.
Steve and Jenny Heath have owned this seven-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath home for eight years, but now, they're ready to sell.
"Quite a few reasons why," Steve said. "It's just the two of us. It's becoming a lot to take care of...time to downsize."
The house was built by John Hicks for his new wife, according to Jenny, and has plenty of history.
"Some of the stories that are kind of cool are about them, like, he wore a veil out in town and there are no pictures of him, only his family," Jenny said.
"One of the coolest stories—and we haven't been able to verify—is that Teddy Roosevelt had lunch here with the owner back around the turn of the 1900s," Steve said.
The Heaths bought the Hicks Mansion in November 2014 for $220,000 as their "empty-nest project."
"It's got history in the town, it's got moldings and architectural details that are just insanely cool," Jenny said.
"The owners that sold it to us didn't want to see it chopped up into apartments," Steve said. "Same thing—we looked around and the wow-factor was incredible. We came in through the front door, and you see the stair case and the wood work."
During the past eight years, they've invested about $100,000 into the house.
"We changed flooring, we did painting—things like that," Steve said. "But, tried not to do anything too major."
"You try to—when you do things—make sure they have integrity for the house," Jenny said. "Like, we did put in a gas fire place insert."
They put the house up for sale in May, andit's listed for $339,900.
Though the home is still up for sale, Jenny said there is a pending offer.
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