For any of you who have been to my house or know where my house is, you know about “The House” across the street. The House was the bane of our existence even before it was The House. Way back when it was just The Lot. See, it wasn’t really even a lot. There was this fence and below that, a couple of trees and marshland. Other than that, just the harbor out to our friend the ocean which we had a lovely view of. Then one day about 10 years ago a “For Sale” sign went up on the fence. Huh? Who would buy this worthless land? You could never build on it….or could you? Well apparently a man named Ken Gelpy thought he could. He bought the land and we received the abutter notice that he wanted to build. We attended city meetings, we objected and went door to door getting neighbors to sign letters. Mr. Gelpy wanted to build a “little house” with a view of the ocean that he and his sick wife could live out their final days in. After doing research, we found that he had built this same house with the same sad story about 5 times in the last several years in some of the neighboring cities. He gets through the red tape, builds and sells. So we fought. We learned about wetlands and became advocates for the environment. We learned about phragmites and their importance to wildlife. We learned about 100 year storms and water levels. We had plenty of support. The city turned him down. He appealed. There was a process and he knew it inside and out. Long story short (too late?) after a couple years of this, the city (or state) missed a deadline on filing some paperwork and he basically got his permit based on that misstep.
And so he built. They started by driving pylons or stilts into the marshland. Then they started on The House. The modest little house ended up being a 4 story house with a double garage. All built on stilts. On marsh. By the ocean that has been known to flood more frequently than every 100 years. They finished building The House the year Nash was born. That was 2002. The House has been for sale since they started building. It’s changed hands numerous times. They tried to convert it to condos. It’s been basically empty with the exception of one owner that ended up living in the bottom floor with his family (in one room) because he had to sell his other home as he couldn’t keep up the double mortgage payments. So many people thought they were going to get rich on this one but instead, I’ll bet over a dozen different people have taken a major bath on this one.
The real estate company changes every so often. We would see the new agent out there that first weekend putting up the sign with a couple balloons looking ever so hopeful. Then after a few weekends, they would skip the balloons and look a more and more disheartened with each passing week. Enter another new real estate company’s sign would go up, or even better, the “for sale by owner”. And there’s the occasional “sale pending” sign that’s usually replaced with the “for sale” sign again within a couple of weeks.
But yesterday I looked outside across the street and saw something I haven’t seen in the seven years it’s been there: SOLD.
The original price tag was - wait for it - $1.3 MILLION dollars. There was an offer at one point early on for $1 million and they turned it down. I’m dying to know what it finally sold for in this economy and will research and report back. I’ll also study the new occupants and try to come up with a name to add to our growing list of neighbor names. I’m thinking “stupid idiots” but if they got a $1 million house for significantly less, maybe they’re not so stupid. But they’re still blocking my view of the ocean so I’ll still hate them. Just sayin’…..
