This looks like it is exactly what you talked about wanting for years.

If I could live in that house I would think I had died and gone to heaven.

The heaven part would be that someone else totally redid the guts of the house before I moved in.

I REALLY think you should go look at it. Would your spectacular sofa fit?

I am going to take a look at least, and talk to my Realtor about strategies to sell the other property.

It is being sold "as is where is". However, I looked at another historical property that was being sold as a "gut" and I would have left it nearly as is.

This house could have $1M or $3M spent on it to bring it up to full historic high-Georgian, (which I think would be kind of revisionist), or you could spend $100K with another minimal intervention and then spend here and there as you go.

I would probably be happy to revise the bathrooms and put in a better, but simple kitchen and live in a certain amount of controlled decay.

The house that I DO own is both move in ready And needs lots of work, so it's kind of the same deal.

This is a fabulous property! I agree, it is your dream come true and I hope things work out for you to have it, pal.

That's fantastic, it wouldn't need much depending on the heating/air, electrical, plumbing....and the outside. I would love for you to have it so we could look at it for years!

I love it and could easily imagine it as my home. Hopefully the leak that caused the ceiling stain in the 3rd and 4th photo has been repaired or is not too extensive to repair- old pipes in old houses are expensive to fix.
Good luck Pal! I think this house suits you!

Are the rooms as large as they appear or is your camera stretching these too?

It's a beautiful home even with the eccentric baths. It's the kind of place that makes me wish I had the knowledge, patience and money to make it liveable but also to keep some of the quuirky charm.

It's wonderful! Good luck, I can't wait to hear what you think after you look at it.

Super stretchy Realtor's camera although for the neighborhood it has large rooms.

I would try to maintain most of the quirks. I want to see it in this state just to see it. Most people would do extensive work to this property, I think.

Oh man....some of those rooms look fabulous....some of those rooms are an absolute nightmare.

Having owned an antique colonial, I wouldn't touch the thing...wouldn't even bid on it... without a good look-see by a building person who is familiar with antique colonials. Even at that, they'd tell you they won't know what's in there (or not there) until they dig in. There is sooo much that could be wrong that's unseen that would require you to sink in 100s of thousands of dollars just to make the building sound....

Our old home, c 1790, the corner posts in the front had literally rotted all the way up into the 2nd floor, and the beam across the front that was supposed to tie into the corner posts had rotted completely away, stopping 2' short of the corner on either side. The whole building was starting to twist and rack around the center chimney. Fixing it would've been a nightmare.....

I've seen other homes that were in awful condition and then people sink all kinds of money into repair them and they look great for about 3-5 years and then they deteriorate very quickly and very badly again. Unless it's done completely and thoroughly and correctly (read expensively) then it returns to dilapidated soon thereafter.

So an antique place is always a mixed blessing....the gift that keeps on giving....Don't go there unless you're madly in love. It requires a great deal of passion to stay in that relationship.

It's a row house, and it's on a historical street where the exterior at least must be maintained to certain standards so it has that advantage where it is tied to other houses, at least partly, and there has been some enforced maintenance. The verticals are also all masonry.

It's interesting that both this house and my 1963 brutalist-modernist were subjects of study by Bryn Mawr College. We found the floor plan of this one online.

Wow. Love, love, love it.

For that house, I'd live in a city.

"I am going to take a look at least, and talk to my Realtor about strategies to sell the other property."

Buy it, pal! That way, the house is guaranteed to have an owner who knows how to revive it in the right way.

Not to mention, think of all the fun we'll have as you post pictures of your progress. :)

Minimal Intervention is exactly how I would handle that house. Sweep it out and move right in (though first ensuring it has working plumbing and wi-fi lol!). The patina of the wood is to die for.

Go for it pal!

Wow, what a great house. I love all the fireplaces. It would be quite a project, as there looks to be a lot of work to be done.

Having just redone an old house, I have to agree with Annie that I would probably pass on this one. When you see that much cosmetic work to be done, you can bet the unseen work needing to be done will be overwhelming.

I think it's wonderful there are people such as yourself Pal who appreciate these old buildings and will do them justice. I hate to see restorable buildings razed, it's just too sad. I look forward to seeing any restorations you undertake.

However, I could never consider living in such a place as I have such an acute sense of smell I can detect the mold, dust, cigarette smoke, and other noxious odors almost from merely looking at pics. I know there are some buildings that have been so well cared for that they have few disagreeable odors, however in my experience the majority of old buildings do smell. It is possible to reverse this to a degree altho mold is not easy to remove. Many people think products such as Febreez are the answer but that only masks and doesn't remove the unhealthy aspects of the odors.

Fantastic. I'm another who would do minimal intervention and call it good. Everything about it is fascinating.

I should post a picture of the brute that I found unrestored, but that I love... LOL

Ah old houses...such a disease!

Wow. Great house.

Now that the tide of fashion has turned toward patina, you really don't need to worry too much about changing cosmetics. With your taste and your furniture, it would show very well even in its current state, kitchen and baths excepted.

I'd worry more about the issues that Annie touched upon--failing structural members, dying HVAC systems, unsafe electrical, rotted plumbing, bad roof etc. I'd budget to replace most of that and pray for good luck.

I don't think that faucet was designed to look cool. Those are basin taps that somebody Rube Goldberged into a mixer.

Exactly right about the faucet, a rigged mixer. If you've ever had separate tap bath faucets, you will understand why the rigging.

The issues touched on above are the issues I will be dealing with in the modernist house as well (except for structural, I think): a failing HVAC system, underpowered if not actually dangerous electrical, two bad bathrooms with questionable plumbing, some rotten doors and windows, etc. It just will be more expensive to do correctly in such an old house.

Tried to count the fireplaces but I was afraid I'd counted some twice and missed others so I went to the listing.

ELEVEN FIREPLACES.

Wow, I never thought you could have too many, but maybe you can.

Pal, so where does this leave us, in terms of the house? ( I say "us" because I know more than a few of us will live vicariously through you in this house!)

Still thinking about it, or are the repairs taking it off the list of potential homes?

Wow, I can see why you would be tempted, it's fantastic. A good fit for you I'd say, more so than the '63 home I think? Tough decisions, keep us posted.

I don't think the house was neglected. I just think they let things be. It has newer, but not new appliances and at least looks very clean. I think they kept things in repair, they just didn't "decorate". I am not sure the house is in poor repair, I won't really know til I see it in person.

If you've ever had separate tap bath faucets, you will understand why the rigging.

Ahem. I'm removing a mixer from my powder room and putting in a vintage sink with separate basin taps.

Obviously your second consideration would be unloading the modernist house. You don't want to go from one interminable stretch as a dual homeowner to another. Did your agent give you any feedback on that?

I've never seen an old house I don't want to tear down! Neither has DH, so we admire them for what they are, but would never buy one. When we were looking to buy in New England I used to love the look on the face of the realtors as I would ask if we could tear the antique down and build a new house behind!! We would never have done this with a historicaly significant house, but we had some fun with old-house-loving realtors.

Luckygal, I joke that my eyesight might be going, but my sense of smell and hearing are still in their prime. I'm very sensitive to the musty/damp smells in old houses.

Oh, I love it. It is totally my kind of thing, since I am a patina junkie. Cosmetically, it needs relatively little. Good luck in any event!

Barring something gawdawful like rotted joists on all floors, I'd urge you to snap it up. I've rarely seen a house that looks like a better fit with your online personality, Pal, and it deserves a caretaker with stellar taste and a minimal-interventionist philosophy.

Put another way, you are as rare as this house, and perhaps you really belong together?

See what it says to you when you enter it and look around.

Wow...11 fireplaces! All I can think of is how much heat is heading up those chimneys! Yikes....and lord only knows what little insulation there is...and the condition of the windows....be sure to ask what utilities cost in a year!

Marcolo, my two tap experience was in my grandmothers' 1900ish bathroom (linoleum floor, bare bulb on braided wire, exposed pipes, clawfoot tub) and our local convent.

To wash hands you had to either fill the basin from both taps or run your hands rapidly back and forth between hot (scalding from hot water heater) and cold (freezing). It may be different with modern plumbing.

Some of the windows are as old as the house (235 years). My former windows were 170ish and I restored those. There was very little rot. These houses can withstand much more neglect than a modern house without ill effect.
Most of the chimneys are sealed. I am not really interested in more than maybe one operable flue. The 1810 house I looked at had all chimneys except one sealed as well. I think a lot of people here did this in the 19thc.early 20thc. when they put in radiator heat.

The experience that I have had with older properties in this climate is that mold and mildew are much less of a problem in these houses than in new houses. These houses breathe a LOT. There is too much infiltration for dampness to linger and for mold and mildew to form like it does in a new house. This is one of the upsides of having no insulation.

My 1963 house has no insulation either. It's plaster on masonry on the front and back exterior walls, and the top floor is a modernist exposed rafter and sheathing ceiling that is a riff on the attic ceilings like the house in this thread.

I am not saying all of this to convince anyone that this house with without problems, but having seen my 1963 house in great detail, I think that I will be dealing with near identical problems in Either house except that the problems in one are 50 years old and the other are ~250 years old. The modernist house has a bunch of windows that are plate glass held in by quarter round, for example. No better than a wooden sash.

Its also possible that the electrical and the plumbing to some extent are about the same age in both houses. with the exception of that one sink the other plumbing and the kitchen look mid-century.

Did you schedule an appt to see it???

Wow-- I am looking through the site you mentioned in your OP, and I am stunned by the beautiful homes in PA. I am seeing homes that are far more lovely than mine (and I like mine!) for the same price . . .wow, wow, wow. I think I need to change states.

We walked by it tonight and one of the neighbors was unloading groceries and asked if we were going to look at it. It was a judge's house for decades and the heir rented it out for a few years. The exterior is actually beautifully maintained (she said the courtyard is, too), and that as far as she knows things were kept in repair but that nothing was done cosmetically in a very long time.

Courtyard? Repairs without cosmetic changes? Friendly neighbor? Win, win, win!

I am thinking about Funkyart's couch and do not want this one to get away!

If I had unlimited funds IâÂÂd snap that house up in a heartbeat! But I donâÂÂt! Do you? IâÂÂm scared Pal real scared, what kind a spookiness might be eating away somewhere behind them there walls? I would surely go see it though if not for anything but to see if it really spoke to me before thinking of taking the plunge. The unfortunate/fortunate thing about me viewing this posted house is that all night long IâÂÂll be dreaming of ways to showcase that fireplace in the kitchen. Think of all the glorious possibilities! Glorious I tell you!

As it turns out, we have books with pictures of this house in it. It was owned by the WASPiest of WASP judges--and now an heir (Famous historical figures as ancestors, towns named after family members, etc. etc.) --So I have a feeling that the guts of this house may actually be good.

This house reminds me of a picture I saw of some of the duPonts where the matriarch was sitting in a chair with strings and the cambric showing on it, for a photographic portrait--and also of houses like Wilderstein, occupied by Daisy Suckley until her death just shy of 100 in 1991. It is now a house museum, and when it was painted in 2007, it had been the first time since 1910. Miss Suckley called that a good paint job.

Of course none of this helps me at all since I already have a house that I like very much. This just offers a different kind of opportunity.

This post was edited by palimpsest on Fri, Mar 8, 13 at 22:45

Anybody who thinks this is in bad condition hasn't been in many old unrestored houses! 235 years old, incredible amount (it seems) of original features, maintained but not 'improved', & habitable - this is a preservationist's dream & probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportumity.

Mechanical systems, kitchens, & baths in any house over 40 (or less) years old are likely to need work & this is no different. A more sensitive job for sure on a house this old, but maintenance nonetheless.

Yes, since you already have a house, perhaps we should make this a class-y project. It could be like Habitat for Insanity.

Does This Old House still take applications? I submitted one for an old house in MA once.

Before I sign off for this trip, you know I love this house, and I know you'd do it well. Hopefully when they re-did the tax assessments, it wasn't too bad. Good luck with the showing.

Somehow, from what I know of you, the 18th century would fit better with your design aesthetic...

How do the homes compare in terms of sq ft? The larger, the more to repair, the more $$, even if the repairs are running in parallel.

Ha Anele, I have a long list of things like the vintage sofa that I regrettably passed over or delayed buying until they were gone. Unfortunately, I have just as long a list of things I bought with a vision that just never worked or came to fruition.

I do think it sounds like a once in a lifetime opportunity-- "a preservationist's dream". But it's only a great opportunity IF and only IF it's the direction you want to go. I have no doubt that you'd do it well.. and right, Pal. I have no doubt that your style and your belongings will shine in the home. When I first saw the photos, they made me giddy with possibilities for you.. but it has to make *you* feel that excitement and inspiration. It has to make you and your partner look at it and feel like it's home.

Much as that's what I selfishly want for you-- it's a big change from where you were going. How does that sit?

I love the house and I am anxious to hear a report from you if you do view it. Just beautiful!

This house is not nearly as "intact" as the 1810 house I offered on. This one just hasn't had "improvements", so much. One something was gone it was just left as is, mostly. That's a different kind of progression..

I could live in almost any kind of house as long as it was a genuine "something". I don't know how to explain it better than that.

Luckygal, regarding your concern about odors and mold in old houses: Old houses often lack insulation in the walls, and they are drafty around windows, doors and floorboards. There is usually lots of fresh air in these houses . . . as the heating bills reveal.

give in to your temptation. ;)

Our neighbors bought an antique colonial because they fell in love with the property which is really special....13 acres, 2 ponds, a guest cottage a separate 4 car garage, a green house, a cabana and dock by one of the ponds, just beautiful.

And as antique colonials go, it's in reasonably good shape...it is sound. Granted the rooms are a little odd by today's standards, but the living areas are a wonderful size for the most part....a very large living room with a fireplace on the end and windows lining the walls on either side...the bedrooms a bit small. The kitchen needs upgrading but is very bright with higher ceilings and sky lights. And there's an au pair apartment over the garage.

They've had the house on the market for years now and have lowered the price to being comparable with what a new colonial would sell for on only 3 acres, and still no takers. To me, the place is an absolute steal...but people really shy away from the care and upkeep of the property and of the antique colonial home. Such a shame...it's a great old house...really an estate.

Just showed pal's pics to DH and he reminded me of the stairs at the old house...not quite as steep as these but very narrow and very low ceilings....it was literally scraping steps and ceiling to get a double mattress up the stairs....a queen was impossible....something to keep in mind when moving furniture and tubs and such into the place....

I love it and as one who only has the experience of passing on a 1722 home for fear it was to big an undertaking I am going to advise you to take it! One of my only regrets in my life is that I walked away from a home priced at 400k on the Guilford, CT. green where all other residential homes went for 900k and up. The house was priced so low because the wood structure, electrics and plumbing where in need of repair and the cost of the work was in the hundreds of thousands... So when finished the home would have cost us what the neighbors paid at full price. If we had bought the home we would still be repairing it now and I am not sure my marriage could have survived the stress:) but I still dream of that house and drive by it all the time and view the progress the people who did purchase it with such envy:). Their progress is slow but the house is occupied during it and it is still standing:).
I like the house I purchased instead but the one with all its orginal floors, 8 fireplaces, quirky 1950s kitchen, and 2 clawfoot tubs will always be my " I wonder if " house. And I believe "wish I had" regrets are far worse to have in life than "I wish I hadn't".

You will know what you should do when you walk thru the front door:).

Annie, a lot of these houses have a casement window or something that is almost like a French door on the upper floor in the back to hoist furniture through. Or the upstairs stays kind of empty :)

These stairs are at least straight, which is better than the full winder.

My biggest problem with the house is that the neighborhood is not as perfect for me as the one we live in now, which also has the new house. The street is very nice and there is nothing "wrong" with the neighborhood, it just does not have quite the convenience and familiarity of this one.

My biggest problem with the house is that the neighborhood is not as perfect for me as the one we live in now, which also has the new house. The street is very nice and there is nothing "wrong" with the neighborhood, it just does not have quite the convenience and familiarity of this one.

I know this house and the area. I would think the noise from 95 and all the tourists looking in your windows would be annoying?

It's a great house but there isn't exactly a shortage of 18th century homes (though many of them have been lost either to 95 being built or renovation). If you do buy this house you're just it's keeper until the new keeper comes along and I'm sure you'll do a lovely job.

Actually the proximity of I-95 and it's noise isn't a problem, both my just sold place and the new place are on busier streets with closer traffic noise.

The tourists, well... I don't think I would be bothered so much by the walking on this street or looking in the windows. The house is a double, front and back, so the front room could be kept as something for people to look at as much as they wanted. There are three rooms in back of this, unlike some of the shallower houses.

However, I might find going about my daily business and having to lug home groceries against a tide of tourists and bar hoppers who would sooner knock you into the street or squeeze you against a building than budge an inch...this could be a problem.

The biggest problem is this comparison: regular grocery store and a Whole Foods 3.5 blocks.; Walgreen's 3.5 blocks, neighborhood grocery store 2 blocks, convenience store 1 block, and several others nearby--where I live now.

In the new neighborhood there are a couple of pricey and limited grocery/convenience stores and the grocery stores are a mile away, with one slightly closer, no good drug store or no chain convenience store nearby.

This doesn't seem like such a big deal but we walk for all of these things.

I am a walker and value highly the ability to walk to the store, so I would have to consider that angle carefully.

As to the mold, smells, etc, I would take an OLD house any day over a new or newish one. All that off-gassing in a tight house--ugh.

It's a wonderful house. Good luck with the decision making!