ROBERTSDALE, Alabama -- You may not know it, but tucked back off of U.S. Highway 90 in Robertsdale is a modest brick home.

While it may look rather unassuming, for decades it was filled with the hopes and dreams of one family and thanks to a lot of hard work, determination and donations, the home will soon be filled with a lot more hopes and dreams.

In the 1970s, the Mildorf family moved from Wisconsin to their new home in Robertsdale.

“My father was disabled and couldn’t work,” said Marlene Mesler, one of four Mildorf children. “We needed a place and that land had been in our family for more than 100 years.”

Mesler’s mother, Mary Mildorf, picked out a floor plan for the five-bedroom, 5 ½ bath home and they set to work with Mesler, her two brothers and sister, along with their uncle, for the most part building the home with their father, who had worked as a longtime contractor, directing traffic.

“He knew how to build it, but couldn’t do it himself, so we had to do it for him,” said Mesler, who along with her siblings, were all teenagers at the time.

They built the home using materials from the land, cut down trees and used a local sawmill to mill the lumber for the frame and ceilings, and used stones and other materials from the property for the home’s structure.

“We used a couple of contractors for some things such as plumbing and brick masonry, but for the most part did all the work ourselves,” Mesler said. “It truly was a labor of love.”

They built an apartment onto the home where the uncle lived. One by one the four children went off to college, Mesler said. Mary Mildorf took care of her husband until he died, then took care of the uncle until he died.

She would eventually be left in the home alone.

“She knew that it was too much house for her to take care of by herself,” Mesler said. So she began taking in people who needed a place to stay.

In her later years, Mildorf began thinking about what would be done with the home after her death.

“She was a planner,” Mesler said. “She liked to plan things and talk about the future.”

One of the things they talked about was using the home as a shelter.

“It was something that we talked about, but it was like, ‘I have no idea how to make that happen,’” Mesler said. But it was always something that was in the back of her mind.

When Mildorf died in 2010 at the age of 92 the idea of using the home as a shelter was still there, but still the family had no idea how to make it happen.

But, Mesler said, God would eventually intervene.

Mesler runs a website www.nationalprayerbank.com where people can go and leave prayer requests.

One day, Mesler said, a prayer request came in from Under His Wings, an organization that provides shelter for at-risk teenage girls. The group was looking for a home they could use.

The group had been formed through the vision of Dr. Lorena “Nena” E. Hunt, an OB/GYN in Fairhope, and was nurtured independently by two other women, Cindy Marshall, a longtime patient of Hunt, and Tracey Cioncoli, a Daphne business owner who has served as a youth and children’s ministry director.

There had been a couple of leads at various locations, but nothing had panned out.

 “I saw it and I immediately thought, ‘I wonder if we could use our home for something like that,’” Mesler said.

It turns out that the home was perfect for the project.

“When we built the home, my mother picked a design so that every bedroom had its own bathroom,” Mesler said. “That was practically unheard of at the time, but it is perfect for their needs.”

The home was also built with the apartment for her uncle, which was perfect for Marshall and her husband, John, who will live in the apartment as group parents for the home.

For more than a year, the group has worked to renovate the home under the direction of executive director Angie Michal.

Hundreds of donations have come in for the home, including much-needed money, furnishings and labor.

In November, the group Impact100 awarded a $106,000 grant for the home. The home has also received a donation from the Snook Foundation, among others.

“It just seems like whenever we’ve needed something, there has been someone there to provide it,” Michal said.

The home is now finished and is awaiting inspection by the Alabama Department of Human Resources. Once they pass inspection the home will be able to open, hopefully within the next month, Michal said.

“We’ve had a lot of calls,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of calls from parents and a lot of calls from girls wanting to know when we’ll be ready to open.”

On Sunday, Jan. 20, the home hosted an open house with as many as 300 expected to attend, Michal said.

Once the inspection process is completed, the facility will house up to 10 girls, two per room. The group is privately funded and, while it does receive donations from churches, is not affiliated with any church, Michal said. It also does not receive any government funding.

For Mesler, so many have served as an inspiration in getting the home ready, including Michal, the Board and members of the community.

“I can’t say enough about (Michal),” she said. “She’s done so much, including painting and hammering, whatever needed to be done to get the job done. So many people have pitched in to help out, it’s been truly awe-inspiring.”

But first and foremost, the whole project was inspired by her mother’s legacy.

“Her middle name was Rose and she certainly flowered in her later years providing shelter for people in need,” Mesler said. “What is most inspiring for me is that I don’t think the best stories have been written yet. I think the best stories will come from the lives of the teenage girls that will be touched by this organization.”

Anyone wanting to donate can visit the group’s website http://underhiswings.info or mail to Under His Wings, 7099 Wood Acres Drive, Fairhope, AL 36532.