|
|
Just in time for the holidays, three sisters will move into a beautiful new home in Creechville. The 1,200-square-foot three-bedroom house has excellent window views of Lake Superior and sits on a large lot. The sisters plan to put a garage on the property at some point, but not now.
“This is the biggest house we have built to date,” said Anna Hamilton, one-half of Hamilton Habitat Inc. with her sister Sarah.
The previous owner of the lot didn’t want a traditional developer to get it, Anna said. “He grew up here. This was his family’s homestead. So he wanted the lot sold to someone who would build a family home here. It’s a great property, and the girls are fortunate to get this piece of land for their new home.”
After years of talking about building houses for the working class of Cook County, Anna and Sarah formed Hamilton Habitat Inc., a nonprofit to help fill the need for affordable housing in Cook County. That was in 2019. The first four houses were tiny, one-bedroom homes, 480-600 square feet, that cost anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000. This home is considerably more expensive but, like the others, is built at cost.
“We don’t make any profit on these homes,” said Anna. We’re not rich. We couldn’t do this if it wasn’t for Nate Sheils and Jeff Buetow. Nate and Jeff sell us the building supplies at cost, which is a huge help to keep the price down.”
“We do what we can to help,” Nate said, with Jeff nodding his head in agreement.
And no government money is used in the construction.
“We like our autonomy. If you take money from the government, you lose some of that,” Anna said.
The two men Anna was referring to her are Nate Shiels and Jeff Buetow, who own Cook County Home Center, an ACE Hardware store and full-service lumberyard. Anna works at the Home Center and the two owners have given her time off so she can work on the various Hamilton Habitat homes. Today she was in her painting clothes. The three young women’s grandma Lynetta was busy painting in a back bedroom. It’s all hands on deck with a Hamilton Habitat Home, and that’s just how Anna and Sarah planned it.
While there is still some trim work to do and painting, the house is nearly complete, and the sisters will be moving in shortly.
There is a waiting list for a Hamilton Habitat home. “I have a list of people who want a house, but you have to be qualified for a bank loan to be on the list,” said Anna. “We have two deed restrictions. One is that the house you buy can’t be rented in any capacity, and the second is that if you sell the house within the first five years of ownership, half of the profits from that sale go back to Hamilton Habitat. We have already had one house we built sold for a $100,000 profit. In the case of that sale, it wasn’t the owner’s fault. They had to sell. But we aren’t building these houses so they can be flipped. That’s why we recently added the second deed restriction.”
Sarah wasn’t available for a picture last Friday because she was at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where she (and Anna) have been involved in One Spirit, a local firewood distributor that helps folks get the wood to heat their homes through the long winter. Sarah and Anna also have a program to bring workers from Pine Ridge to Cook County to help fill the worker shortage.
If you want to donate or learn more about the Hamilton sisters’ efforts, you can visit their website: Hamilton Housing LLC.
Anna and Sarah
A little more about the sisters, reprinted from the Cook County News-Herald from November 19, 2019.
While the sisters grew up in Iowa, they have become firmly rooted in Cook County, and their roots are growing deeper by the day.
Anna moved to the Gunflint Trail in 1984. Ten years later, Sarah followed in 1994. “We both worked for Ginny and Larry Backstrom at Poplar Lake Lodge (Trail Center), then I moved off the trail and Sarah contemplated moving back to Iowa,” said Anna.
“Skyport was for sale at that time, and we took the plunge and asked a person we knew if he would consider being a silent partner (we had no money). He said yes, but then we found Skyport to be in too bad of shape. Ginny and Larry heard that and said, ‘Why don’t you buy this (Poplar Lake Lodge)?’ so we did with the help of Dave Beattie. That was in 1995.
“In 1998, we bought Clyde’s Place, renaming it ‘My Sister’s Place.’ We bought it because of the snowmobile issue. No one wanted snowmobilers in town at the time, but we did and thought, heck, we could pass them back and forth between the trail and Sisters.
“Our goal was to integrate winter sportspeople; at that time, there were huge attitudes between the silent sports crowd and the non-silent crowd. We even had signs on our tables at Trail Center saying, ‘We cater to all outdoor enthusiasts; you get along and respect one another or go somewhere else,’ and it worked.
“Our other goal was to provide year-round work and training for folks with no skills, like us. That also worked. We raised many of the people in the businesses and feel fortunate to have had that opportunity.
“Even back then, no one wanted the dog mushers.
But Sarah did, and from that time on, she has sponsored and housed The Beargrease, Gunflint Mail Run, and Mush for a Cure. The mushers have been very loyal to Trail Center and to Sarah because of her generosity and financial support.”
Anna said her sister Sarah funds and volunteers for many things, including Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. “She sponsors children’s food programs, clothing drives, and vets and their families. She has raised lots of interest and funds for the plight of these folks.”
Anna and Sarah headed up a non-tolerance effort for child molesters in the ‘90s, intending to change the leniency law for offenders when Kathlyn “Katie” Poirier was kidnapped from her job at DJ’s Expressway in Moose Lake, Minnesota, and murdered.
“We sent out over 5,000 postpaid cards to Minnesota politicians and gave out at least that many bumper stickers,” Sarah said.
“I raised a couple of children that were not mine, then Sarah and I took care of our parents until their death. After that, we took on a couple of other business endeavors (Mercantile, Dork Wear, and then Hughie’s, named after our dad Hugh) with the goal of providing year-round employment and mentoring. Both of us are high school dropouts who struggled, times were tough, and school was not on the priority list. Moving to Cook County saved us, both of us, and we want to give back, always give back. We are lucky, and we know it. Providing housing for the little guy like us excites us to no end. We believe everyone deserves the chance to live and work in this jewel town.
“Our mother was in the food business our entire life. She fed people who had no money when she had no money. However, she always made them work for it, as pride is vital to all of us,” Anna said.
“Anna had a dream of building low-income housing that local workers could afford more than 25 years ago,” said Sarah.
“It wasn’t possible for her to pursue her dream until she sold her restaurant (Hughie’s). When that sold, she had the time and energy to pursue this,” said Sarah, adding, “Some people think we are rich. We aren’t rich. It takes a lot of time and sweat equity for us to do this. I do what I can, but Anna is the contractor and does most of the work.”
Leave a Reply