House from hell

The boarded-up, crumbling mess that was 1820 E. 13th St., Davenport, has been transformed. What was once the neighborhood “house from hell” has been turned into a bright and airy home with a second-story loft overlooking the living room, a kitchen with cherry-finish Ikea cabinets and a first-floor master suite.This place wasn’t simply rehabbed; it was rebuilt.And rebuilt in such a way that the original late 1800s floor plan, with its boxy, smallish rooms, was swept away, replaced by a look in step with today’s new construction. The materials are current, too, chosen with an eye toward sustainability, including bamboo flooring, fiber cement board siding, cellulose insulation and high-efficiency windows and appliances.The project is the latest to be completed with financial help from the City of Davenport’s HAPPEN program that encourages the renewal and reoccupancy of abandoned homes.In addition to the metamorphosis of the former rental unit, another aspect that sets 1820 E. 13th St. apart from other projects that have been finished or are in progress is that it was undertaken by Clinton, Iowa, natives Travis Campbell, 29, an architect now living in New York City, and Dave Saddoris, 33, an engineer now living in Minneapolis.They formed a company called the Upper Mississippi Valley Redevelopment Co. with the goal of tackling similar public-private partnership rehabilitation projects and making a living at it.This out-of-town interest is relatively unusual, said Bruce Berger, the city’s housing rehabilitation manager. “They’re not here (living in the Quad-Cities) and yet they’re taking on a single-family abandoned housing project.”Admittedly, Campbell and Saddoris will need to make more money than they did on this project, in which they did little more than break even. But this first house established a track record, and now they can pursue larger or multiple projects with better returns, Saddoris said.