BUTTE - Every year, the city profiles historic homes that have been renovated in an event called Dust to Dazzle. Well, this old home being profiled is an old miner’s cabin, and it puts the emphasis on dust.
WATCH: From $500 and covered in soot to a stunning historic home. 🏠✨ Butte's Dust to Dazzle tour is June 27
“I was, I was covered in this black soot every single day for a month cleaning this place out,” Sean Keuch said.
Keuch purchased the house from the county in 2020 for $500 and has been renovating it since. The small miner’s cabin was built off Sutter Street in the late 1890s by an Irish immigrant. The home didn’t even have a foundation, and Keuch spent half a year raising the house an eighth of an inch at a time to put in a foundation.
It was hard work.
“Digging the basement out, and lifting the house up, and seeing all the rotten wood, there was a few months there where I was like, ‘what am I doing?’” Keuch said.
He didn’t get discouraged and is glad he put in all the effort.
“The house would have been easier to tear down and then rebuild a new house, but then you lose all that history. This is wood from the 1890s, and it’s actually more beautiful than the wood you can buy now,” he said.
He and his girlfriend Rachael Marjamaa were able to move into the house a few months ago and continue to renovate the house. They purchase most of the items for the house from other historic places around Montana.
“It’s been really great, like upcycling things from around the state that were going to go into the dumpster,” Marjamaa said.
Dust to Dazzle runs from noon to 5 p.m. June 27 and will feature four other historic properties.
Tickets can be purchased at Isle of Books and Books, Second Edition Books and Corner Bookstore.
