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This is my penultimate thread from my latest trip to America!
On the same hot muggy day we discovered the incredible drive-in theater and I nearly met my demise in the hotel resort we were on a then-fruitless search for delicious ice cream refreshments on the way home and after being very disappointed to find a shop that said it was open on Google closed I had a lightbulb moment in my head and suddenly realised the town we had ended up in by accident was the home of a very large, very decrepit historic mansion. The mention of that perked up my friends who naturally said we should take a look even though it was late in the day and time was cracking on. We turned the corner and there it was, standing majestically and defiantly in an imposing position on the edge of a lake. This was the White Lake Mansion House, built in 1848 and at one time a high class Jewish holiday hotel now, sadly, a stripped out hollow shell following a failed conversion into apartments. Now the town wants to tear it down, because screw history am I right.
Photos taken handheld on an incredibly quick ten minute run around.
Another historic building which may happily meet a better fate if the recent news reports are to be believed (more on that later) is this huge former Masonic Home. It has laid derelict and decaying for over thirty years, the insides are a complete death trap and it really is such a shame as the building is incredible. When driving past we noticed a few cars parked out front and a couple of people, nothing unusual at that as the old grounds are designated a park of sorts. So we parked up and made our way in from the rear and found our entrance point conscious of the fact there were persons unknown at the front.
Having already had one adventure through a floor a couple of days before I was being very cautious as a lot of the floors in here are extremely dodgy - the roof was completely wrecked long ago and currently half has been replaced in preparation for a full blown restoration in the future. The floors in/around the chapel area were some of the worst I have personally ever walked across, the pews are sinking through the floor into the basement and there is no safe way through the chapel itself any more. Upstairs the damage is even worse with ceilings caved in, internal walls collapsed and all manner of other damage. We had a quick tentative run-around as we only stopped by on the off chance it was accessible on our way to a much larger location, I took a few photos of the highlights and we were gone. We walked around the front of the building and waved to the two slightly bemused looking guys, who it turns out were filming a local news report about the efforts to save the place.
So two different mansions probably facing two very different fates. It's stories like the first that make me glad I live in a country that has some kind of legal protection afforded to old and important buildings.
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