For certain buyers, there’s nothing more romantic than a big old farmhouse on a fair piece of land. Throw in a view and some large shade trees, and some people really get stars in their eyes. Tack “swimming pool” on to the above description and you might even elicit a swoon.
Edge Hill, a 56-acre farm in Nelson County, is one of those sweep-you-off-your-feet places. It’s got impressive credentials: a lovely location (less than five minutes from Lovingston, yet utterly pastoral); a house that’s large and gracious enough to serve as the backdrop for picture-perfect Thanksgivings and other iconic family events; plenty of land to enact your country-living fantasy of choice, be that produce stand or paintball field.
At the end of a long, arborvitae-lined drive, on top of a knob, sits the squarish white house, lined with double wraparound porches and dripping with gentility. Park in the gravel courtyard ringed by an old stone wall and walk along stone paths between planting beds (hostas, ivy) and a very charming outbuilding that apparently started life as a one-room schoolhouse.
Pause here in the shady garden before entering the back door. The house is not too formal, and though the front façade with the porches is certainly inviting, it’s the kitchen entry that really compels you to step inside. Here you are in what could be the best kitchen in a couple of counties—not because of high-design cabinets or appliances, which it doesn’t have, but because you could fit a few dozen neighbors in here for tomato canning and it still wouldn’t feel crowded. No modern “island” here, just big banks of cabinets wrapped around a farm table. Given the massive brick fireplace and slate floor, not to mention the sheer volume of the food it could handle, the room feels weighty. It flows seamlessly into a perfect little sunroom, where you’d sit down to gab on the land line and keep half an eye on the pies.
The kitchen’s the best part of the house, but there are many other things to like. For one thing, the library: lined with shelves and cabinets, with a big picture window capturing the site’s best ridgeward view. For another, the porches and front yard, where a person could easily get married. And let’s not forget: It’s huge. We’re talking about more than 4,000 square feet of living space; seven bedrooms; four full baths. “Bed and breakfast” is the obvious conclusion, but if you just want rooms to get lost in, this might be your farmhouse.
Make no mistake: A lot of work has been done here to create a lovely homeplace—planting maple and holly trees that now tower over the lawn, doing the daily living that lends a sense of timeworn settlement. In other words, the stuff that takes decades. But whoever inherits this heirloom of a house will have heaps of work left to do (and do, and do).
Most buyers who can spend a million or so on a house will be looking to replace light fixtures, redo bathrooms, and so forth. Plenty of grist for that sort of mill here on the knob. And there’s a lifetime of less glamorous but more necessary maintenance, too: painting, fixing porch steps, weeding paths. The mowing alone is practically a part-time job.
Know, too, that the swimming pool (remember that?) is in a somewhat sorry state. On our visit, it seemed more suitable for the frogs that were inhabiting it than for human recreation. A bridge leading to it was mostly collapsed and the pool cover was ripped. But true to its character, Edge Hill still left us feeling charmed even amid relative ruins: The pool pavilion, a modest concrete-pad-under-frame structure like you find in city parks, has two bathrooms, marked MEN and LADIES. Does it get any sweeter?
Here’s the upshot, young lovers. Go ahead and fall for this house. You’ll probably be very happy here—traipsing down to the pond on sunny mornings, turning the old schoolhouse into a painting studio, picking out curtains for the ten gazillion windows. But be realistic. If you want your life to happen in this place, then this place will be your life.
PROPERTY DETAILS
Address: 326 Spring Hill Ln., Lovingston
MLS#: 518119 Acreage: 56.37
Year built: 1893
Bedrooms: 7 Baths: 4 1/2
Square footage (finished): 4,170 Extras: Stable, barn, three-car garage, pool, pavilion, tennis court
List price: $995,000
