My great-grandparents owned a small summer cottage which my grandma inherited. After COVID, my family stopped visiting so much and it fell in disrepair. With no one to care for it, my grandma decided to sell it.

On a whim, I did some digging and found that the cottage was actually listed as “culturally significant” by the Massachusetts Historical Commission. It had 150 years of incredible history we never knew. I put together a nice report, presented it to my family, and well now I’m writing this from that very cottage with a 5th generation (my son) next to me.

From that experience, I started HomeLore to help other people learn the history behind their homes and hopefully inspire a passion like mine. The concept is pretty simple.. we research homes (incl ownership, architecture, history, images, etc) and package the results into a beautiful, shareable online report that reads more like a narrative than a spreadsheet.

The idea of a “carfax for homes” seems so obvious but likely hasn’t been done due to lack of unified data. I keep costs low ($29) but still donate 50% of all proceeds to the local historical orgs I use in hopes of improving their infra or making them more interested in data. Hence the .org tld.

Would love to hear thoughts, find collaborators, or just chat with anyone about their homes stories! Find it at homelore.org