Wreckless
Devoted Cultist
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2015
- Messages
- 114
- Location
- SWF, USA
Found: A Historic Trolley Hidden Inside a House
When Trenton’s streetcars came to a halt in the 1930s, one literally found a home.
BY NOOR AL-SAMARRAI
MARCH 19, 2019
WHEN BRANDON BREZA AND MARC Manfredi, buddies since high school, started a real estate venture together, they didn’t expect to find themselves on an adventure in historic preservation.
In August 2018, they purchased a foreclosed house at 31 Smith Avenue in Hamilton, New Jersey, with the idea that they could transform it into an appealing rental unit. The description on the property listing said that the small home had been made out of a former rail car, but on first glance it looked like an ordinary suburban house, though perhaps a little worse for wear.
“I don’t think we’re gonna find a dead conductor or anything here … maybe there’ll be some old train parts or something,” says Breza, of his thinking at the time.
They began work a few days after purchasing the property, bringing down a couple interior walls. But they got a little hammer-happy. “We watched a lot of HGTV and thought, ‘This is awesome, let’s start knocking down walls,’” Breza recalls. “We started thinking, we’d do it the right way and make it more attractive for renters.”
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trolley-car-inside-a-house