The next act for a TV reporter and breast cancer survivor: Flipping houses
Kelli O'Hara said the change brought back her sense of purpose and positivity after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
Former Boston television reporter Kelli O’Hara is starting a new career flipping homes, a second act she said brought back her sense of purpose and positivity after being diagnosed with breast cancer last summer.
Her first property — a two-family, 1,975 square-foot Mansard Colonial at 6 Avon St. in Wakefield — took six months to renovate, requiring the journalist to employ all of her problem-solving skills along the way.
“Every contractor had passed on the house because there was so much structural damage,” she said. “The entire home needed to be gutted.”
But instead of deeming the property too complicated a challenge to tackle, O’Hara decided to go for it.
The property, which just hit the market for $749,000, boasts a new foundation, all-new joists and beams, reconfigured heating and electrical, a two-story porch addition, reframed floors, as well as new windows and plumbing, two new kitchens, and three new bathrooms.
“When I tell you the home was a complete rebuild,” she said, “it was a complete rebuild.”
The two-family house has one main entrance that opens into a foyer on the first floor, with a grand mahogany staircase to the second-floor unit. A separate outside staircase leads up to the second-floor unit as well. Though O’Hara chose not convert the residence into condos, instead seeking to create a more unified two-family home, the property is designed so that option remains available to a buyer.
The first-floor unit spans two bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a living room, and what O’Hara called “the kitchen of everyone’s dreams.” She paid a particular attention to this room throughout the restoration process, allowing for 20 feet of quartz countertop space, as well as subway backsplash tile imported from Italy. There’s a modern Haier counter-depth refrigerator, a backless Frigidaire five-burner gas stove, soft-close navy cabinets by Wakefield builder Rob McGuire, a wine and spice rack, and custom-made floating shelves by Wakefield furniture designer Tim Cranley.
Moving upstairs, the second-floor unit has one bedroom and another similar space that could function as an office, in addition to a living room and kitchen. Down a long hallway is the master bathroom.
One of O’Hara’s favorite details can be found outside.
“I call the porches the best part of this property,” she said, of the exterior spaces on both floors, made from pressure-treated lumber, designed in conjunction with Phoenix architects and built by Fast Renovation. “When you walk up them, it’s like walking into a treehouse. They’re gorgeous.”
O’Hara is also thrilled she was able to pull in a brass light fixture from a Maine antique store, making it functional with Edison bulbs.
In restoring the property, O’Hara wanted to highlight the home’s history. She installed a historical plaque to honor its former owner of 70 years, a doctor who was also the head of the local water and sewer commission. Her greater show of honoring the home’s long history, though, involved updating it without jettisoning the structure and feel.
“You walk into the home in the common hallway through the original 1880 front doors,” she said. “We restored the hallway, added an original brass light fixture, and lovingly cared for the mahogany banister to restore it along with the floors and walls.
“I added pocket doors that were stripped from the home, which conceal the living room. From the entryway, you walk into the first-floor kitchen, which is massive. We stripped everything down to the studs and rebuilt the kitchen from scratch.”
Investing the time and funding needed to restore the house made sense for O’Hara, who works as a freelance correspondent for The Weather Channel but had been looking to make changes in her professional life. After three years with Channel 7, she left that newsroom in late 2016; O’Hara also worked for Channel 5 this past year while in treatment for breast cancer, winning a local Emmy for her coverage of the Columbia gas explosions. While reeling from the news of her diagnosis last summer, she lost a house she’d been under agreement on. That secondary blow stuck with her.
“That was pretty devastating,” she said. “When you’re sick, you want a home. You want a sanctuary.”
O’Hara had done small construction projects before, but in stumbling across the Avon Street property, she knew flipping it would constitute her biggest challenge to date. Still, she was quickly smitten with the property, both in terms of its location and history.
“It’s in the heart of this gorgeous suburb, a block from the commuter line, two blocks from this gorgeous lake,” she said.
She’s listing the home as a two-family home as opposed to a condominium, in hopes of selling to one owner either looking for an investment property or a space for a multi-generational household.
“I believe there still is a market for multi-families here in the region and the people who live in them,” she said.
The home sits on 0.07 of an acre.
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