Sometimes Whitney Anderson says she can’t believe her life.
For the last two years, she’s been tinkering away at building the “chouse” of her dreams in Michigan — that’s what she calls the 128-year-old abandoned church that she’s turning into her house.
It’s been a lifelong dream in the making, dating back to when she was a kid and would go to church with her grandparents, marveling at its architecture and power to convene.
“I have been obsessed with stained glass ever since,” Anderson, 45, tells CNBC Make It, “and I love the idea of living in a place where so many people gathered together.”
Whitney Anderson bought a 128-year-old church in Michigan and is renovating it into her dream home.Shane McMurphy | CNBC Make It
A decade-long search has now culminated in several more years of hard work, including nonstop months of renovations under the watchful eyes of TV producers and online followers. She’s worked through a roughly $200,000 design budget and has big plans to turn the building into a new gathering space.
“This is still the biggest gamble I have ever made in my life,” Anderson says. “It’s still 50/50 if this is going to be a sustainable chouse … or if it’s going to be what bankrupts me. But I have this inner feeling of peace every time I’m in here.”
The feeling is “what drives me,” she adds. “I’m not going to let anything or anyone stop me from fulfilling this dream, even if it takes me 30 years.”
Finding the perfect chouse
About 10 years ago, the New York City-based interior stylist and decorator launched a nationwide search for a church she could afford, fix up and turn into a personal home.
She says she spent about three to four years aggressively saving her income and stashed about $250,000 in her chouse fund. She made offers on a few properties in several states, but nothing really panned out.
In the spring of 2024, her housing search came to an end — somewhat surprisingly — on Zillow.
Whitney Anderson first fell love with the church that would become her home because of its stained glass windows.Shane McMurphy | CNBC Make It
As Anderson learned during the process, churches are typically listed on commercial real estate sites or even Facebook Marketplace, she says, but not typically residential real estate sites like Zillow. But one day she found a listing online for a parsonage house, or a small dwelling owned and maintained by a church where its leader lives with their family. The parsonage house, located in Michigan, was listed at $125,000 and came with a free church.
Originally built as a Methodist church in 1898, the building was in bad shape, Anderson says, with “human-sized holes” in the roof and extensive water damage that required her to sign a waiver and wear a respirator mask just to tour the property.
Opening the entryway doors “was like a punch of mold right in your face,” Anderson says. “But when I came through the entry and turned the corner and saw these windows, I actually ran back out and pulled my realtor away and said, ‘This is gonna be mine.’”
Where most people might see a big, empty room, Anderson says she envisioned a huge library wall, an open kitchen, room for gathering, artfully restored stained-glass windows and her own personal residence.
“I just got goosebumps because it was everything that my brain had been imagining, literally in one place,” Anderson says. “I definitely fell in love with it at first sight, despite all of the issues that it had.”
Whitney Anderson bought her chouse in June 2024 and immediately began renovations.Shane McMurphy | CNBC Make It
Anderson struck a deal on the property in June 2024. After some aggressive negotiating, she paid $45,000 for the 3,500-square-foot church, the parsonage house and an adjacent empty grass lot of about 10,000 square feet.
Nearly $200,000 in renovations
The church currently has one bedroom and two bathrooms; the adjacent parsonage house has four bedrooms and two bathrooms.
Anderson paid for the property in cash, and she’s so far spent about $194,000 on renovations. She started living in the parsonage house (or “camping” there given its own state of disrepair) and got to work on her new home’s biggest issues, starting with repairing the roofing and gutters, waterproofing the buildings and addressing long-standing mold and water damage.
Anderson, who lived in New York for over 30 years and made a career of renovating old houses, says she’s “no stranger” to old, abandoned or condemned homes. “I just kind of looked at this as like a house flip on steroids,” she says.
But her chouse project is bigger, more expensive and “crazier” given she uprooted her life to live in a new town where she doesn’t know anyone. That makes it harder to find the right professionals and resources to bring her ideas to life, she says.
Whitney Anderson repurposed many of the elements of the old church into her renovation, including using wood from the building’s old pews in her furniture.Shane McMurphy | CNBC Make It
To contain costs, Anderson says she did most of the demolition work herself, installed some floor joists, put up the drywall and bucked her fear of heights to hand-paint the exterior walls, as well as some of the interiors.
“I rented an 80-foot boom lift and harnessed up and got in that bucket,” Anderson says. “It was horrible. But the blue is so good and it made such a difference.”
She adds that “it was extremely important to me to honor and maintain as much of the original character as possible” from the church, like keeping the original stained-glass windows and some of the overhead lights installed around the 1940s. Anderson also repurposed some of the pews (not original to the church) into the grand library wall lining the main room, and into her dining table and chairs. One of the kitchen islands is made of a door from the entryway and an old communion table.
The building was originally built as a Methodist church in 1898.Shane McMurphy | CNBC Make It
A viral sensation
Anderson began documenting her chouse renovation project on Instagram at the encouragement of some friends. Then, in early March 2025, a 30-second video went viral (it’s now up to 16 million views and nearly 3,700 comments) and attracted the attention of producers at the Magnolia Network. By the end of the month, Anderson was signed on to appear on their “Home Reimagined” renovation show, hosted by legendary interior designer Vern Yip.
The opportunity supercharged Anderson’s timeline to restore the house, which up until that point had only involved roof repairs.
Whitney Anderson spent over 30 years in New York City and worked as an interior stylist. In 2024 she moved to Michigan to renovate and live in her chouse.Shane McMurphy | CNBC Make It
“When they found me, I had done pretty much nothing,” Anderson says. While she’d originally planned to spend four or five years slowly renovating the church, working with the TV crew’s timeline meant fast-tracking everything. “I spent almost eight months just working ’round the clock in here” and living off of her savings because she couldn’t work.
“It was mayhem,” she says.
Even if you don’t have all the money you need, if you believe in yourself and you just stay committed to that plan, that dream, it will work out.Whitney Anderson
Anderson says she wasn’t paid to be on the show, but that participating helped her get sponsorships and some free materials and labor, including her kitchen cabinets, appliances and countertop slabs; some flooring; and carpenters who built her library wall at no cost to her.
“I will be perfectly honest that there is zero chance I’d be this far along if it wasn’t from that support of social media,” she says.
‘I don’t know if I’m ever going to be completely done’
Moving from New York to a small town in Michigan has come with a culture shock for Anderson. Not everyone in town is happy she’s turning the old church into her private residence. Others ask whether Anderson thinks her new home is haunted. (Anderson doesn’t think any ghosts linger, but if so, “We’ll all just hang out together,” she says.)
Overall, Anderson says she feels the community has “embraced” the project and sees her intention to save the old building and bring some life back to the neighborhood.
All told, Anderson hopes to stay under $400,000 in renovation costs
She still has plenty of work ahead of her. Her next “aggressive goal” is to restart her interior styling business in Michigan, working and making as much money as possible in the next six to eight months in order to complete a roughly $40,000 excavation project on the parsonage house by next winter. She also hopes to get savvier with monetizing her social media and courting brand partnerships.
Whitney Anderson hopes to turn her property into a bed and breakfast, where guests will sleep in the parsonage house and have breakfast in the chouse.Shane McMurphy | CNBC Make It
“Last year was so crazy that it’s been so nice to just live in here and focus on building my life here now,” Anderson says.
“I don’t know if I’m ever going to be completely done, because I love to tinker and change things,” she says. In terms of the bigger to-dos — adding insulation, landscaping, turning the steeple into a porch and replacing its bell — she hopes to be finished with the bulk by the end of 2028.
She has another reason to meet that timeline. Looking ahead, Anderson hopes to turn her lot into a bed and breakfast, where guests will sleep in the parsonage house, then eat and gather in the chouse (where Anderson will also maintain her private quarters).
But beyond furnishing her home or launching future business plans, Anderson says taking on such a massive life project has held deeper meaning.
“My ultimate goal of sharing all of this is to inspire other people to chase whatever their dream is,” she says. “I don’t mean that in a woo woo kind of way. I mean that in a “buckle down, figure it out [kind of way]. Even if you don’t have all the money you need, if you believe in yourself and you just stay committed to that plan, that dream, it will work out.”
