Meet Karen McHale, Winner of the ($1.2 million) Fifty Dollar House in Edgewater
January 28th, 2009 Categories: Real Estate News, The Fifty Dollar "Raffle" House
(Update: The winner of the Fifty Dollar House, whom you’ll meet here, has decided to sell. You can read all about it by clicking here.)
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!
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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 [...]