The Sapp House

Panama City Beach, FL - Lauren DeGeorge loves old houses. In fact, she owns five. The most recent addition to her collection is one she has been pursuing for more than two years. DeGeorge's bid to save the historic Sapp House downtown was recently accepted by the Bay County Board of County Commissioners.

I want to make it into a Painted Lady, an old home that is totally restored to its original beauty.

Two and a half years after she placed her bid on Judge Sapp's former residence- which had most recently been used as the Boarding House Restaurant- the house is now hers.

She has a lot of work ahead of her, but remodeling and restoration is nothing new to DeGeorge. In the past ten years, she says, she's renovated and acquired 7 homes. "That's going to be the doll house. The culmination of everything I've learned about restoration is going to be edified in the Sapp House.". "I want to make it into a Painted Lady, an old home that is totally restored to its original beauty."

The first floor is going to be like a café that serves brunch and lunch to the legal hub of Bay County. The second floor will be four professional offices and it's going to have my trademark- a picket fence and an arbor with beautiful vines. It'll be only the second house in Bay County to be on the National Registry of Historic Places. (The first is the McKenzie House downtown).

DeGeorge bid $60,000 on the property and estimates that it will take three times that to restore it to its true grandeur.

"It's worth every penny. You don't make any money from old houses. This is from your heart, this is a mission that you have to complete. And I'm just following through."

DeGeorge says she is grateful to the commissioners for allowing her to fulfill her dream of restoring the Sapp House.

"I praise them and I thank every one of them for their efforts and establishing this new trend toward preservation in Bay County. They are setting a new example and I applaud them. I really want to thank them for their part in changing the philosophy of restoration in Bay County. I'm going to make them proud."