Tasteful friend: a Springfield, Vermont idyll in an 1811 Presbyterian manse, $985K

I like it. Just de-chick it with losing the floral wall paper and it's awesome.

Very nice find OP.

Agree with R1, get rid of the wallpaper and re-paint some of the rooms. Otherwise one could move right in.

This place could be amazing! The photo of the tiny "library-slash-gun cabinet" with the bible on some kind of stand, in front of the guns, freaks me the fuck out, though. There's little doubt about how the current owner votes.

It's a nice area of the state. You can get Xfinity internet there, too. The town is having a reappraisal going on, so expect taxes to go up in 2022. Closest "big" cities are Hanover and Lebanon NH. Don't overlay rad/blue politics on Vermont. There are a lot of gun toatin' Progressives and Liberals here. Lots of good hiking, camping, skiing in the area as well.

It does look nice. I'd take out some rugs (I don't understand this need to throw rugs over wood floors everywhere), take out the wallpaper, repaint some areas, and good to go.

Also, unlike some other of these New England homes posted, this one is near a "major" town. Has a hospital, auto.places, local grocery, etc.

Love all the bookshelves, and the front yard looks very secluded and peaceful. Triple garage, and a barn thrown in as a bonus. Seems like a real steal for someone who has the money.

It looks beautiful, with the exception of some hideous wallpaper. Unfortunately, I have now convinced myself that it is very like the idyllic setting for those woman-in-peril movies of the week where an ostensibly charming gentleman turns out to be a homicidal maniac, so I shall be unable to make an offer.

Beautiful place, and good value for money. I love the interior, but especially the wallpaper

But damn, the property taxes - 1.87% of the property value, thats almost ten times what it is here. Why so high? What are homeowners getting for the money? And even seems to apply to the far more modest homes in the same area.

It definitely needs to be de-frauified. I remember being repulsed by wallpaper borders as a ten year old. Christ, they're tacky. And I don't like the scalloped trim on the built-in shelves in the billiards room.

I LOVE that butler's pantry, the long halls, and the property itself.

Nice house with good bones. It just needs a respectful update on the finishes and some good things put in it and you would have a winner.

This photo in the midst of all the other photos made me laugh.

I think it also has a rental unit. Land records show a Unit #1 at that address as well.

^In light of Covid, that's the most prized room. Not easy (or cheap) to get your hands on some dumbbells.

Which specific tasteful friend was this addressed to?

I'll bet it's haunted!

I love all of it with the caveats noted above: some of the wallpaper could be changed.

But with the property taxes at $20K now; more when it sells and even more when the town re-assesses properties, on top of what I presume is at least another $20K annually to run the place (heat, plowing, repairs, updates, etc.) it's a bargain to buy and an expensive place to keep. And kind of isolated. While Hanover/White River Junction is closer and has a good teaching hospital (Dartmouth Hitchcock), it's still forty miles away and an hour and a half to Albany, NY or Springfield, MA, two hours to Burlington, the state capital, and two and a half hours to Boston.

One reason taxes are so high - it's hard to run a state on the amount of revenue you can collect from less than a million people.

Why is it so cheap?

Beautiful house but it needs updating, perhaps restoration. The grandma wallpaper and curtain need to go. That original kitchen is amazing though.

I see at least $175,000 needed to make it and the property habitable. The wallpaper is the least of it, although the falsity of the "Colonial Revival" spritzes are, indeed, embarrassingly middle-class low-end-country-club in vision.

The original house needs a complete repointing/tuckpointing. The approach from the road (looking at other maps of the property) has never been revised properly and there now is a large paved lot in front of the lane approach to the buildings, which is very unattractive. I can't tell about glazing, especially in the original house. I don't see updated windows in the newer portion, which would be needed in that climate. I'm sure all those working fireplaces make the newts and Frauleins happy, but the heating systems (I suspect it's split between two systems) would need checking.) need a good look. Hot-water systems for places such as this are hideous to replace.

I assume the second "unit" is shown where a different kitchen opens directly to a bedroom - not pretty. Bed linens shouldn't have to smell like yesterday's halibut.

It's been on the market for over 200 days. Other than trying for an upscale B&B (ugh) or some sort of organizational residence, it is rather a folly of a property. At least each bedroom, or nearly, appears to have its own bath en suite.

The barn is a treasure, but we see very little of it - I can't tell if it has been properly maintained.

Oh, and given the space and acreage and looking at the actual tax records, the property taxes are quite in line with other urban, suburban and rural areas. The taxes are the second-least of it (after the wallpaper).

And the photography that's being used for real estate today grossly exaggerates the size of interiors. In this case, however, the rooms are well-sized in reality in checking the dimensions of each room in the fuller realtor info.

The kitchen has an AGA stove, unusual and not too commonly seen in the US

[quote] Not easy (or cheap) to get your hands on some dumbbells.

Not true. Just go to any gathering of Republicans.

I love it. Get rid of the tacky wallpaper and drapery and you're good.

Living nearby is a man named Larry and his two brothers, both named Darryl.

I like it very much but as soon as I looked through the listing photos I said to myself this is going to get raked over the coals for the lovely wallpaper.

I love the wallpaper.

I love the exterior. It's just different. I'm really starting to appreciate the older, well done colonials in the Tasteful Friends. I'm so sick of the modern movement in SoCal. This house is really special. The interior needs updating, but this feels like a proper home.

I love Vermont. Especially Rock River.

[quote]I see at least $175,000 needed to make it and the property habitable.

R19/R20: The house is plenty "habitable." It may not be to your taste or might require a long list of improvements to suit you -- as understandably true for anyone.

I can say though that I would rather buy it as is than to buy it from you after your list of improvements, some of which match mine and others not. You lean to an exhaustive gut renovation and I to a conservative restoration. I would never assumed ever bit of mortar in the brick walls wants reworking, or that the windows (looks to me like original multilight exterior sash with later and quality/not inexpensive multilight wood sash as well. The brick walls have some inexpert repointing but not extensive and easily fix for aesthetics. There are minor patches of light discoloration on the brick, but from the photos it doesn't look to be a concern; and I don't mind a 200 year old house showing a bit of age . The windows are double-glazed, of a sort, but a sort that preserves the original fabric and, with some occasional maintenance to the brushes to seals the keep the windows at both layers tight, the energy efficiency is quite high. I wouldn't bother to replace them at a cost of $3500 a window with something only marginally more efficient and certain to look wrong at any cost.).

To me it's a handsome house in very good shape with a (rate enough) short shortlist of things I would do.

We have different ideas of what the house should be and that's of course fine. I agree the HVAC system on most any house warrants a look by an expert. The improvements to those systems often mean that it can be worth a systems/furnace upgrade every 5 years or so.

They 200 days listing...I wonder if it's just not another example of an expense for its small town setting, too far afield from a large market of buyers at that level. Big expensive historic houses often sell very quickly or very slowly, and I would guess it's more about the Springfield market than worrisome things about the house.

The other nice house in town has been for sale for 274 days, roughly half the house and half the price, but a very good looking exterior as well.