$600,000 Homes in New York, Washington and Connecticut
What You Get for Around $600,000
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Newburgh, N.Y. | $599,900
An 1856 brick house with four bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms
Frederick Clarke Withers, a British-born architect who was a partner of Calvert Vaux, designed this Victorian home for David M. Clarkson, a horticulturalist. Originally called Glenbrook, it is in the hamlet of Balmville, two miles north of the restaurants, galleries and spas of Newburgh’s renovated waterfront district and across the road from the Powelton Club, a country club established in 1882. When the house was built, residents could see the Hudson River. New York City is 70 miles south.
Size: 5,545 square feet
Price per square foot: $108
Indoors: Extensive repairs were recently made to the heating, plumbing and electrical systems; the original slate roof was fixed and the gutters replaced. The property could still use refinished floors, updated bathrooms and possibly new wall treatments, depending on the buyer’s feelings about the existing wallpaper. The kitchen is approximately 20 years old.
Double glass entry doors lead into a vestibule followed by a foyer with a marble floor. Immediately to the right is an eight-sided library with 10-foot ceilings incorporating decorative strapwork and a hardwood floor inlaid with concentric octagons. (The architect’s original house plan referred to oak and black walnut as the specified woods.) The fireplace mantel is in Mr. Withers’s signature neo-Gothic style; a copy is displayed in the Metropolitan Museum’s Gothic library period room. The original built-in bookcases are mahogany.
A 24-foot-long drawing room lies straight ahead of the entrance hall. It has parquet floors, two large, gilded mirrors, a bay window and plaster swag decoration below the crown molding. Two sets of French doors with brass cremone bolts open to a stone-paved veranda. The carved marble fireplace mantel has a central figure of a young girl with a tiny rabbit on her lap.
Next to the drawing room and also accessible from the foyer is a dining room with hardwood floors and mahogany paneling and trim. The fireplace is decorated with ceramic tile, Corinthian columns and egg-and-dart carving. Two sets of French doors open to the veranda. At one end of the room is a niche that, according to the architect’s plans, was intended for a sideboard.
The large kitchen occupies its own wing on the main floor. It has oak cabinets with granite countertops and backsplashes faced in tumbled stone. There is a large central island and wine storage, tile floors and stainless-steel appliances.
Four bedrooms are on the second floor, including a master suite with hardwood floors, a pink-tile fireplace and an Art Deco-era bathroom. (There are three additional late-Deco bathrooms.)
One enormous guest room has an attached dressing room and a Juliet balcony. Two bedrooms that share a bathroom over the kitchen (one with built-in mahogany shelves and cabinets) are reached by the back staircase and appear to have been servants’ quarters.
The third floor includes three large and two small bonus rooms that could be used as playrooms, hobby rooms or for storage.
Outdoor space: The 1.9-acre property includes an attached two-car garage.
Taxes: $25,376 (based on an assessment of $225,000)
Contact: Beryl Veasey Oles, Global Property Systems, 845-728-9050; earlyvictorianmansion.com

Seattle | $639,950
A 1926 cottage with two bedrooms and two bathrooms
This freshly painted house is in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood 10 blocks west of Green Lake and less than a block from NW 65th Street, where the many businesses include a coffee shop three doors away. The Woodland Park Zoo is a mile southeast. Downtown Seattle is 20 minutes south in light traffic.
Size: 2,270 square feet
Price per square foot: $282
Indoors: The front door opens directly into the living room, a bright space with oak-strip floors and a vintage-tile fireplace flanked by built-in, shoulder-high bookcases.
French doors lead to the dining room; beyond is a kitchen with gray-painted wood floors, white cabinets with coated-tile countertops and a windowed corner breakfast nook. The kitchen’s compact size does not allow for a dishwasher in its current configuration.
The main-floor bedroom has hardwood floors and an all-white bathroom with Corian countertops and a walk-in shower with glass-block walls. A second upstairs bedroom is carpeted and has a wall of closets with mirrored doors. The en suite bathroom has double sinks in a Corian-topped vanity and a large jetted soaking tub installed less than a year ago.
The basement includes a large, windowed room that was finished in the 1990s and has recessed lighting.
Outdoor space: A partially covered deck off the kitchen steps down to a yard-size patio with garden beds, trellises and mature trees. A shared driveway leads to the property’s detached one-car garage. The lot is 0.09 acres.
Taxes: $6,645
Contact: Jessica James, Windermere Real Estate Company, 206-930-7563; windermere.com
Wilton, Conn. | $645,000
A 1935 farmhouse with three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms
The owners bought the original house in the South Wilton neighborhood in 1986 and built a two-story addition with a photographer’s studio on the main floor and an office above. They transformed the grounds with walls and terraces built with local boulders and renamed the property Stone Hill. It is on a cul-de-sac near Westport Road, less than 10 minutes southeast of town and less than 15 minutes from Westport’s beaches. Manhattan is about 50 miles southwest.
Size: 2,380 square feet
Price per square foot: $271
Indoors: Crossing a stone patio between the house’s two wings, you enter a foyer that has a second door leading through to the back. To the right is a vaulted living room with a brick chimney and fireplace. The floors have wide-plank boards and the walls are paneled in barn wood that was salvaged from a tobacco barn in Connecticut and also used in the addition.
A door on the far living room wall leads to a galley kitchen with windows that look out to a terraced garden. Beyond the kitchen is a dining room with a beamed, vaulted ceiling and bay window.
A second door in the living room takes you to an area with a pair of adjacent bedrooms with hardwood floors and painted wood walls and a bathroom with a combined tub and shower. A spiral staircase leads up to the master bedroom, which has timber trusses supporting a peaked ceiling and an en suite bathroom with blue tile.
To the left of the front door is the main floor of the addition, a 30-foot-long family room with posts and beams, barn-wood siding on some walls and a half bathroom in one corner. A second staircase rises to an office that takes up the addition’s entire second floor.
Outdoor space: The 1.5-acre lot is lushly landscaped and includes a pond with a fountain, a log-cabin storage shed and a detached two-car garage.
Taxes: $11,170 (based on an assessment of $391,370)
Contact: Katy Williams, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, New England Properties, 203-856-0033; katywilliamsrealtor.com
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Published at Wed, 04 Sep 2019 13:01:30 +0000