There's no denying the charm of a house that dates to the Civil War era. But when you're in the business of buying and fixing up buildings for use as apartments, as Kathy and Philip Welling of Franklin Park are, it also has to make sense financially.

"Remember, you're renting it, not selling it," says Mrs. Welling, a respiratory therapist with Apria Healthcare in Butler,

So they were skeptical when their Realtor tried to interest them in a sprawling Second Empire-style house on Ohio River Boulevard in Avalon. Sure, the 18-room Victorian was structurally sound and hadn't been seriously remuddled by previous owners. But its distinctive exterior, with a mansard roof punctuated by dormers, raised one red flag after another.

"You've got to be kidding!" was Mr. Welling's initial response.

The house, which was cut up into six apartments in the 1950s or '60s, had slipped into a sorry state of disrepair. The fish-scale slate roof was no good and much of the wooden fascia and soffit had rotted away. Also, at least half of the home's ornate wooden corbels were either lying on the ground or sitting forgotten in the basement.

The vertical wood siding had an even bigger problem: Water leaking from damaged gutters and downspouts had created a series of gaping holes above the sandstone foundation that in some spots measured as much as 3 by 5 feet -- offering a clear view of the interior studs.

"Anyone who looked at the house would have been like, 'Oh my God!' " says Mrs. Welling, laughing.

"It needed too much work," agrees Mr. Welling, a retired fund-raiser for Carnegie Mellon University.

However, Mrs. Welling couldn't quite put its many architectural details out of her mind. Chief among them were the 12- to 14-foot ceilings on all three levels; plaster ceiling medallions and decorative marble fireplaces; the tall, narrow windows that flooded the interior spaces with natural light; and 4-inch-thick, paneled interior doors.

So when their agent called six months later to say that the price had been dropped to just over $100,000, they didn't hesitate. The next day, the Wellings bought it. After six months and $25,000 in repairs by Nick Tomich of Savangelo Construction of Carnegie, the house is on its way to becoming one of the neighborhood's prettiest residences.

No one knows exactly when the house was built, or for whom. Yet based on its style and type of sandstone foundation, it's believed to have been constructed sometime in the mid- to late 1850s. It might have belonged to a riverboat captain.

During the late 18th and much of the 19th centuries, the Ohio River was a main artery for goods and people heading to the expanding West. And this tiny riverfront community, which was incorporated in 1874 as West Bellevue and renamed Avalon in 1893, was a popular spot with those who made their living on the water, thanks to its close proximity to Downtown Pittsburgh (it's just 6 miles from the Point).

Adding to that supposition is its "crow's nest" room on the third level overlooking the Ohio and the fact that locals know it as the "Captain's Quarters."

Local legend holds that the house was a stop on the Underground Railroad, although the Wellings have yet to uncover any evidence other than some closets containing large holes leading to nowhere.

With the exterior completed last month, the couple will now turn their attention to the interior. And they've gotten some help from an unusual source: tenant Greg Karis, 22, who lives in a loft-style apartment on the third floor. He took it upon himself to install a new Pergo floor and paint the walls a soft cream. Still to come, says Mrs. Welling, are shrubs edged with river rock out front, and a rope walkway that will evoke the property's maritime lineage.

Breathing new life into a building many have given up for dead comes with many rewards, chief among them the pride of knowing you've helped save a piece of a town's history.

But wouldn't you know it, it ain't all good. For years, Mrs. Welling says, the man who lives behind the Captain's Quarters in a separately owned building known as the "servant's quarters," used to offer a picture of the shabby Victorian to fight property tax increases. Now, the Captain's Quarters no longer brings down neighborhood values.

"I had to tell him I'm really sorry!" Mrs. Welling says, smiling.