Tasteful friends: lovely 1871 Italiante in Troy NY $745,000 (sorry about that one important thing)

Yes, the house itself is STUNNING. Did it used to be a convent or something?

I wish they would use a 50% less wide lens. The home has modest proportions outside then it's the volume of the Mrs. Astor's townhouse inside.

You couldn't pay me to live in Troylet.

Love a lot of it. AND, love the price - my 2 bed/2 bath, 1,000 sq ft condo in West Hollywood is $800,000. It's all about location

What is Troy, NY like?

Looking on Google Maps, the neighborhood is quite run down, but the integrity of the architecture has been preserved. It would be wonderful if you could convince 500 of your gay friends to move in.

The house and woodwork is gorgeous. I hate the kitchen. So WHITE.

I wouldn't pay 750K to live in Troy.

Perhaps add on a wing and rent rooms to RPI students. 5 or 6 might be a good number. Im a prof and when I retire I'm going to miss college age people so much I'm thinking of doing something like that. I wouldn't want to get all up in their business but having that energy around is very positive. You could put in a big kitchen and a dining room - rec room. Pay them for little projects or maintenance if they are interested. Keep the rent low. I lived in a commune house in one college and loved it.

Not my style at all, but it seems nice enough.

A NOT AT ALL creepy venture, R8.

I recognize it COULD be creepy but I am not a creep.

Doesn’t Troy have a famous gay bathhouse?

I wasn’t creeped out until I got to the picture of the Mary statue on the stairs and then to the basement. Peace out.

There are no pics of the basement.

R1, it must have been a convent.

I love the period details. And love that carriage house. I'd convert it into a kinky playhouse!

R3 has it right, OP. Troylet is what it's called by non-natives who've had the misfortune of acquainting themselves.

Some of you won’t believe me but I find Troy charming. Yes, it’s a city with poverty and its attendant challenges. But I like the vibe there. It’s got a sizable pedestrian friendly downtown with good dining, nightlife, shopping. A couple of college campuses (RPI, Russell Sage) that bring positive energy to the city. I’ve spent a fair amount of time there and it feels like a city on the upswing.

That said, the particular location of the house in question is dicey, even by local standards.

For us Flyoverstan folks, what is Troy like?

Gritty, R18. Lots of run-down Victorian houses. Does anyone know if the Grand Union grocery is still there?

R14 ok the dungeon then.

R19 it sounds like a place with interesting things and people, but you need street smarts.

This house is 3 blocks from RIP. How bad can it be? There's huge christian prep school next door in a creepy old mansard institutional building.

The lot is deep, lots of room to expand. It's too wooded, trees should come down to get more light into the front and rear garden. But perhaps keep some shade on the house.

r19, I think all the Grand Union stores in the Capital District were gone in the late 1990s or early 2000s.

I grew up in that area and we NEVER went to Troy. My father went to college there and that was enough for him.

R8. Put secret cams in every hot student's room. Yeah. Right.

That's not the dungeon or the basement. It's the loft over the garage. The back garden leads to the three car building with loft above it. It's not in great shape. That is on 10th street behind the house. The house fronts 9th street.

The house is surrounded by 8 ft brick walls.

It’s a bit of a sketchy neighborhood but near RPI. Some gorgeous brownstones in downtown Troy and on and near Washington Park.

A lot of filming for The Gilded Age takes place there.

R24 yeah right. Before I moved into the big shared house on my campus I lived 2 summers in a professors house. It wasn't creepy. I also did small jobs for another professor at his house. America has gotten so perverted and cautionary. My retired sister rents two efficiency apartments attached to her house to college students in her town.

Love the style of architecture

[quote]The house is surrounded by 8 ft brick walls.

Do you think they'll keep kittens in? I was thinking about adopting two kittens.

OP - But wouldn't this necessitate living in Troy? That'd be a deal-breaker.

It really needs some cozying up.

[quote]What is Troy, NY like?

It was originally called called Erna's Mouth (aka/ shit hole) by Canadian fur trappers back in the late 1700's until it was eventually re-named Troy after Helen Lawson showed up.

Lovely old house with masses of potential, and doesnt seem to need a great deal of work. The three car garaging is an unusual bonus for a property of this era, really good to have. We got very little of the Italianate style down under unfortunately. The kitchen is a bit white but its in keeping with the era of the house and its functional, good enough for me

R13 the Mary statue on the stairs is a bit much, indicates that this was built as a convent as R1 suggests, or something of that sort. Given its the only one I can see and its on the stairs to the basement I could live with that, and it is part of the history of the building

I love it as well. Especially all those windows! That yellow room/area is divine. A breakfast nook to die for.

R35- A good looking well hung masculine muscular TOP- that’s someone to die for.

Can you walk to the bathhouse from there?

[Quote] What is Troy, NY like?

In Troy all seems to breathe freedom and peace and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.

I like it. A lot. Virtually untouched by the modern white box look.

The town with nothing left to burn.

The statue is on the staircase linking the main floor to the second floor. There are no pictures of the basement as far as I can make out.

To me it looks like a townhouse without the rest of the town. It looks weird sitting there by itself,

First tell me about NY state's laws about squatting. Will I need to spend months if not years trying to evict homeless crackheads?

Considering the state of the grounds I'm shocked the interiors are as beautiful as they are.

Troy is an interesting town, or at least it was back in the 60s when my evil sister was sent off to Emma Willlard school when she started 9th grade. I remember finding the architecture of Troy rather interesting the few times we visited.

I don’t think it’s that great and I don’t think the price is compelling. Especially not for Troy.

This needs more work, is outside of Princeton proper, and seems to be on a busy street in a somewhat commercial area. But it’s still the Princeton vicinity and you’ve got a 3 acre buffer.

R47 For some reason none of the pics at your link are loading for me, so here's the Zillow listing

And you're right, that is a beautiful old home too, and has the added advantage of not having a Mary statue in the main stairwell for those that dont like that sort of thing

Code compliance in Troy must be nonexistent.

There are several obviously abandoned huge churches within blocks of that house. That's never a good sign.

Didn’t they film The Guilded Age in Troy?

It could be the next Hudson!

Outside is beautiful, inside needs about $100k worth of work done

I lived in Troy for a few years. It's a weird place -- struggling to become the next Hudson with scores of buildings just like this one: beautiful old brownstones from the late 1800s, homes that were never torn down because no one wanted to live in Troy in the last few decades. But the comeback keeps stalling as there just aren't enough jobs in the area, and with a depressed economy, booms seldom take place. And unlike Hudson, which is 1/10 the size, there are too many depressing swathes of ghettos and crime.

Still, many of the houses are truly beautiful

Yes R51

The color of the wood floor is completely Wrong. The darker wood should be on flooring and lighter wood on sashes and doors. It is against the natural order of the world. Ie dark grown, lighter vegetation, lighter sky.

I really do love this house. And I don’t think it had to be a convent (have you seen any? They tend to be much larger). My theory is that whomever had the home built was likely Italian and Catholic, and they expressed their worship in how they built the house. That’s my working theory anyway, and for me, it still works because it is well done. If you put say a modern sculpture or even a Buddha in that niche with the cross, I think that might look amazing! It adds tremendous character and shows American history.

That’s my crack den!

Agreed, R57. I've seen thousands of houses (and >100 convents and monasteries) and nothing about this house implies it was a convent or anything other than a private house.

FFS, take out the BVM, bury her upside down in tbe back garden if you like, and scratch out the cross motif below it. Lightly sand, paint, done. Fill the niche what what pleased you, or nothing at all.

Some of you are unsettled by the oddest things in houses.

Perhaps few have the 750K for a an old townhouse in Troy (of all places) and another 250K to put it right, so find something, anything, to reject it, to lesson the wound they will never in fact own an elegant old house.

You could always remove the Virgin Mary statue and replace it with one of your Madame Alexander dolls.

[quote]You could always remove the Virgin Mary statue and replace it with one of your Madame Alexander dolls.

Or, as this is known to many DLers: 'needs a total gut job...to the studs and rafters.'

It sold in 2021 for $105k. It’s insanely overpriced for that location.

The room with the blinds down naked me go “hmmmmm?”

^makes, dammit

Damn R64 / R65. Let autocorrect tell us about your search history without telling us your search history.

R37, it’s less than half a mile. An easy ten-minute walk.

Yea, I want to burn my leg on a radiator every time I walk through the door or try to walk up the stairs.

[quote] My theory is that whomever had the home built was likely Italian and Catholic, and they expressed their worship in how they built the house.

Despite your use of 'whomever' when you should have used 'whoever', I agree with you that this property was never a convent.

One diminutive BVM does not a convent make.

[quote] Didn’t they film The Guilded Age in Troy?

Despite your unfortunate spelling of 'gilded', you are correct.

The NYC scenes in 'The Gilded Age' were filmed in Troy.

As was "The Age of Innocence."

Sorry Greg, I have indeed always struggled on that usage. :-)

Regardless (haha! I know that is correct), older minds agree, this is not how convents were set up. They usually gave cells, set up like a dorm or monastery, small adjacent rooms down a long hallway.

I’m curious about other towns on the upswing that have a solid old home inventory. Any thoughts? It could be NY or any other NE state.

Gee, Greg. Thanks so much for correcting my spelling.

You are very welcome, R72/ R70.

I always appreciate learning something new.

^ sorry — You are very welcome, R72/R51.

‘Gilded’ meaning ‘golden.’

A ‘guild’ is an association of people with similar interests.

Like an altar guild in a church.

I am aware of the difference. It was a typo.

Not Gerg, again…🫥

Yes, R77.

[quote] You can see in the film that when Hamilton spins around to position herself above the elevator, the flames and smoke came before she was safely below set. She suffered second-degree burns on her face and third-degree burns on her hand. The green makeup covering her body was copper-based and toxic if absorbed, so Hamilton's burned skin had to be thoroughly cleaned with acetone.

The flames and smoke had to come before Margaret Hamilton was safely below stage.

Why? Because if they didn’t, the viewers would see see her being lowered on the elevator they used.

The flames and smoke, however, came earlier than they should have, so one can see them rising up—the smoke in particular—as though from a box, before Miss Hamilton gets to her mark.

See 4:44 in the link. One can also see her being lowered.

The timing was imprecise.

As I understand it, the take we see in the movie (this take) was the one that happened just before the final take when Miss Hamilton got burned so badly.

And at 3:37 above, Miss Hamilton says, “I can cause accidents, too” and it appears as though she is about to say something else immediately, but the film cuts to Miss Burke who says, “Aren’t you forgetting the ruby slippers?”

I wonder what happened there?

Because, because, because, because, beCAUSE

Kitchen and baths are terrible, but I like the rest. But, the boarded up houses nearby really aren't good.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

Love the exterior & all of the trees. The kitchen is spacious, but a joke. The interiors of these homes are too traditional, and bore me. If I could strike a balance between honoring the architectural & historic integrity of the home, while also making it less boring and predictable, that would be the sweet spot.

Diane Keaton should renovate it. Does she do East Coast?

[quote]Kitchen and baths are terrible

But aren't they always? And aren't they the things people expect to change, there being no solution that will appeal to everyone.?

The kitchen space is fine, but the cabinetry and fittings are minimal. That appeals to me because it's something I could work from and get the result I want without having to haul out a landfill worth of bad cabinetry and dated stone countertops and ugly appliances and a half-acre island.

Same with bathrooms. If they are good quality early 20thC, great, I'd try to work with what's there rather than replace it in the style of the moment that will be badly dated in 10 years.

People want to make their mark in bathrooms and kitchens above all else, and are willing to spend tons of money in doing it so that the next buyer can say "the baths and kitchen are terrible and have to go."

Hold on a sec, this home sold for 150 grand three years ago and is now priced at just under 800 grand?

GTFOH

[quote]Hold on a sec, this home sold for 150 grand three years ago and is now priced at just under 800 grand?

Yes, R86. Curious isn't it? Sold for $105,000 in 2021 and is now listed at $744,900. It has the look of something started well and then hurried the fuck up (the barely there kitchen and the cheap bathrooms).

The price is a real outlier in Troy, at last looking at old houses listed for sale there. For comparison, I posted a house for $799,000 in Albany (I place I would much rather live than Troy) that's a much better house and well renovated for the most part.

If I recall, Lawrenceville Road is very busy, high traffic road.