A single mom paid $5,000 for an empty motel. She found something in the penthouse that was worth $180 million.
When Claire Donovan first drove by the old Riverside Grand Hotel, she didn’t see what everyone else in town saw. Most folks in Dayton, Ohio thought the place was a mess. The roof collapsed in some places, the windows were broken, and ivy crawled over the walls that were starting to fade. It had been shut down for more than twenty years, ever since a fire in the kitchen and a string of bankruptcies that followed. Claire, a 38-year-old single mother who worked two jobs, had optimism, though.
She and her eight-year-old son Mason have been living paycheck to paycheck in a cramped two-bedroom apartment since their divorce three years ago. She started searching through the listings late at night when the county stated that many neglected properties will be liquidated at auction for unpaid taxes. For her, most of the houses were still too pricey to buy. But then she saw it: the Riverside Grand Hotel. The initial offer is $5,000.
It seemed absurd that an entire hotel could cost less than a car that had been used. Claire did some research. The building was condemned because it had a lot of mold and the plumbing and electrical systems were obsolete. She didn’t have the money to make it better. But a voice within her head persuaded her it was worth the risk. She lifted her paddle on the day of the auction with Mason by her side and shook hands. No one else put forth a bid. The gavel struck. She now owned a twenty-four-room motel that needed a lot of work.
She felt both proud and afraid when she first opened the rusted front doors. The lobby smelled like mold and wet wood, but you could still see the marble floors through the filth. Even though it was dusty, the grand staircase still looked great as it went up to the second floor. Claire thought about the weddings that had happened there, the jazz music playing in the ballroom, and the passengers checking in with their enormous leather bags.
But the truth hit fast. There were buckets in the hallways to catch rainwater that dripped from the roof. Squatters left trash and graffiti in some of the rooms. Mason scrunched up his nose but clutched her hand harder, as if he could sense how scared and determined she was.
They found the penthouse suite’s closed door as they walked around the top floors. The hinges were rusty, and the key didn’t work. Claire halted for a second because of something. She told herself she would come back to it later, when she was stronger and had the necessary tools to open it. For the time being, she thought about how large the job she had taken on was. She didn’t know it yet, but that door held the key to changing their lives forever.
Having the hotel was one thing. To correct it was a whole other story. Claire’s money were almost gone after paying for the auction and basic inspections. Every contractor she called gave her outrageous estimates—hundreds of thousands of dollars only to make the building safe to live in again.
She felt like her choice was too much for her to handle for weeks. People who knew her felt she was insane. Her sister even encouraged her to sell the house for parts and limit her losses. Claire, on the other hand, was not ready to give up. She worked in the county office in the morning and as a waitress at night. She also worked at the hotel whenever she could. Mason helped by picking up trash and treating the trip like a game.
Things got better bit by bit. People from the neighborhood who were curious about her big purchase began to stop by. A retired carpenter claimed he would fix some windows for free. She learned how to rewire a little area of the foyer from a retired electrician. One Saturday, even the church’s youth group arrived with paint rollers. It didn’t fix the whole hotel, but it kept her hope alive.
She was still disturbed by the door to the penthouse. She tried a lot of different keys and even borrowed bolt cutters from a neighbor, but the lock wouldn’t budge. Finally, on a rainy night, she took a crowbar and busted it open. When it opened, the door creaked.
It was dusty in the room, but it was cleaner than the rest of the building. The huge velvet curtains were still hanging from the big windows, and the furniture was still there, even if it was covered with sheets. Mason ran to the corner of the room where there was a big trunk. “Mom, look!” he yelled.
The trunk was heavy and had a metal latch on it. She forced it open, and her heart raced. There were no blankets or clothes that had gone bad inside. She found a stack of leather-bound portfolios, rolled-up tubes of canvas, and a couple crates with clear labels on them instead. The name “E. Sargent” on the first folder made her stop in her tracks.
At first, she didn’t know what it was, but the drawings inside were gorgeous. They were charcoal and ink portraits, landscapes, and studies of people. Mason took one rolled-up canvas and opened it to expose a painting of a busy street in a city in the 1920s. Even though it was dusty, the picture was still bright. Claire’s breath stopped. These weren’t things that were put up at hotels. They were works of art.
She didn’t know who made them yet, but she could tell they were worth a lot. She didn’t just find an old trunk; she unearthed a secret archive.
Claire carried the portfolios home with her every night for a week and looked up names and signatures after Mason went to bed. When she typed “E. Sargent paintings” into the search box, her jaw fell. From the late 1800s until the early 1900s, John Singer Sargent was one of the most well-known American artists. At auction, his paintings sold for millions of dollars. Is it possible that these things are true?
She called an art appraiser in Columbus and minimized the find by saying it was just “a few old paintings” found in an empty building. Richard Levine, the cautious appraiser, said he would be there. When he opened the first canvas, his face turned from interested to shocked.
He said, “These are the real deal.” “Works that haven’t been recorded.” This is incredible.
Richard spent three days preparing a list of the pieces, and with each portfolio, he got more and more excited. The 46 paintings and more than 100 sketches had never been shown to the public before. He suspected they might have stayed at the hotel for decades, maybe because a wealthy collector died without leaving any heirs. They stayed locked up in the penthouse while the building broke apart around them for reasons that are no longer known.
Claire almost fainted as the final value came in. People thought the collection was worth more than $180 million.
The word got out quickly. There were a lot of reporters at the hotel, and art galleries battled for the right to present the works. Claire was counting on Richard and a lawyer he recommended to assist her get through the storm. Institutions in New York, Los Angeles, and even other countries made offers.
Claire stayed strong through it all. She had been trying for years to offer Mason a stable home, but she was barely able to pay her bills. Now that she had money, she swore to use it wisely. She agreed to lend most of the collection to big museums so that other people may see them. She also set up trusts to protect Mason’s future.
Some of the money went to fixing up the hotel, which was in bad shape before. Five years later, the Riverside Grand opened again as a cultural landmark and a small hotel. There were art displays and galas in its ballroom. People who used to believe Claire was insane now say she is a genius.
Claire stood in the newly refurbished lobby on the night of the opening, holding Mason’s hand when flashbulbs went off. She remembered the occasion at the auction when she raised her paddle, afraid yet hopeful. She spent $5,000 on a broken building. What she found within was more than just $180 million worth of art; it was a future she had never believed imaginable.
