I ♥ Philadelphia

Thomas Bond, physician, 1712-1784

I’M IN PHILADELPHIA at the moment, in the breakfast room, below, of the Thomas Bond House, a delightful small hotel in Old City. The building dates from 1769, and I’m in my element, taking in the worn pine floors, 12-over-12 windows, toile de jouy wallpaper, Windsor chairs, etc. I’m a sucker even for the hokey details like electrified candlesticks in all the windows.

The Bond House is across the street from another of my favorite Philly places, which would be exceedingly corny if it wasn’t done so very well. City Tavern, below, is a painstaking re-creation of the pub/inn where George, Ben, and the rest spent many happy hours, on its original site.

That’s where I went yesterday for a late lunch (“midday fare”) after I concluded the business that brought me here: meeting with a contractor about interior repairs in my Queen Village building, following major roof failure during last month’s rainstorms, and welcoming a new tenant in Old Kensington.

I love to sit in a corner booth at the authentically underlit City Tavern, eating cornbread-encrusted oysters and sipping a citrus-y pale ale from Alexander Hamilton’s own recipe, served by waitstaff in bonnets or breeches who say “Good afternoon” rather than “Hey, what can I get ya?”

Today I’ll try for about the 5th time to get into the elusive Bishop White House, above, a fully furnished house of the 1780s run by the National Park Service. When I called yesterday for information, I was told its opening was ‘contingent upon staff.’

Happily, the Colonial garden at Walnut and 4th, below, is always open.

’60s House in Sarasota 299K

MY IDEA OF A GREAT WINTER GETAWAY would be an architecture-themed vacation in and around Sarasota, Florida. The area has an extraordinary concentration of modernist houses, including some by Paul Rudolph, who later became dean of Yale’s architecture school, and many by his associates and protegés.

Even better would be to rent, or own, a distinguished modern house there. This one is on the market right now for $299K, which sounds incredibly cheap from my Long Island vantage point.

It’s the 1965 Padgett House, designed by architect James Padgett for his own family and recently restored by HGTV designers Jason Champion and Jim Del Rio. It’s 2 miles from Siesta Key and its Gulf beaches, with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, terrazzo floors, clerestory windows, skylights, stacked block walls, and a two-story living room with catwalk and office.

There’s an open house this Sunday, September 13, from 10 to 2. For more information and driving directions, or to RSVP, contact Martie Lieberman, a real estate agent specializing in modernist properties in the Sarasota area (martie.lieberman@gmail.com or 941/724 1118).

BOTTOM FISHING: Sag Harbor Village 499K

“TURN THIS DOWAGER INTO A VILLAGE QUEEN!”

That’s the best of the headlines of the half-dozen HREO (Hamptons Real Estate Online) listings for this plain Jane, century-old 3 BR, 2 bath house in the rose-arbored, clapboard-shingled, fanlight-studded, shutter-bedecked, once-proud whaling village of Sag Harbor. (Now it’s the funky but chic “un-Hampton,” conveniently located right in the middle of the Hamptons, but at a safe physical and psychological distance from them.)

This is my favorite kind of investment house. This is what gets my blood racing (how ’bout you?) “Neglected.” “Not been maintained.” “Needs TLC.” “If you like projects…” This crone is decrepit, and that’s not all it has going for it:

• It’s on Jermain Avenue, one of the oldest and pleasantest streets in the Village.
• It’s in bad, bad shape, but look at it this way: it hasn’t been too badly f*cked up. One broker of several I talked to hinted darkly at “structural problems,” which probably means “Please don’t waste my time and gas if you’re not from the renovators.” Invoking structural problems is no way to sell a house. That’s about as scary a description as they come, but “structural problems,’” as I found out when I bought an 1810 building in Philadelphia, CAN end up being no big deal and cost little to fix (or not). I tried to get more info by calling a couple of other agents (it’s an open listing) and here’s what I heard: “I haven’t been down in the basement.” “No one has had it inspected yet.” Sounds highly negotiable to me.
• The house is an estate sale. It was owned by an elderly couple, who died recently in their 90s. It’s cluttered with old people’s stuff, a turn-off any would-be investor/homeowner needs to get past. It was on the market while the couple was alive, failed to sell, taken off, and recently put back on by their heir. What does that mean? Even more negotiable.

• What looks like clapboard in the photos is actually vinyl siding, the one ‘improvement’ they apparently did make. No upside to that. The heating system (oil hot water) works. The house needs plumbing and electrical upgrades, duh. Taxes are a mystery at this point (the homeowner had veterans and senior exemptions), but one broker estimated they would be around $4,000/year.
• There’s a garage in the back, right on the property line — which would never be allowed today — but it’s legal. The garage is in decent shape, with old sliding doors.

If you could get a Sag Harbor Village Victorian like this one for 450K or even less, well, you’d have turned the clock back quite a few years, with better interest rates.

Decisions, Decisions

THESE DAYS, I’M FACED WITH CHOICES I couldn’t have predicted a few months back, when I lived in a brownstone in Brooklyn.

They’re fun choices, not matters of life and death. Still, they are perplexing. For example:

• Fencing: how high? I’d like it six feet high across the front of the property, for a feeling of seclusion, but East Hampton says no more than 4 feet, and I dare not break the rules – they’re pretty fascist around here when it comes to fencing. It will be cedar, to match the house. But what kind of design – plain or cute?
  

Above: The McKinley from Wayside Fence: Rather whimsical, with those little cut-outs, but they’re not really going to be seen (they’ll be hidden behind my ‘mixed hedgerow,’ which is in the pre-pre-planning stages), so do I want to bother with that little detail?

• What kind of gate across the driveway-to-come? Big enough to drive through, or merely to walk through? When it comes to deer fencing on the other three sides of the lot, I *am* planning to break the rules. Nothing short of 8′ will keep those big bucks out. But that’s wire and in the woods, less likely to attract official attention (I hope no Town people read my blog). I’ve had two fencing guys here — both scoffed at the idea of applying for permits of any kind — and one estimate so far for the deer portion: $4,200 for 470 linear feet. Is that good or bad? To be determined.

• Driveway: how big? What shape? I’m now thinking ‘parking court’ rather than driveway. I don’t absolutely need to drive up to the front door, so why not keep the car(s) tucked out of sight on the other side of my planned gate? I looked up standard driveway measurements: for two cars, a simple 25′x25′ square should do (got one estimate for about $2,000, including excavating 5″ deep and a layer of crushed concrete). I already know what kind of surface I want: gray/beige 3/4″ gravel — larger than pea gravel, which is squishy to walk on. Then there’s the edging question. I don’t want brick or cobblestone. Too urban. Steel would be functional, unobtrusive, and keep the stones from ‘migrating,’ but I could save a grand by skipping it. Would it be so terrible if a few stones migrated into the road or my forsythia hedge?

• Fireplace. Since I’ve now decided to stay here in the boondocks for the winter, a fireplace has become a must. Not a wood burning stove; this will be strictly for atmosphere and a bit of extra warmth. I’m ordering a Malm Zircon freestanding fireplace in white, left, from Design Within Reach. The decisions here are size — 30″ or 34″ wide? — and location. Which of two corners in my living room? Also to be determined.

• Tree removal is underway and going well. Decisions here have already been made (and these were life or death decisions, for the trees), with the wise counsel of Eric Ernst of Montauk, known as “Tree Man.” He and his son Ethan, 19, are out there buzzing their chainsaws as I type. Soon, my yard will be less five or six diseased, struggling, leaning, or unfortunately placed trees (and I will have lots of firewood and wood chips for mulch). A white oak that overhung the yard oppressively is gone already, as is a front-yard pine that got no light. Now its neighbor, a blue Atlas cedar, has a fighting chance.

Bottom-Fishing on the East End

I’VE BEEN GETTING FED UP with house prices here in the Humptons. Yesterday my friend Debre and I stumbled upon an old farmhouse with a ‘For Sale’ sign on Old Stone Highway in Springs, below, found the door open (!) and the realtor’s flyers conveniently stacked on the kitchen counter. I was hoping it was under $1mil. In fact, they’re asking $2.5mil.

Turns out that’s for two houses — a barn-like 7BR place built at the back of the property in 2001, plus the renovated 4BR 19th century house, above, nearer the road (suggested in the literature as a guest house), both on 1.5 acres. Still, that’s a big number, and this blog is supposed to be about affordable real estate.

So I decided to troll the listings to see what’s new on the low end of the scale here on the East End of Long Island, and turned up these three older properties — one in the Sag Harbor area on the South Fork and two in Greenport on the North Fork — for much more agreeable prices. (Click on the live links below for more details.)

I love the look of this 2BR Craftsman-style bungalow in Greenport, below, asking 365K. Said to be in excellent condition, with a couple of outbuildings, and well-located near the harbor.

These have always intrigued me: Breezy Shores is a bayfront community in Greenport made up of classic 1940s beach cottages, below, with a shared beach and marina. No heat, unfortunately, so their use is limited, and prices have gone up since I last looked. There are two available, asking 349K for each.

See how great it could look here.

This nondescript cottage, below, is really cheap for the South Fork: asking 299K. Not having seen it, I make no representations. It’s on Noyack Avenue in Pine Neck, near the water, with mooring rights and gas heat. Maybe it could be charmed up? I’m sure a team of editors from Domino magazine could have done it.

With summer ending, houses languishing on the market, and interest rates still low, this could be a very good time to look.

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