Into the Abyss

On September 10, 2015, I received an email from my younger brother, "I found this home on the Zillow Real Estate App and wanted to share it with you." As an old home enthusiast and lover of all things antique, he sent these types of automated correspondences at least a few times per week. As a bleeding heart, he wants to save the world one historical house at a time. Over the past few years, I have become enamored with old things myself. My wife (we've been married for about 3 minutes), Jess, grew up in an 1805 farm house in Connecticut, so this old house thing was a bit of an old hat. This house, however, got our attention.

After about 5 minutes we contacted our real estate agents. A few hours later we were turning down a picturesque tree-lined street. Approaching the house we were greeted by a late Victorian/turn of the century vernacular house. Beautiful but fatigued. The roof was clearly at the end of its lifespan. The front porch was grand but the paint was failing. The carpets were vintage 1950s or 60s. You get the idea.

At right about that moment Jess and I noticed something beyond the the whitewashed walls and bile carpet. Pocket doors. One set for sure. Two likely. Maybe even more! Where do we sign? We made a checklist and contacted our parents (we live in the Northeast and we're Italian, what did you think would happen next?).

Old - check.
Beautiful - check.
Original - check.
Location - triple check.
Likely enough work that would result in us cashing in all past and future favors from all siblings and parents - check.

After crunching numbers and determining this was going to spread us a bit thin for a while and may not quite make the most financial sense, we made an offer. "You're bidding against 3 builders, bid higher," was the response. We came up with our highest number and bid again. This time we added a heartfelt "letter" that would hopefully appeal to the cockles of the heart.

Bid accepted.