What say you Tasteful Friends? A 1922 Tudor Revival

It seems like a good deal for that price, but it's pretty much the opposite of what I like.

Doesn't seem...private.

Lovely house, but it's in Detroit, and it looks like it would be impossible to heat with all those period windows.

Also, is that stone/tile floor downstairs original? Because I hate it. And what the HELL did they do in the kitchen? (Although that's an easy fix.)

I think the downstairs floor is Pewabic tile, which is a big deal in Detroit.

It’s big, uncomfortable, and vaguely creepy.

What the hell would one do with all that house. I wouldn't want the upkeep.

Parts are beautiful, the kitchen needs to be gutted, but why didn't they do ANY landscaping? Especially in the back; why aren't there any trees to visually separate them from the neighbors?

Paramilitary private police force.

I like the house, but it would cost a fortune to heat; there are no trees or landscaping, which makes it seem really vulnerable on a few levels; there are no window coverings (or signs of previous) in most of the rooms; wish they'd left the kitchen original, rather than adding it piecemeal from Home Depot; its in Detroit.

[quote] What the hell would one do with all that house. I wouldn't want the upkeep.

Might I suggest that most of the large houses featured in "Tasteful Friends" are not targeted at single gay men or even a gay couple.

Rather, they are targeted at families with young children at home and maybe an au pair or two.

Just a thought.

I wonder what the story is re: the lack of trees.

Would not surprise me to learn it was a security thing, that cutting down trees meant that criminals could not hide behind them when robbing the house and/or its inhabitants.

R2 (and others) Often in those old neighborhoods in the midwest and the east, the lack of fences, shrubbery, trees that give you some privacy... both from the road and FROM YOUR NEIGHBOR just don't make sense to me. Even in more humble row houses the backyards run together or have very small fences/dividers.

In the west, it seems a high priority to try to completely block your neighbor. Live as though you didn't know there was a neighbor. Even on modest-sized lots.

This house has beautiful details... but it's so exposed it does, in fact, seem creepy.

Pass.

Why does the main photo look like it was rendered in The Sims?

too much wood paneling. Poor Trees. All the updating was done hideously. You probably have to replace all the windows. I do not like it at all. I have seen a lot of tudor revivals in disrepair.

Agree with most of the above comments. The 'staging' is so weird - some rooms have minimal furniture, others have nothing. Does someone actually live there or not?

I love old homes like this, but this just seems like a headache and exceedingly expensive to maintain, furnish and modernize.

To see these homes go into disrepair or torn down though also makes me sad.

I'll take it, along long as the cheap ass, ratty chair comes with it.

Whoever wrote the description needs to step away from the caps lock, FFS. A basic writing course should be mandatory for all real estate agents.

[quote] It’s big, uncomfortable, and vaguely creepy.

Sounds just like most of the men I've dated.

Regarding private security ... If you do a street view of the area, you'll see that adjacent to the landmarks at the entrances denoting "Palmer Woods" there are other signs saying that the neighborhood is "patrolled by private security." I guess the residents took it upon themselves to do something about the crime some 10 years ago.

I would love to get my hands on a house like this if I had limitless money. I would only add a pool (but where?) and as you all have noted, the lack of trees/shrubs is strange. That one house is very close to it. I wouldn't want to be looking at/into it.

When The Palmer Woods Organization was celebrating the neighborhood's centennial in 2015, they reprinted a 2008 article about this mansion, which discussed its history and ownership and the old, reclusive woman who owned the place at that time. The house was rather neglected and some people actually thought it was haunted.. lol! The article also covers another mansion that used to be across the street. That place suffered a really bad fire and eventually had to be demolished.

The attached link is a pdf file of the newsletter. The three page article "A Tale of Two Mansions: Attempts to save palatial homes lead to past despair new hope" begins on Page 16. There's a lot of other homes in the neighborhood featured in the rest of the newsletter as well.

[quote]The 'staging' is so weird - some rooms have minimal furniture, others have nothing. Does someone actually live there or not?

[quote]I love old homes like this, but this just seems like a headache and exceedingly expensive to maintain, furnish and modernize.

[quote]To see these homes go into disrepair or torn down though also makes me sad.

For fuck's sake, the house HAS BEEN RESTORED, and quite well, a real restoration of the original details, repair of the roof and previous water damage stemming from roof leaks (affecting the stairs, bathrooms, flooring), they removed later alterations and remilled baseboards and missing elements to match existing, pet and water damaged wood flooring was replaced in kind (and beautifully), hinges and hardware were stripped and cleaned and rehung...a great deal of work went into the house to make it look exactly as it should.

There's no reason to be sad for a house that's some of the better restoration work I have seen in a while. And "modernize" it? What does that even mean except ripping everything out that makes it something special. If you don't like it, you don't like it, but don't get all teary eyed about how it's falling into the ground from neglect because t's good as new (well, less the temporary kitchen which I assume was a smart nod to the fact that most people who buy houses rip the kitchen out straight away and replace to look almost exactly the same but with a slightly different shade of marble, and different cabinet hardware.)

And who the fuck cares if someone actually lives there or not? Or how they arranged their chairs. It's the house that's for sale, not the chairs and not the furniture arranging skills of the stager.

Someone mentioned the original windows and energy efficiency. These come with historic storm windows which have been repaired and made to fit tight again. These will be negligibly less efficient that modern double-glazed replacements that always look bad and in this house would cost easily $200K.

The exterior is a bit underwhelming for me, and I like Tudor Revivals, and the war-torn yard, bare-ass exposed to the world made me expect a disappointing interior, so it was a surprise to see that the interior is much more impressive than the exterior, very well done originally, and a very impressive restoration.

A tall hedge around the property and a kitchen (and a lot of furniture) is all it needs.