CHURCH CREEK -The rabbit had expired in the living room next to the wood stove. As any real estate agent can tell you, animal remains are a little like cluttered dens and ugly wallpaper. They don't show well.
"Probably not the best selling point," Jordan Loran noted as he carried the carcass to the back door of the state-owned Linthicum House in Dorchester County.
Not that the house is up for sale, exactly. Loran's employer, the State of Maryland, would actually be delighted to give it away, free, to anyone willing to relocate the rundown yet solid three-story structure. An open house is set for April 21; proposals are due May 5.
The nearly 100-year-old house needs to make way for the planned Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park and Discovery Center. The center will tell the story of Tubman, an escaped slave who in the 1850s led dozens from bondage through a network of safe houses on the Eastern Shore.
A freebie house might sound appealing in these economic times, especially when you consider its seven bedrooms, 10-foot ceilings and 3,400 square feet of space. But an asterisk the size of a tractor wheel should be appended to "free." Moving the house would require sliding steel beams underneath and hoisting it, gently, onto a truck. Just taking it several miles down the road could run $40,000.
And that's before the tricky makeover that would follow, including the need to deal with any lead paint and asbestos. This isn't for bargain-hunters. It's for old-house lovers with the passion and patience to tackle the type of rehabs that test marriages.
Ranger Steve McCoy of the Maryland Park Service joined Loran recently for a top-to-bottom tour. From the outset, McCoy stressed the importance of being clear-eyed about the cost: "It's not going to save them money in the long run."
Still, he and Loran, the director of engineering and construction at the Department of Natural Resources, hope to find a taker. Otherwise, the department will consider bids to salvage the pine floors, oak banisters and other interior touches.
"If we didn't think there was any chance for the house to be moved," Loran said, "we wouldn't have advertised it."
So far, a few people have expressed interest. One man sounded serious, though he told Loran he'd like to be talked out of his "foolishness." That man, it turns out, is descended from W. Alvin Linthicum, who built the house about 1915 only to die four years later.
