... but I'm dismayed by how bad the architecture is. Zillow and Trulia send me things from a particular city I've shown interest in, but
every single thing is badly designed and much of it is atrocious. Even if I found one house that suited my taste — and all I want is something clean and
simple — I'm afraid I'd have to look out on ugliness. It's really discouraging! Why haven't people figured out how to design a house? I know, what I'm seeing
is what people have figured out. So then, my problem is with
people?
Also, it's often hard to see what's really there, because the photograph is taken with an extremely wide angle lens (so widened and curved it nauseates me) or because there's some insane furniture that distracts me and scares me. Example:
ADDED: Reminds me of
the Pope's fanciest stage:
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Did you live in Oak Hill? Nice walkable neighborhood and near my daughter's fav restaurant when she was at Lincoln School - India. I understand the need to move wrt public schools and I don't know if I could afford Lincoln for said daughter today.
I love the Blue Ridge Mountains, too. Asheville is beautiful! Lots of great hiking in that area, too.
how about Habitat 67 in Montreal overlooking the St. Lawrence river?
Wiki --
In March 2012, Habitat 67 won an online Lego Architecture poll and is a candidate to be added to the list of famous buildings that inspire a special replica Lego set. Lego bricks were actually used in the initial planning for Habitat; according to Safdie's firm, "initial models of the project were built using Lego bricks and subsequent iterations were also built with Lego bricks".[
We visited Madison a few years ago and nephew/wife (both residents at UW hospital at the time) took us around town looking at the various Frank Lloyd Wright buildings (there's a pamphlet!). Pretty sure we drove within a few blocks of Meadehouse (based on Althouse photos of her walks) and my thought was: this looks like the Ravenna/Green Lake area of Seattle. Not that Green Lake compares to Lake Mendota, but the homes (near University of Wash) and streets were similar. When I lived in UW area (law school), I loved to walk the Ravenna/Green Lake corridor and look at the homes.
Of course, those same homes cost a fortune these days -- but the property taxes are much lower. At some point, you just have to haul out the old pro/con list and start filling it out.
Most people haven't a clue how to decorate a house. It's a ton of shitty knockoffs, schlocky junk art bought from HomeGoods and too large or ornate furniture for the style of home they have.
My sister has a place on Vashon Island. A small rustic one room 80 year old cabin. They can't re-build because they can't agree on on the style of the roof line. A traditional pitched roof, or an inverted roof.
We considered Vashon and it's one of my favorite places on earth, but decided against when we saw their vaccination rates.
We really liked Santa Fe, NM. But there's no middle class there..
Santa Fe is lovely but New Mexico has become a shit-hole state.
You might consider Sandpoint, ID, if you can get a place overlooking Lake Pend Oreille. It's a small-but-artsy little town, as is Bigfork, MT, on Flathead Lake.
My daughter had 5 acres just upon the hill from Hope ID. We like Sandpoint.
Asheville, NC, huh?
It will be hard to find anything that compares positively with that nice Prairie-Style house in a leafy, comfy neighborhood.
Designing pleasing architecture is becoming lost knowledge.
“We really liked Santa Fe, NM. But there's no middle class there..
Santa Fe is lovely but New Mexico has become a shit-hole state.”
Been a sjithole state for as long as I can remember. Back in the 1980s, I had a DoE Q clearance, and visited Sandra, in Albuquerque, an awful lot. The joke was that I had spent more time in the new Marriott the first nine months it was open than the staff had. One of the engineers there was a runner, until he found out what all that sparkle along the roads was - broken beer bottles. Thousands, and tens of thousands broken beer bottles on all the highways. And most of the people there aren’t that friendly. Brother wanted to move there after my father died a couple years ago, and I talked him out of it. Instead he bought my parents’ house west of Denver in the mountains, and is happy there.
“You might consider Sandpoint, ID, if you can get a place overlooking Lake Pend Oreille. It's a small-but-artsy little town, as is Bigfork, MT, on Flathead Lake.”
I like both of them. Looked at buying last summer around Sandpoint when my partner got upset at me for buying the two lots by her house 80 miles up river from there in my own name. Starting to get pricey now, but not at Coeur d’Alene (40 miles south) levels. I much prefer Sandpoint to CdA. Pond O’Reille is, in my view, a much more scenic lake. Moreover, it is the sailing lake, compared to CdA, which is mostly motorboats. Also, due it’s depth, it doesn’t freeze in the winter. Great skiing too, and the view from the ski area of Sandpoint and Pend O’Reille is spectacular. And, yes, you can ski in the morning, and sail in the afternoon. For walking, I think I would prefer CdA though over Sandpoint - if you can afford it. And biking too.
Talking about biking - about the only place I have seen anything bike friendly in MT is in the older sections of Missoula (okay, I do bike into the small town we live by, and we now have about 5 miles of bike paths - but overall, MT is bike unfriendly, esp compared to what I was used to in CO. In Boulder, where my kid rode their bike to CU the last five years (even in the snow), drivers are almost assumed to be at fault in altercations with bicyclists. In much of MT, it is called Assumption of Risk. Pickups doing 70 on roads without much pavement outside the lines don’t really make biking that safe.
The other thing is that gardens are problematic outside the larger cities in MT, unless you can fence it in. The pre-venisons are a plague Nice if you like to feed them from the porch (as my partner does), but not good if you want a garden. She did fine with her ex husband - they have a half a section or so 5 miles down river, and fencing a couple acres was very doable. She wants a garden around our house there, and I laugh at her. I tell her that I will do it for her, if she lets me get a bow, to keep the deer out (we are just within the city limits, which unfortunately, means no discharging of firearms, even in hunting season).
I do love it there though. We don’t have two legged predators to worry about, just four legged. Deer in the front yard every day from maybe late June through the fall, and black bear through there at night. Subdivision has 10 houses all about ten years old. Climbing paths (walking paths for Montanans) surrounding the subdivision, and situated in a forest of thick huge pine trees. You know everyone there, and they pitch in to help at the drop of a hat. And surrounded by a national forest that is only minutes away.
“My daughter had 5 acres just upon the hill from Hope ID. We like Sandpoint.”
Just a reminder - we need to hook up next summer when you are up there to visit. We are roughly 65 miles SE of there along the river. Drive through Hope every time we pop into Sandpoint.
“Most people haven't a clue how to decorate a house. It's a ton of shitty knockoffs, schlocky junk art bought from HomeGoods and too large or ornate furniture for the style of home they have.”
I have the opposite problem. My partner is a trained interior decorator. Which means that pretty much anything I suggest gets vetoed right out of the starting gate. I will admit that she is extremely good at it (actually had a couple houses in Architectual Digest a couple decades ago when she was still active), but if she can’t make it fit in her vision it doesn’t get done. Period.
“My daughter had 5 acres just upon the hill from Hope ID. We like Sandpoint.”
Just a reminder - we need to hook up next summer when you are up there to visit. We are roughly 65 miles SE of there along the river. Drive through Hope every time we pop into Sandpoint.
She is PG and due in July. I told her not much is going to get done in Idaho next summer. Swing by Tucson sometime.
Winston-Salem NC is beautiful,has a great arts community thanks to the Reynolds Tobacco and Hanes money. The Ardmore and Buena Vista neighborhoods are walkable and haven’t been turned into McMansion pits so far. Excellent medical facilities. Wake Forest University located there, in the city so it’s integrated into community life. Taxes are reasonable. We live in Charlotte now, which is developing all the problems of large, Democrat-controlled cities. When it’s time to move, we’ll go to Winston.
If you're considering Asheville, you ought to take a look at Charlottesvile VA.
"I'm looking at condos too. I want a place that is — as I put it — walk-out interesting. I want to walk out the door (like I do here in Madison) and be able to start a walk in almost any direction and find it interesting from Block 1."
BOSTON is where you'll move. All those Boston-adjacent Towns on the South Shore, Quincy MA... and the North Shore, Salem MA. (They're all quite close to Boston, but far enough away and full of quirky charm in every direction you look) Portland, Maine would be good as well, but that might be too far. The entire state of NH has no sales tax, but the largest town is Portsmouth, which is charming, not the least bit suburban, but not as close to Boston as, Salem on the North Shore.
If you want quaint, quirky charm, and no suburban, Mass, NJ & Maine are where you should be looking.
RI is very suburban, and Providence is ghetto, stay away.
We need to build a wall around Santa Fe.
Walk-out able and near nature: Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia. Charming mix of houses, many historical, in an English village kind of way. It's at the far-flung edge of metropolitan Philly so it's safe. Much of it borders on our huge forest preserve (Fairmount Park) so you could get a house within a few blocks of hiking trails. Also, the college town of West Chester, about 30 miles outside of Philly. Ridiculously charming and full of shops and restaurants. Close to beautiful hilly countryside.
Sandpoint looked good from the train, but what we saw was the part by the tracks.
Can you share your list of cities you've found that meet that standard?
Cleveland
Pittsburgh")))
Intimately familiar with them. I always thought the city of Pittsburgh was neat, and I love the general hilly beauty of southwestern PA, but consider this: Do you ever want to see the sun again?
You get SO many cloudy days; lots of rain; lots of snow. Once you go eastward in PA, to about the Harrisburg area, you escape the Lake Erie effect, the weather moderates and the number of sunny days literally doubles.
People used to say that home is where the heart is. Whose heart is in a retirement community? No interest in any of the cutesy, out of the way places. And of all the people you'd like to be with, who among them really wants to be out of the way (that will happen permanently soon enough).
@Leora, Charlottesville has been in too many "best place to retire to" lists, and has become expensive and overcrowded.
I get emails from a modernist house group in NC. It has a link to a group-made google doc that lists modernist homes for sale and the architect if known. Maybe some of the places you all are looking at have a similar group. A lot of the homes on the list are fairly old and need some work, but many are very unique and well designed and built. There’s one on the list in McLean, Va that is partially underground.
https://fusiontables.google.com/DataSource?docid=1qkrH6LkYzH-hAb1mbk8Fq4SbOkaJG5Y2QDekTFI#rows:id=1
If you'd like Asheville, you might very well like Ligonier, PA. In the southwest corner of the state, geographically in the lovely Laurel Highlands/Appalachians. About an hour outside of Pittsburgh, charming town with some old-money and historical lineage.
And check out State College for sure! It's kinda isolated but not as much as Asheville is, and the countryside is gorgeous.
".... maybe consider renting your existing house out for 6 months, then go airbnb your possible locations for a week at a time until you find the city you want to live in. If you don't find something, you've had a great 6 months of traveling."
We may do something like that but it would not include renting our house. I'm not going to do that. I can't accept other people living here. I do not want to be a landlord. Ever. I lived in NYC for 2 semesters in 2007-2008 and I did not even consider renting, even though I felt insecure leaving the house empty. We would just go live in places for a month at a time and we may even rent an apartment for a year while still keeping this house.
"I think base level Sub-Zeros are still 10,000.00"
Maybe I'm misremembering the price. Maybe it was only $2,000 and that seemed ridiculous at the time.
"I took the first offer with no counter at $1 million more than I bought it for in 1995 (500% gain). Woohoo! It's a good time to sell, but buying? I don't know. If the Dems get any more power we're screwed until we wise up again."
Congratulations on your return on the investment. I think I'd rather it be a seller's market, since I have a big asset to sell. We want to buy something smaller and we might even prefer to rent.
"Ann: have you considered Eugene, Oregon? Pretty bikable/walkable city. I love the neighborhood my parents live in, near the university. Some really nice 1-story ranch houses - one of the least cookie cutter developments I've ever seen. Mild winters."
We could try that. More taxes than Washington. I've never been to either Washington or Oregon, and I've been to almost all the states.
"If you can't find a 'nice' house, how about a bland, boring one that you apply your artistic talents to? I am imagining a plain house that you cover with "sketches"! The flat surfaces of a plain house could be a huge canvas."
No, that's not something I want to do or live with. I have many paintings from the old days, but they are mostly stored, not displayed. In fact, my big problem is how to deal with them when/if we downsize and how to avoid burdening my estate with them after I die.
"Sounds like you are looking for a mid-century modern Eichler type which is a suburban knockoff of Frank Lloyd Wright, but the roofs don't leak. Your best bet is going west."
My experience traveling through the West is that the houses are terrible!
"Ann I see what you mean, but I guess I like the style of for example of --56 Pearson Dr. a Queen Anne designed home not bad for the price, although kitchen leaves something to be desired..."
Yes, I've seen that one. There's a lot of crazy complicated stuff in there that just makes me tired. And all those angles. I want something with clean shapes and nothing gaudy. I could accept a lot of wood trim, but not in that bright yellowish brown. I would like the emphasis to be on the view beyond the windows.
"You know we live in 2,220 sq. ft house with 10.000 feet of yard space and pay only $7,000 in taxes for home on other side of belt-line that offers walks through the conservancy or Arboretum in the morning. You could scale down in Madison and use the money saved to travel, something new for you and Mead?"
We have considered moving within Madison. The issue is not about needing to conserve money for some other purpose. We travel as much as we want. I've been vision-limited in the last year and not that interested in "seeing" things. Going to do some new things once I've fully restored. I got my passport renewed (after letting it lapse). Maybe I'll go to Norway.
"Ann: if you use Redfin, you'll have the power of Google Maps. You can immediately see through the veneer of the staging/photography by going to the "walk the neighborhood" function of Google Maps, which shows what the neighborhood/house ***really*** looks like as captured by the Google Map camera. It is quite the contrast. A fraction of the homes I have looked at had several cars in the front yard during "normal" times."
Yeah, I've been checking the Google street views. I care what the surrounding neighborhood looks like.
"'“The literal meaning of "stage" is a place to stand. The misunderstanding is yours!' I suppose you are right in the sense that “all the world’s a stage,” but it did not seem like that’s what you meant. I’m sorry if I misunderstood."
To the extent that it means a raised platform for a performance, I think it's completely fair to call it the Pope's stage.
"There are a bunch of old towns at the North Jersey Shore that have struggled economically for years but are recovering and are a mere high-speed ferry ride from Manhattan -- and a beautiful ride it is on a sunny day..."
A cool possibility. I lived in Wayne, New Jersey when I was a teenager and am familiar with the shore.
https://www.altamontpropertygroup.com/2018/12/30/one-of-a-kind-modern-home-near-downtown-asheville/
This one is from the modernist google doc and is very unique. I’m not so sure about the view though...
"Join the mass migration from the upper midwest to the South! You'll love it."
I don't want to live in the south. I don't like heat. Asheville is up in the mountains and cooler.
"We visited Madison a few years ago... Pretty sure we drove within a few blocks of Meadehouse (based on Althouse photos of her walks) and my thought was: this looks like the Ravenna/Green Lake area of Seattle. Not that Green Lake compares to Lake Mendota, but the homes (near University of Wash) and streets were similar. When I lived in UW area (law school), I loved to walk the Ravenna/Green Lake corridor and look at the homes. Of course, those same homes cost a fortune these days -- but the property taxes are much lower. At some point, you just have to haul out the old pro/con list and start filling it out."
Interesting. Yeah, we do that frequently (in justifying staying here).
For those of you mentioning Vashon... what if you had a medical emergency?
@Nice Thanks for those suggestions/warnings. Somehow I can't picture Meade accepting New England.
Sellwood (near Portland, OR) is the hot ticket here. I'd also check the Sears catalog; they used to have some nice options.
For those of you mentioning Vashon... what if you had a medical emergency?
Vashon has a helipad at the airport. Hope you like rain. A lot.
Drop in on Glenn and Helen for a couple of months.
FTR Vashon is nothing.
I've already done the comparison w/ Bainbridge the last time Doc Mike brought up his lot. Bainbridge is a hundred times better. Not to mention it has a bridge that will go to an extremely modern hospital in Silverdale (assuming they figure out the construction holdups).
But, as an only home, Bainbridge is bad. In fact all of the Pacific NW is bad. Even spending three or more million to buy a nice place, I can't see only being in one place. Too crowded or too rural. The best of both worlds requires both worlds, or multiverse for the bestest.
IMHO.
I think it would be hard to ber Manitowoc.
Or little Sturgeon Bay.
There's the nice little town of Madison, NJ, which my teenage self couldn't wait to get out of to go to Madison, WI.
“To the extent that it means a raised platform for a performance, I think it's completely fair to call it the Pope's stage.”
It is fair to call it a stage only in the sense that it kind of looks like a stage if you don’t know what it really is. What the celebrant does on that altar cannot fairly be called a performance in the ordinary sense of that word. It is where the holy sacrifice of the mass is celebrated. It is not meant to be a performance — in fact whether or not the mass is seen by anyone other than the celebrant is completely immaterial. If anyone is performing on the altar, it would be Jesus Christ who transforms the accidents of bread and wine into his body and blood. But it seems sacrilegious to call that a performance.
@Pants
I'm not sure you'll keep reading this thread, but have you looked at Great Hearts schools? If I lived in AZ, I'd totally enroll my kids there.
@Ann:For those of you mentioning Vashon... what if you had a medical emergency?
In the San Juans (county of islands near Victoria BC) every household pays a modest monthly premium for medevac. One of the islands has its own hospital but if you're on one of the others you're getting airlifted regardless.
The San Juans are in the Olympic rain shadow. It's very expensive to live there, and it has very high per capita incomes, most people who live there brought their own money.
Me, I visit on the ferry.
@chuckR -- You got it. Oak Hill is a lovely neighborhood. You cross the border from Providence to Pawtucket and the housing prices drop $100,000. Yet, it's right on the east side, close to everything, including beautiful Swan Point cemetary. It has a not-bad elementary school for Pawtucket. We moved there when we first had kids, had great times with lots of friends and great neighbors. Then, when everyone's kids turned middle school age, everyone moved.
"It's very expensive to live there, and it has very high per capita incomes, most people who live there brought their own money."
Some have their own choppers, too.
Newest in the hood:
https://variety.com/2018/dirt/real-estalker/oprah-winfrey-san-juan-islands-compound-1202830035/
I hear that Lake Hill, New York is quite a beautiful area of the country, and you would also have the opportunity to have Shouting Thomas as a neighbor.
Seems like it would be a total win! win! situation for you and Meade.
This is the sort of thing I am looking at -
https://www.idealista.com/en/inmueble/83885734/
https://www.idealista.com/en/inmueble/82685249/
https://www.idealista.com/en/inmueble/40168386/
Granted, the interior decoration may need adjustment.
We will keep the San Francisco house, for the kids. They will inherit that, they can split it as they think best, with the other assets.
Just a modest retirement pad for us.
I moved to Oregon about 12 years ago after life in Chicago. Luckily, I live about 100 yards south of Portland in the next county.
There are dozens of lovely small cities in the Willamette Valley and dozens of others in the Cascade foothills or on the coast. Where I live I'm about an hour-and-a-half from Mt. Hood, the coast or wine country. My county fair has a great rodeo. I'm about fifteen minutes from farm country and about the same to downtown Portland, should I need to go there.
I never have to shovel winter precipitation.
Scott X said...
"I hear that Lake Hill, New York is quite a beautiful area of the country, and you would also have the opportunity to have Shouting Thomas as a neighbor.
Seems like it would be a total win! win! situation for you and Meade."
Hahahaha.
But clicking through the photos Buwaya linked to, I must say, I sort of hope he and Mrs. B. put a rat sticker on their front door once they get to Málaga (just in case Mrs Meade manages to get me to escort her to warm sunny Spain one of these cold blue moons.)
"Somehow I can't picture Meade accepting New England."
When a man loves a woman
Spend his very last dime
Trying to hold on to what he needs
He'd give up all of his comforts
And sleep out in the rain
If she said that's the way
It ought to be
Hey if you are interested in the Design Within Reach aesthetic, you may like an Eichler neighborhood.
I'm writing this as a current Wisconsin resident, but I'm from Thousand Oaks, California.
There is an incredible Eichler neighborhood there.
https://www.eichlerforsale.com/thousand-oaks-eichlers.php
Also, Old Town Fort Collins, Colorado is beautiful.
There are Eichler neighborhoods in the Bay area too.
We built a home, and it was like creating an art project. Very rewarding.
Good Luck Ann!
Look at the tony sections of Cincinnati, on the hill, or over in northern KY.
Lots of nice places in western Michigan.
Small towns in southern Ontario usually retain wonderful historical sections. Not practical but I bet Ohio is full of such places.
If I were to relocate anywhere in the country, it would probably be Maine. The cooler climate is suitable, and I have not enjoyed many places I have visited more than Mount Desert Island.
As far as architecture, it is probably best to find a neighborhood built before the Depression in a town or village that was reasonably built out by that time. Small-town America has its charm, especially if it is within a reasonably quick drive to a major city.
Well you owe it to yourself to at least visit Salem, Mass. Lots of funky places to explore, very hip avant-garde culture, forest area very close by as well with great hiking trails. Have you been to Rockport, Mass ?? Salem & Rockport, Mass very very accessible to Boston and full of charm. I would at least visit before writing them off completely.
Hard to believe Meade is dead-set against Boston area. Boston is NYC without the crime, and health care is top-notch ---Tufts Med & Mass General #1 in the Country.
I've lived in WI before and yet it about takes my breath away every time Althouse reminds us what their taxes are. One of the reasons we moved from city to county 'burbs is because it cut our property taxes in half. I think we pay $1200 not counting our fire department subscription.
Sometimes I go look at houses for recreation. I can't wait for the open floor plan trend to be over. The people who design them must not have children or houseguests. I need places to send people when not everyone wants to do the same thing at the same time. Open plan gets loud fast.
One of the things I've been noticing lately in the higher-end homes is super-wide built-in refrigerators. I'd seen tall built-ins before, but not wide ones. I took a peek in one to see how deep it was, and it was barely deep enough to store a 9x13 turned sideways. A fridge like that would keep things from getting lost in the back, but if you ever needed to thaw a turkey or store a party platter, you'd need a second 'regular' fridge somewhere.
Look at the tony sections of Cincinnati, on the hill, or over in northern KY.
I hear Covington is not very nice.
Actually, my previous Cadillac was a rental there for 2 years, and it was a good car.
Does Florida count as the south? :)
Because so many places would meet your parameters
Miami (South Beach or Wynwood)
Tampa Bay area (South Tampa or St. Petersburg)
Orlando (Winter Park or Baldwin Park)
Jacksonville (Jax Beach or Ponte Vedra)
Fort Lauderdale
Delray Beach
Naples
Sarasota
Siesta Key
Gainesville
Mount Dora
St. Augustine
OK, I'm going to stop typing now. I am 25 years or so from retirement and am already jealous of someone who's able to retire to the places right now.
Ashville is pretty if you like Seventies office buildings (I do) and lots of terrible expensive pottery.
Zillow is hilarious. Amazing what people do to their homes and put in them. Smoke pot and find joy in it.
Ashville has a lot of great history. Thomas Wolfe house is amazing. The housing stock is a bit sticky hippy thanks to mild zoning rules that happen in mountainous areas. My only advice is to steer clear of being in an actual forest or mountain plot. Claustrophobic. Look to the open valleys. Chattanooga is surprisingly nice. Ditto Nashville. Highlands, also Clayton in Rabun County. Forget Deliverance the movie. This is Deliverance the book, a very different thing. Dickey was had. It's gorgeous land.
Google Helen, Georgia on Zillow if you want to smoke pot and laugh at aesthetic choices. It's an "Alpine Village."
How a house sits on land is the most important thing. Unless you're into strip mining, it's the one thing you can't change.
Ann, it sounds like your criteria for house design would be satisfied by most "mid-century" homes. Three-bedroom ranches with plain rectangular rooms, hardwood floors, perhaps a fireplace. Pittsburgh and its surrounds are chock-full of these and the cost of real estate and tax situation is very attractive. Guess what else? Pennsylvania is one of the few states that does NOT tax pension income!
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