Yowsa!!! Imagine waking up to this every morning.
Then there is the charming Victorian, in-town...
...Our real estate broker Vicky Bohlig leads the way. It's a cute 1915 two-story that needs tons of work, especially the cheesy '70s bathroom add-on, below, wocka wocka!
Below is a mystery house; I don't remember anything about it from the blur of 10 visits on this overcast morning...
...but back in Hamilton, we get to some more, er, interesting concepts, such as the almost-off-the-grid remodel of a 1941 "southside charmer" (real-estate term!), above. Check out its backyard's tracking solar panels, below...
They're behind a garage and not as obtrusive as I thought they would be. Raised beds in the backyard also promise a bumper crop of vegetables...
But our last visit produced the most expensive house and a big dose of southside Hamilton charm. Think Webster Groves cottage, mature trees, cedar-shingle siding, original wood floors, great (not perfect) kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, gorgeous picture windows front and back, wood-burning fireplace plus basement wood stove and huge gardening potential, ornamentally in front and with patio, vegetables and herbs in back. Here it is!!...
Ta da!! Humble enough looking on the outside, but tons of restored 1939 built-ins and many examples of the current homeowners' own good taste, inside. We go see it... twice. We talk about it a L-O-T. We do some math. We email our financial planner in St. Louis. We email another trusted counsel there. We to and fro and fro and to on this topic. It is two days of angst in the middle of our perfect vacation!! I want my vacation back!!!
And so, if you know us and/or have been following this blog, you might ask: Becky, weren't you against this kind of expensive search to begin with? Yes, is my answer. And: Alex, how did you get Becky to give in to a house hunt in Montana? Hammering her with pleas to get some sort of foot hold in your land of perfect childhood vacations?? Yes, he'd say if he were honest.
I have to admit that the quiet, beautiful, cool-and-dry village of Hamilton, nestled between two mountain ranges full of a lifetime of hikes, is appealing, even if local politics often skew right and cultural resources are limited (although good folks are working to bring some of those resources back). Streets are busy with walking families and cycling retirees, morning and evening. A farmers' market on Saturday brings everybody out. Street dances with live country music happen in town.
We sit in Vicky Bohlig's office a final time to talk it out.
"And I don't know how motivated they are to sell. It's a real fast mover," she adds. "I bet they're quite surprised they haven't sold it."
Says a thoughtful, somewhat chastened Alex: "Our thought about that house is that it is a little bit overpriced now. If we wanted to make an offer, what would it be? On the other hand, it's come to a point in the whole process that we're back to asking more fundamental questions: Do we want to live here?"
I explain to Vicky that I have so much back at home -- friends, nearby relatives, volunteer work, some part-time paid work, a great old house and garden.
"We were kind of falling in love with a house in Hamilton," adds Alex. "Gosh we don't want anybody else to get that house. But are we really cut out for a small town?" His music, friends and volunteer connections, house and other projects also, of course, reside in St. Louis.
And yet, he describes a lunch that he went to in a home with a fantastic mountain view. "And still the down side of this house we're looking at is that there's practically no view."
"The market could still go down a little bit," Vicky advises. "But I believe things happen when they're supposed to happen. I thank God I'm older and I'm comfortable not getting freaked out when people want to take their time."
We both sign an agreement that makes her our only agent here. She will forward new listings electronically.
And we agree to take a break. A long break. Real estate has been an interesting way to tour the area. But now, I am getting my vacation back!!!!
(By the way, I may have buried my lede about Hamilton. A letter went out this week to members of the Citizen Liason Group for activities at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories. Vicky is in that group as she is in many other environmental, "green" and advocacy associations. The letter says that a researcher at the labs earlier in June was working on plague and stuck himself with the needle he was using. His wound was washed immediately, he was given strong antibiotics and samples from the incident were sent to an independent lab for testing. He apparently is fine. Vicky says that these events are rare, and that when they happen, extreme precautions are taken, press releases or letters go out right away. Still, she and many other Hamiltonians were unhappy a few years ago when the labs went to Level 4 status. I, for one, am too.)
On the other hand, look at the fortune I got in a Chinese restaurant earlier in this Wild West trip!!!
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