The transformation: Drafty Douglas House in Jim Thorpe becomes spacious apartment

Taking a walk-through tour of The Douglas House’s top floor in September, Brian Valish could have been forgiven for being overwhelmed by the daunting project.

The walls were stripped down to the support beams. The flooring was uneven and practically unsalvageable. The windows were veritable draft holes. Debris was everywhere.

But as Valish explored the property, his gears were turning. He was thinking not about what it was, but what it could be.

“When we walked in, you could see it was all ripped apart and down to the studs. When the homeowner, Pat Gremling, who is a great, wonderful guy, started ripping and tearing, he thought he could do it on his own, but it was entirely too big of a project,” Valish said.

Gremling needed a crew who could tackle the huge renovation with the utmost care, and Valish’s Habitat Building Group was just that company.

Now, after nearly five months of work and $200,000, the third floor of the Jim Thorpe property on Race Street is complete.

The Douglas House

When Gremling and Scott Heffelfinger made the decision to migrate from the Beltzville region to the Race Street property, it was a foregone conclusion that their new place would need some work. The notable and historic 170-year-old Douglas House had hosted a variety of local shops on the first two floors for a while, though the top level hadn’t been used as a living space in years.

“It’s been in our family since ’88. I took over in 2009. My dad was retired and they wanted something to do, so they got the idea of buying this building and renovating it for the shops downstairs. They did the first level, the second level, and that’s where it stayed,” Gremling said.

“This just remained unfinished for all of those years. It probably hasn’t been an apartment since the early ’80s. It didn’t make sense to do more retail up here, to get people to come up another flight of steps. It wasn’t really viable.”

Built from the ground up

Valish first started in the construction world in 2007, when he took a job as a framer. He picked up on other elements of the work along the way, eventually doing a few odd jobs here and there for extra cash on the side.

“When the recession came in and new home building went down, people started buying houses, flipping them and doing renovations. That’s when my business took off, because I wasn’t building houses my first say in business. It was really just remodeling something, painting, really small jobs,” he said.

After six or seven years, Valish decided to make the jump and open his own operation in Weissport. Working small jobs during the day, he would attend drafting classes at night, always eager to learn as much as he could.

Nowadays, his business, located in Lehighton, still offers everything from window replacements to total home construction.

Though he always loved being in the field, working with his hands, Valish said that he has had to expand his duties to marketing and more. Habitat is a known go-to spot for other contractors to pick up materials, including flooring, tile, cabinetry, siding and granite, all offered at friendly prices.

“My ultimate goal is to have a fleet doing all remodeling projects, a fleet doing new construction, and one or two salesmen to sell kitchens, flooring and granite to contractors, and that’s all they’re doing. But, you don’t build Rome overnight, obviously,” he said with a chuckle.

The renovation

For Valish and his crew, The Douglas House was a dream project. Not only would they get the opportunity to nearly completely restructure the place, but they had the encouragement of the owner to go all-out with energy efficiency.

The workload, especially for a perfectionist like Valish, would be daunting.

“There was a lot of work that had to be done with this project,” Valish said as he watched a video walk-through of the property before he started on it.

“I was a little nervous during this video, I won’t lie.”

But the endless potential for the space presented a number of opportunities, including a special request from Gremling when he was looking at the roof of the structure.

“He said, ‘Hey, is there any way we can put a roof deck up here?’ I chuckled and I looked at him. I said, ‘I’m always up for a challenge. Let’s get the engineer in here,’ ” Valish said.

In the end, it worked out well. The deck features custom paneling, a fair amount of space for furniture, and a gorgeous view of Millionaire’s Row and the mountainside.

The bare-bones framework provided a canvas for Gremling and Heffelfinger to imagine, and for Valish to create.

Throughout the home, the ground was leveled, flooring, tiling, cabinets and window trim were installed, and doorways were widened. Nearly every element of the project was custom-made. Shower stalls for the bathrooms were crafted, specialty backsplashes for the kitchen were placed, stairways were revived, a personal elevator was installed. Every detail was taken into account in order to make the perfect home for Gremling and Heffelfinger.

The finished product, transferred to a major metropolitan area, would easily fetch a few million dollars.

“Once we saw it becoming a house, we just wanted to move in,” Gremling said.

The completed project

After five months of extensive work with Habitat, the third-floor apartment became a dream come true for Gremling and Heffelfinger.

“This has been in my head for years. I went back and forth on how I wanted the floor plan laid out. I’m pleasantly surprised on how it turned out,” Gremling said.

With an incredible setting provided by Habitat, the men got to work on decorating their new abode.

A comfortable leather furniture set completes the living room, with a panoramic photo of the New York City skyline accenting the wall. A see-through fireplace rests in the partition wall that separates the room from the kitchen area.

The dining room, with a spacious table adjacent to the kitchen, makes incredible use of the apartment’s space. Art, from modern to classic to pop, is everywhere. The cozy guest room could be a suite in a swanky hotel, complete with its own bathroom and sitting room.

Every piece, from the furniture to the lamps to the tchotchkes on a shelf, are carefully cultivated to accent the incredible living space and bring it to life.

“He did a breathtaking job,” Gremling said.