carleen farabaugh: hi. my name is carleen farabaugh. my husband and i are the ownersof the shoe house here in york, pennsylvania. mahlon haines, a local shoesalesman, had the shoe house built in 1948. the shoe house is modeled afterhis high-top work shoe. that's the one that's in everyone of the windows, and that was his best sellingshoe that he had.
the shoe house is 25 foot high,48 foot long, so there's a little over 1,500 squarefeet inside. as we go through the shoe,you're going to notice a definite shoe themeinside here. when we took over, nine yearsago, there were no shoes in here at all. and how many shoeswe have in here? i have no idea. maybe 1,000?
we get the shoes fromall over the place. one of our favoritecontributors is a lady from new york. she's probably sent me severalhundred, herself. all snuggled into the toe is theliving room, the bedroom, and the bathroom. so it's a really bigtoe, obviously. we didn't have to do a lot ofrestoration to the toe of the shoe itself.
i always like to pointout mahlon's picture in the glass, there. again, he was nota shy person. he wanted everybody to know whohe was, and i truly think the shoe house was his legacy. we're going to proceed on up acouple more flights, here. you are now underneaththe shoelaces. that's why this ceilingis slanted. dresser is built rightinto the wall.
we did seem to have a lotof issues with this area when we took over. the toilet-- the tank broke. just to give you an idea of thework that we have put into it, i mean, this is what itlooked like previously. and mostly all the wallslooked that way. this is actually a little spiralstaircase that leads up onto the roof of the shoe house,which we did have to
block off to meet insuranceregulations. underneath the steps thatwe just went up, a little pantry there. refrigerator, the original. this is what they lookedlike years ago. and that brings us right intothe heel of the shoe now. we have it set up and displayednow for people to come through. the structure of the shoe houseis primarily original.
cosmetics is where wehad to do the work. the colors are not the same. i always tell everybody, if i amcrazy enough to buy a shoe house, i'm going to paint itwhatever color i want. my realtor brought us throughon a friday-- well, she brought me throughon a friday-- and my first thoughts wheni was touring it was like, no way. i'm not purchasinga shoe house.
i'm not even interestedin a shoe house. and two days later, i was theowner of the shoe house. i just can't explain it. i always tell everybody, ididn't pick the shoe house, the shoe house picked me. -holla! you are watching spaces. love what we have? subscribe and findus on facebook,
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