Meet Karen McHale, Winner of the ($1.2 million) Fifty Dollar House in Edgewater
January 28th, 2009 Categories: Real Estate News
We’ve all driven by it dozens of times along Route 2, vowing that we’d plunk down $50 for a raffle ticket…and maybe, just maybe get lucky.
But a Colorado woman who never did drive by – indeed, who has never even visited the Annapolis area – turned out to be the lucky winner of the 6 bedroom, 4 1/2 bath, 6,000+ square foot home known locally as the Fifty Dollar House.
Karen McHale, a chemical engineer from Idaho Springs, Colorado, claims she’s never won a thing in her life. But when she heard about the raffle on the news and learned that ticket sales would help support a good cause – We Care and Friends - she said, “Why not? Even if I don’t win, I’ll be helping out.”
Married and a mother of two, McHale promptly put the raffle out of her head. Then out of the blue she received a phone call this past Friday afternoon from Tom Walters, the home’s owner, informing her that she held the winning ticket. “At first I thought it was a joke! I was excited, and a little in shock. Then I wondered – what am I going to do with it?”
Her friends tell her she should keep it – “so they have a vacation home!” But she may decide to sell the home.
If so, chances are she’ll use some of her windfall to help fund a self-publishing venture she’s launched.
A volunteer firefighter, McHale has created a team of fictional characters she calls Fire Station Buddies - Flash, Scout, Tundra and others – as a way to teach children about safety, science, engineering and problem solving.
The first in a series of Fire Buddies books – The Legend – is already on sale. A portion of her book earnings will go into a fund McHale has started to help support volunteer fire departments across the country.
We hope you sell a million!
; ?>/images/MatoChiclet.gif)
Ken and Bev….way to be on top of the news. What a great story and very well written. Congrats to Ms. McHale!!!
Thank you, Joe. When I heard that you’d given raffle tickets to friends and family for Christmas, I knew you’d be interested. Thanks for logging on to the blog and keep up all the good work you do over there at MetLife Home Loans.
Ken
[...] all about the now famous Fifty Dollar House. It was raffled off in January to one lucky winner – Karen McHale of Idaho Springs, Colorado - whom you met here shortly after she heard the exciting [...]