It's that time of year:
"Bank takes over Framingham ‘witch house’ with plans to donate" by Andy Rosen Globe Staff October 23, 2015
The bank that holds the mortgage on Framingham’s historic “witch house” won a foreclosure auction on the site Friday morning, a crucial step toward restoration for the deteriorating structure that was once home to a family fleeing the Salem witch trials.
Which bank was it?
Goldman Sachs Mortgage Company, which bid nearly $818,000 for the Sarah and Peter Clayes House, plans to donate the property to a group of local preservationists hoping to save it, according to company spokesman Michael DuVally.
They are witches in their own way, ca$ting their evil $pells and $chemes of loot.
Janice Thompson, leader of the Sarah and Peter Clayes House Preservation Project, said she was moved to tears by the result of the auction.
Goldman Sachs saved 'em!
“This is the result of over 10 years of work,” she said Friday. “It’s so rewarding to see it come to fruition.”
The more than 300-year-old structure has sat vacant and decaying for more than a decade, amid a lengthy foreclosure process that extended beyond the death of its most recent owner. But the sale to Goldman Sachs paves the way for advocates to find a new owner who will repair it.
Sarah Clayes was the only survivor out of three sisters accused in the Salem witch trials. She, her husband, and other family members settled in the area that would become Framingham, first building on the property in 1693. They would later become some of the town’s first civic leaders.
You can take 'em over to the T station to see if they float.
The house needs significant work — possibly up to $1 million — but multiple potential bidders were interested, according to Paul J. Traverse, the auctioneer who conducted the sale. The bank’s offer scared the other suitors away, however.
The next step for the restoration project is to work with Goldman Sachs to take over the property, then work to find a permanent resident for the site, Thompson said. The group has been in talks with one potential suitor, whom she would not identify, about an arrangement that would see the home open once a year to the community.
A deal with the devil himself!
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