fantasy islands: 102 highland and 37 alexander

currently, i'm quarantined with a virus that usually effects small children and its making me prone to act like one. in that spirit, today you'll get visit some dream houses in the area that i'll never be able to buy but sure wish i could.

home number 1, downton abbey meets arts and crafts magic.

http://www.cohn-company.com/properties/460

i've driven by this house many times. the neighborhood is a plethora of mansions and victorian throwbacks. this gem is stuck back from the road, high up on a hill overlooking greenfield. its completely out of place with its mediterranean tile roof and portico but the charm is undeniable.

two views! this amazing office would be a retreat to be sure. i can imagine sitting here, incredibly rich and working on the final volume of the first trilogy of books i want to write. i'll totter over to the fireplace, burn old rejection letters from editors who are now begging to publish my work, smoking my sherlock pipe. you know that sort of thing. also, i'd share it with matt. 

original details! just my find of stained glass. that shield at the top is the heraldry of alsace, just as a fun fact. makes me wonder who built the house...

invalid's porch! especially today, when i can't really leave the house this kind of porch demands that i have a gin and tonic, heavy on the quinine while i boss around the help. ah, help.

finally, i'll be hosting our annual costume christmas brunch where you all come dressed as 18th century french aristocrats in the striped receiving room this year. please arrive on time. yours truly, lady grantham.

home number 2, quaker dreams in leyden.

http://www.cohn-company.com/properties/373

matt adores leyden. its a bit too rural for me so this is probably the closest we'll ever get to thinking about buying a property there. this beauty is almost enough to make me change my mind. that little fenced in space in the back would be perfect for our chickens, don't you think so?

this is quintessentially matt. clean, new england historical charm. the previous owners did a fantastic job working in this idiom with modern updates that don't feel like a slap dash HGTV "vintage" update. more This Old House, really. and i love it. i have no idea what i'd use this room for. hanging my brooms?

do yourself a favor and click on the listing link to see all the photos. this is one of many fire-driven heating options. that built in is too sweet and just around the corner is the spartan, shaker kitchen. i can imagine LIVING in this room through the whole winter. probably not the best for our social lives, but hey, its leyden!

black floor. white molding. antique bricks. i love the feeling of this room. another option for above mentioned holiday brunch.

kitchen action! this property has at least three fully furnished buildings, so looking through the photos at Cohn & Company is a little misleading. i'm pretty sure this is "main house" kitchen. but you never know. the luxury of having multiple buildings kinda baffles me. do you rent them? just hang on to them until visitors come over and then, instead of giving them the guest room give them the guest house? 

why can't i have these houses?!

i mean frankly, i can't think of anyone who deserves them more. 

update and 10 walnut.

2012 has been a great year so far.

just not the year of the house.

at some point mathew and i decided that we weren't going to be able to make it happen this year. thanks in a big way to SR + ML showing us their place and the conversations that came out of that excitement.

 that gem is on the market right now.

 http://www.32parkstreet.com/.

 hard to believe the last post i made here was about them starting the selling process.

so when we decided to not buy a house this year, part of that for me was about not looking for a house. difficult at first but after a couple weeks i wasn't missing it very much. until recently. call it the weather. or the fact that we're about to renew the lease on our apartment. or that two of our best friends have nearly sold their townhouse in brooklyn, so they're in the market and i'm looking at houses they might want. whatever, i've got the fever. and this week it hit me hard. over this little gem.

http://www.fitzgerald-realestate.com/Greenfield/Massachusetts/Homes/Midtown/Agent/Listing_58507763.html

10 walnut street. what a tasty treat you are. even if it broke rule #1 (not in turners falls), greenfield felt like a reasonable compromise for what, from this angle, looks like a pristine folk victorian nestled in the woods.

perfect.

all i want to do is decorate this porch for christmas. and have a giant christmas tree behind those front windows. also, that little table by the front door!

inside, its a bit of a different story. the ceiling almost looks like wood. that trim. the feeling is there for me though. i can imagine a finished product. with me in it. and the work that needs to be done in this room, throughout the whole house, is exactly the kind of home improvement i can handle with matthew. 

 i hate that chair more than i hate this wallpaper.

hutch! i'd want this to be the living room. we'd keep our 1st editions in the cabinet.

.

tiny window at the top of the stairs. 

looks like the floor has already been painted here. which would be nice permission to experiment with painted floors.

2nd porch and that horizontal window is over the kitchen sink. 

sadly, this is the last good angle of the house. there is a trainwreck of a "kid's room" on the second floor. the bathroom is mediocre and doesn't have a window. and the kitchen is pretty much just a long rectangle slapped on the back of the house. but. the work it needed was really all styling and surface. it was a project house within my scope of talents. 

i sent fitzgerald realty an email this morning requesting a showing and got an immediate response. someone made an offer that was sure to be accepted. which is for the best. i'm not sure how we'd have swung it, but for a moment it felt within reach. matthew and i drove by yesterday and the neighborhood is almost perfect. tucked back into the edges of greenfield's nice old home neighborhoods, there she was.

 and across the street was the house from hell. 

a rambling, asbestos sided beast lurking in an overgrown lot the width of three lots on the opposite side of the street, looking like an episode of horders. with a boat in the yard. we spent the rest of the night talking about how to create screening along the road using plantings. i dreamt about painting the living room and all of the fucking trim.

i've got the fever again. 

welcome back.

2012: year of the house (hopefully THIS house)

this brief paragraph is the only whining i'll do about how busy my december has been. i felt great about this blog when i started it in november and then, thanks to the new friends, old friends, lots of cocktails and parties-for-them, and a couple of holidays i dropped the ball. but now its january and time to get back on the horse.

- - -

early in the month, matthew and i had a very interesting offer extended to us. some friends, ML and SR invited us over for long anticipated cocktails (see above, re: procrastination) and to take a look at their house. which they were hoping to sell - quickly. side note: ML is quickly becoming the go to bartender for classy/classic cocktails in turners falls. any excuse to drink with him is one worth taking. but back to the facts . . .

these friends had found a beyond ridiculous-good deal-omg-apartment right on prospect park south in good old brooklyn that they were hoping to buy. and it just happens that SR and i had been originally introduced because they've been thinking about selling this house for a while. and its just my kind of house. bungalow, full of charm, and they've spent the past five + years or so doing the clean up that so many houses in TF need. and what a house! SR has done a great job documenting their time there in her thoroughly readable blog so i'll only include some my personal favorites.

front of house. things that would sell it for me, just from this photo include that incredible tree and the retaining wall (which i probably asked too many questions about but is so sweet). also notice if you can, the driveway to right, which has a strip of grass between the pavement tracks for the wheels of your car.

PORCH! this porch, i mean, it was good enough to be featured on design*sponge. it is more than good enough for me. i can just imagine the solid three seasons matthew and i would spend out here. the photos here don't really do it justice, but the windows are beautiful old beasts that swing out and lock into place. i haven't really been able to shut up about this house and it turns out my mother grew up with a porch just like this. all the more reason for me to love it.


here's a quick shot of SR's excellent use of the #1 trend of 2011: chevron.



a kitchen with space. 'nough said. maybe not. let me count the ways i love the non-existence of travertine, or fake marble, or terra cota, or "tuscan design elements". lordy. for the record, ML and SR added the cut out above the stove and it clearly makes the space feel bigger and brighter. the picture above of the bar and chevron is just on the other side, in the dining room. and from the stove you can see not only into that room but the living room as well - solving the age old problem of entertaining: how to be attentive to your guests without them being underfoot in the kitchen.

and there's a whole 2nd floor i won't even get into. not to mention the detached garage and yard. (really, check out the blog, its worth your time and you'll be completely inspired.)

- - -

so of course we want this house. it may have been the drinks but after we left and came home, we squealed and fantasized for over an hour, talking about what walls to knock down so we could put in a wood stove (seriously the only drawback we could see was that there wasn't a fireplace or wood stove, which we thought would be a deal breaker.) but after some serious discussion, it was clear that matthew and i couldn't marshal our resources to buy this gem on such short notice. ML and SR may have been jumping the gun as well, it seems like there are still some pieces in their lives that need to fall into place before they're truly ready to leave TF. so for now, matthew and i are still looking. and holding up every house we see against this one. and come late spring we'll revisit the idea of spending the rest of our foreseeable lives in a bungalow just below the hill. retaining wall and all.