Hooked on Houses

Lane’s End Farm has been a familiar sight around here with its purple-painted Victorian farmhouse since the 1860s. People come from miles around to buy dried flowers and floral arrangements from the Browne family on their “flower farm” outside Loveland, Ohio.

Now this house, gardens, barn, and carriage house that sit on 4 1/2 acres are on the market for $425,000. Let’s take a look around!

(more…)

The Nester has issued a challenge, and it’s a doozy. She asked us to take photos of our homes the way they look today and show the world how we really live. Gulp.

I’ve been working around the clock for the past two weeks while I’ve been juggling various writing projects. Let’s just say cleaning the house has fallen to the bottom of my to-do list. This is possibly the worst time in the world for me to invite you in to look around.

I’m thinking that if I just take close-ups of everything, like this bowl of apples on my kitchen table, then it might look just fine! No one will see the mess that lurks all around it. The crumbs on the chairs and floor. The pile of dishes in the kitchen sink.

But I know that’s not the point of the challenge. The point is to see how beautiful our lives are, even though they aren’t perfect. Or, as the Nester puts it, “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.”

Why do I get the sinking feeling she might retract that statement after she sees my place?

Oh, what the heck. Come on in. I’ll resist the urge to discreetly wipe the dust off surfaces or toss any toys under the beds. I’m sure you could use a good laugh. And there’s nothing like seeing someone else’s mess to make you feel better about your own place. I’ll think of this as an exercise in building your self-esteem.

(more…)

There’s nothing like spending an afternoon walking through 9,000 square-foot, $2.5 million homes like this one to make you feel dissatisfied with your own place.

Yesterday I took the afternoon off work and my husband and I headed to Homearama. Now, it will probably come as no surprise to you that I am obsessed with Homearama. I have only missed one year’s show in 20 years, and that was only because I had a new baby (babies can be such a nuisance!).

(more…)

Okay, you’re going to have to indulge me a little bit today. I realize you might not be as excited about this as I am, but this charming bungalow was on the street I grew up on in Clifton, Ohio. I’m thrilled that I get to take a peek inside and see how it looks today.

The neighborhood is filled with beautiful older homes, each one unique. Grand old homes sit next to bungalows like this one. I have vivid memories of playing in homes filled with dark woodwork, stained glass windows, multiple fireplaces, back staircases, high ceilings, and wide front porches. I grew up thinking everyone lived in houses like that.

I check the MLS obsessively frequently to see if anything from my old neighborhood is on the market. No one ever seems to move off this street, which is maddening. Don’t they know I want to see interior photos of them? It’s been a long time since one of our old neighbors’ homes has been for sale, so I could hardly believe my good fortune when this popped up.

According to the MLS listing, the home has 3 bedrooms and 1.5 baths and is on the market for $364,000. Wait until you see what the exterior looked like just two years ago when the current owners bought it. It looks like they had their work cut out for them. Literally!

(more…)

Remember that bedroom room I showed you with the layers upon layers of crown molding in it? I asked the question, “Is there such a thing as too much crown molding?” And boy, did you guys have a lot of opinions on the subject!

Well, Hooked on Houses reader Susie, who has a fun blog called Hillcrest Acres, wrote and asked if I’d post photos of the rest of the house. I thought if she was interested, maybe the rest of you would be, too, so here they are.

This is a newly constructed home in New Hope, Pennsylvania, selling for $3.25 million. It has 5 bedrooms, and 5.5 baths.

I have to say I find the name a little pretentious, especially considering it’s in Pennsylvania, not France. But whatever. The house is fun to look at, and that’s the important thing. Let the gawking begin!

(more…)

As promised, today we’re taking a tour of this charming yellow-painted Victorian home in Columbia Tusculum, which was the first neighborhood founded in the Cincinnati area (then known as Losantiville) in the late 1700s. (To read more about it, check out yesterday’s post.)

It was on the market earlier this year and I found interior photos on the MLS site (it sold in February ‘08 for $205,000). According to the Hamilton County Auditor, it was built in 1890 and has 2 bedrooms and 2 baths.

Let’s take the tour!

(more…)

We’re at our final stop on the Cincinnati Preservation Association’s house tour in the North Avondale neighborhood. And I think I saved the best for last.

The Mack House, a 7,000 square-foot Tudor Revival-style mansion, was built by Jacob Mack in 1931, and featured a round half-tower that you can see here. It looks like Rapunzel should be peeking out from those leaded-glass windows on the third floor of the tower, but the original owner’s mother-in-law actually lived there, and as far as I know, she was free to come and go as she pleased.

(more…)

This Tudor Revival-style home was built in 1915 by Stephen Gerrard, who was known as “the Cantaloupe King.” He was a truck farmer who built an empire by shipping cantaloupes from Colorado to the Midwest in refrigerated railroad cars. He went on to invent the refrigerated truck and popularize iceberg lettuce in the U.S.

Sadly, when the Great Depression hit, Gerrard’s empire collapsed and the house sank into disrepair. It was abandoned for 13 years in the 1970s and ’80s, but rescued in 1989 by the current owners. The grand old house was riddled with termites when they found it, and they estimate there were at least 100 cats living there. Their renovation efforts earned them a merit award from Better Homes and Gardens.

The Gerrard House sits on the highest point of the North Avondale Ridge. It has 15 rooms and 7,000 square feet. The walls are rock-faced limestone, and gargoyles, gables, and elaborate chimneys evoke the Tudor Revival style. Iron gates guard the entrance.

Take a look!

(more…)

The Belvedere, one of the first luxury apartment buildings in Cincinnati, reeks of Jazz Age glamor. The high rise was constructed in North Avondale in 1925 and was one of the stops on the home tour we went on last weekend.

The apartment units originally featured up to 6 bedrooms, as well as separate servants’ quarters. Most residents had maids and drivers. The Belvedere apartments were converted into condominiums in the 1980s and many were divided into 2 and 3-bedroom units to make them more affordable and practical.

There were lots of fun details in this building, such as the cursive “B” burnished into every single doorknob, the brass elevator indicators that point at the floor levels they’re on as they move up and down, the mail chutes, the wrought-iron chandeliers, and the hand-painted ceilings. Take a look!

(more…)

It’s time to show you the actual houses that were on the North Avondale Home Tour last weekend. This 1937 Normandy Manor, known as The Levine House, will be our first stop.

But first, to set the scene, I’m going to tell you how I embarrassed myself a little that day. I don’t know why, since it would be easier to let you think I’m always stylish, unwrinkled, and pulled together when I’m out in the world, but I sort of feel like you’re all my friends now, and friends will love me even when I’m a total dork, right? (Please say yes.)

I’m not putting the story here on the front page, though. Click “more” if you want to know what a mess I can be.

(more…)

This was one of the houses we walked by on the house tour through North Avondale. This three-story home was built in 1908 and has 6 bedrooms and 4.5 baths, with a total of 6,500 square feet. It’s currently on the market for $860,000, so I looked up the interior photos to show you (see the MLS listing here).

It’s a lovely old home, but as I looked through the rooms, one of them stuck out like a sore thumb. It made me think of that game we played with the Telford Mansion recently:

“One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong.”

Take a look and see if you agree that this particular remodel left one room looking like it was grafted on from another house altogether.

(more…)

Let’s continue our walking tour of North Avondale now and see what other interesting houses we can find– like this pink one with yellow trim, which looked like something out of a fairy tale.

(more…)

As I mentioned yesterday, Dave and I went on a tour of historic mansions in North Avondale over the weekend, and now I have lots of fun photos to share with you.

Avondale was one of the earliest, and toniest, suburbs of Cincinnati. In 1886 Willard Glazier wrote about it in his book Peculiarities of American Cities, calling it a beautiful enclave where “the homes of Cincinnati’s merchant princes and millionaires are found…in elegant cottages, tasteful villas and substantial mansions.”

Avondale itself was modeled on an English town concept with large lots, winding streets, sidewalks, underground utilities, and gaslights that still flicker. The leading local architects of the Victorian era were hired to design fashionable homes for many wealthy German-Jewish families, who had been excluded from Cincinnati’s social circles and moved to Avondale to establish their own community there.

Racial unrest in Cincinnati in the 1960s caused many residents to leave the suburb. Some of these mansions sat empty for years or were turned into apartment buildings. But there have since been successful efforts with the North Avondale Neighborhood Association to promote better community relations within this racially integrated community and to restore the homes to their former glory.

The Cincinnati Preservation Association organized the home tour in the Rose Hill area of North Avondale. It was 70 degrees and sunny on Saturday, which was perfect weather for strolling up and down the streets of this lovely neighborhood, taking pictures as we went. Take a walk and gawk with us now.

(more…)

I spent my childhood in Clifton, Ohio, near the University of Cincinnati where my dad worked at the time. (You can see the photo of my first love house on the About page.) The area is well known for ginormous old mansions like the one shown here (note: we did not live in one of them!).

Unfortunately, the neighborhood has changed since they were built, and now a lot of the old beauties have been turned into frat houses or apartment buildings. In this case, they have apartment buildings as neighbors, as you can see in the background.

I frequently check the MLS listings for Clifton to scope out the fabulous older homes on the market. Today I ran across this new listing on Telford Avenue that is pretty marvelous inside. However, as I was scrolling through the photos, I suddenly hit one room that stopped me in my tracks. Whoa. Where did that come from? It didn’t look like it belonged in the same house.

There’s a game they play on “Sesame Street,” where they show four photos to a child and then sing:

“One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong! Can you tell which thing is not like the others by the time I finish my song?”

Just for fun, why don’t you take a look for yourself and see if you can tell which of these rooms is not like the other. Which of these rooms just doesn’t belong….

To look inside, click “more” below:

(more…)

Take a long drive down this wooded lane with me today to Pheasant Hill Farm. It’s an historic property on 47 acres in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and it’s on the market for $6 million. The MLS listing notes its age as 250 years. You don’t see many properties that old in America, that’s for sure.

The main home has 4 bedrooms and 3.5 baths, but there are also a series of frame and stone buildings that represent one of the earliest settlements in Pennsylvania. This is truly a rare property. 

To take a tour of Pheasant Hill Farm, click “more” below:

(more…)

It looks like a child’s playhouse, but it’s not. Believe it or not, fully grown people actually live there. My guess is that they aren’t too tall and they don’t weigh very much.

Built in 1912 by contractor Arthur Weeden, Toronto’s Little House, as it’s known, is only about 7′ wide, 47′ deep, with a total of less than 300 square feet of living space inside. (The Spite House we looked at recently has two stories and 325 square feet, so this is actually smaller.)

There’s an e-mail circulating calling it the “Smallest House in Brooklyn,” but after doing a little research, I found out that it is actually in Toronto. It has become a popular tourist attraction and even has its own webpage: Toronto’s Little House.

It has a living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bath. They even found room to tuck a washer and dryer in there. Talk about clever space planning! The home was sold for $135,000 at the beginning of 2007 to a couple who renovated it and put it back on the market for $179,900.

(more…)

This week’s Fantasy Open House tour was so much fun! Thanks to all of you who so gamely participated in it. I think I’ll pick another town for us to tour again soon.

Here’s how things are looking in the polls at the moment:

• Rookwood house: the majority is undecided and wants to “Sleep on it.”
• Edwards house: the majority says “Walk away!”
• Observatory house: the majority says “Walk away!”

My, aren’t we picky with our pretend money? Clearly, we haven’t found anything we really want to spend it on yet. This is bad news for the homeowners who are hoping to get real money from someone. If you haven’t voted on all of these houses yet, don’t worry. The polls will remain active until the end of the month, and I’ll announce the final tallies then.

To thank you for playing along, I’m giving you a bonus Open House today. No voting necessary for this one, but feel free to leave your thoughts about it in the comments. I’m working day and night on a writing project right now, slaving away at the computer for long stretches at a time, and I love it when your comments “ping” into my inbox. So take pity on me and continue sending them!

This Tudor estate is in the same Hyde Park neighborhood as the others we looked at and is selling for $2.35 million. I had to show it to you if for no other reason than the “hammock room” (I think the MLS listing actually calls it a solarium).

Click “more” below to look inside this historic Tudor estate:

(more…)

This week at Hooked on Houses we’re touring houses for sale in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Cincinnati. I think you’ve all got the hang of the Fantasy Open House by now. Just like with House #1 on Rookwood Drive, you take the tour and then place your vote.

The next one on our tour is a more moderately priced (compared to the first) $350,000 Arts & Crafts-style home with 5 bedrooms and 1.5 baths. It has stained-glass windows, original woodwork, front and back staircases, 9-ft ceilings, and built-ins galore.

Will you want to buy it, think about it a while, or immediately walk away after you look inside?

To begin the tour, click “more” below:

(more…)

It’s finally Spring, and for real estate junkies that only means one thing–the MLS is bursting with juicy new listings for us to check out! It’s my favorite time of year.

I’ve been known to while away many a lazy Sunday afternoon searching the real estate listings online to see what’s on the market and how much things are selling for. It’s fun to take a peek inside other people’s places and see how they’re living, don’t you think? I can’t believe I’m the only one who has this slightly offbeat obsession with looking at houses. (You’re here, aren’t you?)

I should have a bumper sticker that says “I Brake for Open Houses.” They’re hard for me to resist, even when I’m out of town. I used to have a standard line–”My parents are moving into the area, so I thought I’d see if this would work for them!” But now I just come out with it and say, “I saw the Open House sign and thought I’d check it out.” I’m sure the real estate agents always saw through me before anyway. I’ve got House Snoop written all over me.

With online listings, it’s like Open House 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I’m hooked on them. So this week I thought it would be fun to show you three different houses for sale in Hyde Park, Ohio (an older suburb of Cincinnati). Then we’ll take a poll after each one in which you can vote to 1) Buy it, 2) Sleep on it, or 3) Walk away!

First up is this $2.59 million stunner with 6 BR and 5.5 BA and over 7,000 square feet on Rookwood Drive. Take a look and see if it’s someplace you’d like to live.

To tour this home, click “more” below:

(more…)

I’m broadcasting from the mountains around Pigeon Forge, Tennessee this week. Take a look at our view!

When we asked our son what he wanted for his 13th birthday, he said “All I want is to take a family trip to Gatlinburg.” Now that he’s a teenager, who knows how much longer he’ll think of family togetherness as a gift? So we’re taking advantage of it while we can.

I figured since you all enjoy peeking inside houses as much as I do that you’d like to see our vacation home rental, too. Welcome to our cabin!

To see more photos of our Spring Break cabin, click “more” below:

(more…)