The prestigious Wall Street Journal's House of the Year 2016 has been awarded to a classic mansion built for a refrigerator magnate Elmer Ellsworth McCray back in 1920s. McCray was then the president of the McCray Refrigerator Co.
According to Yahoo! Real Estate, the McCray mansion is located in Kendallville, a town that is 25 miles north of Fort Wayne and 60 miles east of South Bend. It is also around 150 miles from Indianapolis, Chicago and Detroit. The town only has less than 10,000 people.
The Wall Street Journal said that the new owners of the house, couple Kevin and Nicole Lowe, revealed that the most popular features of their house is the original built-in, eight-door, fully functional refrigerator. The said refrigerator opens to both the kitchen and the butler's pantry area.
Nicole shared that a lot of their friends were very fascinated with the refrigerator and it is considered as the greatest highlight of their house. Nicole said, "We had a New Year's Eve party and everybody wanted to see the refrigerator. Everybody is impressed it's the original compressor in the basement."
The couple were able to purchase the McCray mansion for $430,000. The house has six bedrooms and six and half bathrooms sitting on five lots area. The 10,148-square-foot mansion still has its original vintage details such as the walnut panelled library and the fur volts.
Lowe even shared that when they got the house it was in perfect condition. The previous owners, Mike Post and Michael Nelaborige, were able to restore the property well when they acquired it back in 2004.
The historical details as well as the interesting story of the McCray mansion were great factors for it winning the votes of Wall Street Journal readers. The vintage and classy McCray mansion garnered a total of 80.6 percent of the votes in its head-to-head matchups against other homes. The total votes casted during the contest were a total of 230,627.
