By Carol E. Lee
Published Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.
Last updated Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 12:27 p.m.
SARASOTA — The north Sarasota house where New College students have lived communally since 1992 was sold in a public auction Wednesday morning for $100.
The buyer was HSBC Bank USA, which held the mortgage that the home's owner failed to pay. There were no other bidders for the house.
The tenants at "The 47th Street House," as it is called, vowed to again attempt to buy the home, even as they were told they had 10 days to move out. Six of them sat in the front row of the courtroom during the foreclosure sale of their residence, an anticlimactic event that took just minutes.
"I wish we could have done something," tenant and New College graduate Sarah Kell, 28, said after the sale.
"I felt a mixture of anger and frustration," added tenant April Doner, 25. "I really hope we can save the house."
The renters said they tried to buy the house after learning in January that their landlord had not used their $2,075-per-month rent to pay her mortgage.
They said the bank rejected their offer to buy the house.
The 47th Street House was built by New College student Al Leonard in 1992 with yellow pine and cypress lumber from local sawmills. His goal was to create an off-campus residence where New College students could live in a communal atmosphere.
The house has served that purpose ever since. Chores are divided evenly among the tenants, and they hold potluck dinners and house meetings every other week at their kitchen table. The tradition became threatened when Leonard, now 53 and living in Vermont, sold the home to Carmen Palomino for $190,000 in 2006.
Palomino said in an interview this week that she could not afford her mortgage after her homeowners' insurance increased.
"Heartbreaking," tenant Lynn Jacobsen, 26, said of the situation with the house. "It's part of our life."
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