Jones County's old home has new owner

Edinburgh Manor, Jones County's old county home, has a new owner.

County supervisors and Jones County Auditor Janine Sulzner signed the deed transfer this morning for the 11-acre parcel, conveying ownership to Q. Farm Land Trust. JoAnn Beers of Fairfax is listed as the group's trustee, Sulzner said.

Efforts to contact Beers have so far been unsuccessful. County officials said the trust plans to convert the building into a bed and breakfast.

A new roof  was installed in 2000, but county officials said the building requires substantial repair to be inhabitable.

Besides the 12,000-square-foot, two-story, century-old brick main structure, the sale includes two caretakers' houses and a wastewater holding lagoon for the property.

Rendered surplus by changing service delivery policies, the home was placed on the market last winter. The trust's $52,050 bid, reduced by $4,550  "for various items related to changes in the condition of the property since the bid was first made," was one of just a handful received by the county.

The manor is about 11 miles northeast of Anamosa. Community Care, the DeWitt-based non-profit that provides residential mental health services under contract to Eastern Iowa counties, moved 36 residents with chronic mental illness from the manor to its new Fairview Care Center in Anamosa in October 2009.