Lacey Helen Blog's: January 2021

Friday, 29 January 2021

This Time Capsule Home in Queens Has Been Royally Popular With Buyers

This split-level home on 53rd Avenue in the Bayside area of Queens, NY, has only had one owner since it was built in 1953. Now pending sale after intense interest, it’s a throwback to a different era.

The home, which landed on the market in mid-January for $1,098,888, is a colorful, well-preserved time capsule in an area in the midst of housing flux.

“If you drive around this area now, you’ll actually see a lot of newer-construction houses. It’s getting more rare to see a house in this type of condition,” says the listing agent, Timothy Ho. “When I walked into this house, it’s definitely a flashback from the past, but it has been kept in meticulous shape. Everything is in really mint condition, just back from the ’50s to the ’70s.”

Green is the dominant color throughout the interior spaces of the residence—as seen in the pea-green shade of shag carpet in the entry and main living space.

An array of shades of green run throughout the flooring, except for a couple of key areas. In the hallway bathroom, you’ll find red carpet. Yes, the bathrooms are carpeted.

“I mean, you would never think in a million years nowadays that somebody would put carpet in the bathroom, but back then, that’s what they did,” Ho says.

Exterior of home in Queens, NY
Steven Sunshine

The brightly colored home has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The master bedroom comes with an en suite bathroom and large closets.

Kitchen with wallpaper on the ceiling
Steven Sunshine

The kitchen has an eat-in area next to the formal dining room with a special feature: a series of stained-glass windows depicting a large tree.

“The owners did that themselves. On the exterior, they have lights pointed at the window, so when it’s nighttime, you can turn the lights on, and it just lights up the whole stained-glass window,” Ho notes.

On the other side of the window is the large backyard. Ho compares the shape of the lot to a baseball diamond, which gets wider farther back on the lot.

There’s also a large finished basement with plenty of storage.

The mechanics of the home have been updated over the years, but it was a trendsetter in at least one respect.

“The owners mentioned to me that they were one of the first people in the whole area to put central air conditioning into their house,” Ho says.

While the decor takes you on a stroll into the past, the home itself isn’t a relic.

On first arriving, he says, visitors tend to say, “It’s older, but you could actually move into this house, if you wanted to, the way that it is—in terms of the quality and the condition of the house.”

The house has only been on the market for a couple of weeks, but Ho has already fielded a number of offers, and says potential buyers have pointed out that a movie crew could use the property as a set for a movie set in the 1960s.

He feels, though, that the buyers are likely to be a younger family interested in choosing their own modernizations and updates.

That would be the preference, Ho says, of the current owners.

“They really like the idea of selling this house to a family that’s going to appreciate the love and the caring that went into the house,” he says. “This is one of those houses that it’s hard to tell from photos, but when you walk through a house, there are houses and then there are homes. This one, as soon as you walk through the door, you get that loving feeling of home.”

The post This Time Capsule Home in Queens Has Been Royally Popular With Buyers appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

source https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/time-capsule-home-in-queens-ny/

‘All You Hear Is the River’: This Former Mill in Maine Is a Waterfront Delight

A former mill from the 1860s is now a private waterfront home for sale in Cumberland, ME.

Listed for $575,000, the house on Skillin Road sits right on the Piscataqua River. For someone who swoons over the sound of flowing water, it offers a great opportunity to commune with nature.

“[The river] wraps around this property and actually runs underneath the back side the whole length,” says the listing agent, Pete Molloy.

It continues beyond it, wraps around a point, and continues upriver from there, he adds.

Also known as the Wilson Mill, the building has a rich history from the mid-19th century through the 1950s, when it was used as a place for making flour, barrels, and wood planks.

“It was used first as a grist mill for a short period of time, and then as a stave mill with a vault, making the big barrels,” Molloy explains. “Then predominantly, it was a sawmill, to cut up these enormous timbers into wooden planks that were used for other building materials.”

Exterior of home in Cumberland, ME
Wave 5 Productions/ Lynn Dube

Summer kitchen in the mill
Wave 5 Productions/ Lynn Dube

Post-and-beam construction
Wave 5 Productions/ Lynn Dube

The part of the structure that used to be the mill is a large, wide-open area, built with post-and-beam construction. A new owner with big dreams can convert the space into any number of possibilities.

“That is where the mill ran, back in the day, and that’s where the timbers were coming through and where the big heavy machinery was placed,” Molloy says. “It’s a massive structure, with a big roofline that’s all open.”

Lorenzo H. Wilson and James Leighton started the mill in about 1874, and Wilson became the sole owner shortly after. The mill stayed in the Wilson family until the mid-1960s.

The current owners acquired the property in 1964, and used the open mill area for family functions until just a few years ago, when they moved out.

Aerial view
Wave 5 Productions/ Lynn Dube

Outdoor space
Wave 5 Productions/ Lynn Dube

In the large open area, there’s a kitchen for entertaining that has no heat.

“It’s perfect in the summer. It would be miserable to cook there today, because it’s cold out today,” Molloy says.

The open area also flows out on to a large deck.

Living space
Wave 5 Productions/ Lynn Dube

The 1,200-square-foot living space, with two bedrooms and one bathroom, sits below the former mill, and you’ll find exposed logs in almost every room.

The kitchen is modest and compact, but is perfectly serviceable.

At one end of the living area, the space comes to an end in exposed rocks and walls, part of the old mill operations on the water’s edge. The rocky outcropping brings nature right into the home.

Exposed rock
Wave 5 Productions/ Lynn Dube

Although expansion of the current structure is limited by the river, Malloy says there are some things he would do to the house. He says he would make the two smaller bedrooms into one and open up the kitchen, noting that the walls are not load-bearing, with the timbers holding everything up.

Since the mill area isn’t heated, Molloy says it wouldn’t be possible to use that as living space in its current state. A new owner would need to winterize it to make it usable square footage year-round.

The size of the former mill floor does offer an array of intriguing opportunities.

“You’ve got uses for zoning that fall into other categories that could be related to education, or day care, or farming,” he says.

Using the space as an event venue that could be rented out would require a zoning change.

There’s also a small garage with a heated workshop inside.

The house sits on 2 acres of land, with a subdivision nearby. An additional 4.8 acres are available to purchase separately.

“It’s really picturesque. The river changes everything,” Molloy says. “When you’re in the space, all you hear is the river, so it’s really nice.”

The post ‘All You Hear Is the River’: This Former Mill in Maine Is a Waterfront Delight appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

source https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/former-maine-mill-piscataqua-river/