No Bids for Love Home at Foreclosure Sale

A Los Angeles mortgage company owns the historic bungalow Courtney Love bought in the late 1990s, after a foreclosure auction generated no bids. WMC Mortgage filed a lawsuit last year in Thurston County Superior Court, seeking foreclosure after Love stopped paying the bills. The debt on the house totaled $386,000, which includes court costs, sheriff's fees and interest, said Thurston County Sheriff's Sgt. Dan McLendon. Love could have prevented Friday's auction by paying off the debt. McLendon said he expected some bids after fielding about 100 calls from people expressing interest in the property, likely due to the celebrity connection.

"It really kind of shocked me," he said of the lack of bids. "We anticipated a lot of folks coming out."

Calls to the mortgage company were unanswered Friday.

Love, widow of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, bought the property in 1997 for Cobain's family. In the foreclosure lawsuit, she is named as a trustee of the Courtney Love family trust. Love stopped paying the mortgage in December 2003, court documents say. The house had been occupied by Cobain's sister, Kim, who moved out before the auction. The house, built in 1903, is on 13 acres bordering Capitol Forest in Littlerock, about 10 miles north of Olympia. It is one of the last remaining structures from the town of Bordeaux, which was demolished in 1941, according to county records, and is listed on the local historical inventory.

Cobain, who committed suicide in the couple's Seattle home in 1994 at age 27, grew up in Aberdeen. He moved to Olympia at age 20, and lived there during Nirvana's early years