Volunteers Needed To Transform Manvel Mansion Into A Veterans Treatment Facility

MANVEL, TX -- A massive 30-room mansion that was never completed, may soon be serving as a treatment facility for military veterans.

The 60,000 square-foot house, which has an asking price of $3.5 million, would obviously need some work to complete, but instead the property will be leased and is now known as The Bailey House Veteran Facility. (Sign up for Patch’s daily newsletter for your neighborhood.)

The mansion was started in 2001, but stopped when the family building the home moved into a smaller home next door, leaving to sit unused and unfinished.

But many saw the potential, including Christa Mode, founder of The Bailey House Veteran Facility, who named the facility after Jimmy Stewart’s character George Bailey from the 1946 Frank Capra classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Mode, a Navy veteran who is herself classified as disabled as a result of post traumatic stress disorder, learned about the mansion last summer when her cousin sent her the advertisement as a joke.

The single mother of three boys was living in Oregon and immediately was inspired to call the property owner.

She saw the potential for a facility that could house and educate veterans suffering with PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury and Military Sexual Trauma, that once completed, could house up to 200 veterans and their families.

Jim Youngblood, Chief Financial Officer at Renter’s Warehouse and co-owner of the property, listened to Mode, and believes she has the drive to make The Bailey House Veteran Facility, a success.

“I get tire-kickers calling every day for the facility, because everybody has these grand ideas, but they don’t really have the financing to back it up,” Youngblood told KHOU. “My partner and I think she has a good idea, a good plan, and it’s a service that’s needed here in Houston.”

In January, Mode sold her possessions, and she and her three sons packed what was left, and moved from Oregon to Houston.

However, the project is still in its infancy and three there is still a lot of work to do that will require a lot of fundraising and volunteering that will go toward finishing the facility, which is listed at 30 bedrooms and could have more than 50, once it is completed.

There is also a lot of administrative work to do, such as having the property rezoned by the city of Manvel from residential to light commercial, and establishing the facility as a 501(c)(3).

Although it’s in the beginning stages, Mode said the project is gathering steam and has attracted a lot of attention, mostly through the Facebook Page she set up for the facility.

The Bailey House Veteran Facility is located at 2354 County Road 59 in Manvel, Texas.

Image: The Bailey House Veteran Facility/Facebook

Don’t forget to like the Clear Lake Patch Facebook Page