the red brick farmhouse

Everyday, twice a day, I drive past a modestly sized red brick house on my way to work. Set back from the road, partially obscured by a variety of old trees, the faded brick farmhouse sits on a little rise, the second floor jutting out in back from the hill it's built into, presiding over a small creek that runs beyond the house and meanders through untended farmland. It's a charming house, square and sturdy, sedately observing the passage of time.

There's an abundance of trees around the house, almost obscuring it from the road, that offer plenty of shade to tempt a lazy weekend nap in a hammock that could be tucked into the long front porch. I can imagine after dinner strolls along the wooded property as dogs dance around my feet or laugh as they streak across the field chasing the occasional wildlife. Some mornings as I drive by, if the weather is just right, mist clouds hovers over the fields, adding an air of mystery that could be viewed from a kitchen window while sipping a morning cup of tea.

In recent years the house has fallen into some disrepair, looking sad and neglected. The well used chicken coop and low ancient barn sprawled along the property seem tired and rickety and it's a testament to the perseverance of farm buildings that they managed to survive the whipping wind storms we've had recently. 

The simple landscaping in the front has become overgrown and bedraggled. The lawns are scraggly and unkempt. Bare windows show no movement, day or night, further emphasizing the sense of aloneness and abandonment.
It clear that this house was a home and the land well tended in the past. 
But now, the For Sale by Owner sign planted in the front yard for the past eight months or so corroborates the sense that this house, once a home, offers no one shelter now.

Something about this house has captured my imagination for the past thirteen years and often I've wondered if it would ever be available for sale at a time we might be in a position to purchase it. The house pulls at me and I never fail to look at it as I pass by, acknowledging it's presence in some small way.

Because the for sale sign has been up for awhile and I've not seen any sign of life in the house for some time, on impulse I pulled into the rutted overgrown drive, noting the rusted crooked gate and buckled fencing. There behind the house is a dilapidated blue truck full up with I don't know what. The outbuildings, on a closer look, appear to be holding together by sheer force of will and stubborn pride.

I slipped through a gap in the fence and walked up the concrete front stairs to peer in the windows. Windows that recently saw a coat of paint to cover the peeling weather-exposed trim. There's been some efforts to make the house more marketable, giving it a half hearted face lift, some shine to enhance the inherent personality of the property.

I felt a little sad as I walked around the back and found that the snow melt had left a small pond overflowing with dirty water that made the yard look wrecked and severely worn. An old bathtub, stained with rust and dirt, sat tucked under a tree behind the frosted glass enclosed porch. Ironwork stairs crackled with rust as I stepped up onto a small deck, the floor of which was the scratched and old roofing tiles of the enclosed porch. Despite the relatively new screen doors, painted windows and fresh walls I saw when I peeked in the windows, the house is in a state of disrepair that is a little daunting. Not to mention the condition of the yard with random piles of unidentifiable debris scattered amid the weeds and decrepit buildings.

Despite these things I could envision sitting out on that porch with my husband on a warm summer evening, holding hands and quietly discussing our day, as we watch evening settle over the land, softly and comforting. Going on impulse again, I dialed one of the numbers on the for sale sign, and when a very nice woman answered the phone, asked about the house.

It had been her mother-in-laws. Built in the early sixties, the woman raised chickens, sold eggs, boarded horses and tended a small crop of vegetables. She had loved her home and tended it well. The house has about double the square footage of our house, which isn't saying much, and probably tops out near 1900 sq. feet, has three bedrooms, two baths, a partially finished basement and stands on seven acres of land. The eager woman on the phone said there has been extensive work on the inside, new floors, paint and carpeting, but given that we just gutted three bedrooms last year I know what that type of work looks like and there is still much work to be done in and around the red brick farmhouse.

I then inquired of the asking price. And almost crashed my car as I pulled out of the driveway when she cheerily answered my question.

Eight hundred fifty thousand dollars.

I quickly explained that that was way beyond my consideration and thanked her for her time. I don't exactly know what I was expecting but that certainly wasn't it. Half that maybe. Certainly a little closer to attainable, even if attainable is just a fanciful thought of the possibilities.  

We're not house hunting, we're not even considering house hunting. We just refinanced our house and we certainly don't have a reserve of funds that can be tapped into to appease my fanciful wondering. But even if we did, the modest red brick farmhouse on seven acres is way out of my price range. That price is so far beyond anything I can imagine paying for a house that even the faintest glimmer of a fantasy curled up whimpering into a deep dark recess of my mind.

It's going to cost a small fortune to complete the remaining upgrades on that house as it stands, not to mention removing or rehabbing the existing farm buildings. It's a fact that I almost never fantasize about moving from the house we live in because financially it's not in the cards. Now, if we won the lottery tomorrow, or I sold the two books I'm pecking away at for mountains of cash, well then, that might be a different reality. But today's reality says that the intriguing faded red brick farmhouse will belong to someone else and when it does I'll watch with interest what is done to bring it back to life as I pass by.