Student house lies near local cemetery close to campus
Buried beneath their landlords, four Hillsdale College track team members live in the renamed underground apartment
Mary Petrides
Issue date: 9/24/09 Section: Focus
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The group - junior Logan Shoup, senior Jared Krout, junior Sam Bender and junior Bob Lochner - rent a basement apartment from Tim Wells, assistant women's basketball coach.
Across the street lies Oak Grove Cemetery.
"It's a little unsettling when you're riding your bike at night," Krout said.
He said he was startled passing a man on his cell phone in the cemetery.
"There's always deer out here, and sometimes your headlights catch their eyes. All of a sudden there's a whole field of eyes," Shoup added.
Wells and his wife Sumer graduated from Hillsdale in 2006. She started coaching volleyball at Hillsdale High School; he began working with the women's basketball team and eventually became assistant coach, Wells said.
They lived in a couple different apartments in the area before building the house at 4 B W. Montgomery St. they now live in, he said.
The house sits on 1.7 acres of land about 150 feet from the street.
"You don't even feel like you're in Hillsdale," Wells said.
After constructing the house, the couple added a full walk-out basement apartment which they rent to students.
The apartment features three bedrooms, two full baths, a living room, washer and dryer, and a full kitchen.
"We kind of tried to down everything we wanted when we were in college," Wells said.
The tenants of the residence live underneath their landlords.
"It's actually not bad," Shoup said. "It's nice because if we need something or if something breaks, it's not too hard to get a hold of him."
Shoup said extra insulation between their ceiling and the Wells' floor helps keep noise levels down.
Though previous tenants have called the apartment "The Graveyard," friend and fellow track runner Alex Ralston, a junior, suggested they call it "Jeff Gordon's Palace of Love."
Jeff Gordon is a NASCAR driver. Ralston said he does not follow NASCAR.
"I chose the name because it has nothing to do with anybody who lives in the place," Ralston said.
He said the name got "mixed reviews" from tenants.
"Some people said they would never go to a place named Jeff Gordon's Palace of Love," he said. "I said I would definitely go to a place called Jeff Gordon's Palace of Love because it is a creative name and it sparks interest."
Ralston compared the name to class starting at 1:27 p.m.
"Why 1:27?" he said. "Why Jeff Gordon's Palace of Love? There is no answer to that question at all," he said.
The tenants, however, had other ideas.
"We decided we'd call it 'The Dead End,'" Shoup said. "We liked it better."
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