Rhinecliff Cottage for $289, 900

 

Oh, how I love you Rhinecliff! You’re Rhinebeck’s cool, goth little sister—literally edgier, as you’re right on the cliffs overlooking the Hudson River. (Get it?) Pretty, glossy Rhinebeck is just a couple miles away, so your residents can take easy advantage of her charms, while enjoying your ready access to the Rhinecliff Amtrak stop and gorgeous river views. Plus, you have the best white person Chinese restaurant in New York, with its porch overlooking the river.

As Rhinecliff is a tiny hamlet of relatively tiny Rhinebeck, it doesn’t have a huge selection of real estate stock, so I was thrilled to see this pretty little country house on the market. We often get asked by our readers (and I get asked by my renters), “Do you need a car to access this one?”  While the answer is always yes—honestly, basics like grocery shopping and going out to eat are impossible in most Upstate counties without wheels—-this one is within walking distance of the train station. The house is small, on a small-ish lot, but it has a nice established garden and that American Gothic feel so common in Rhinebeck. I’m not crazy about some of the updates, but it is in move-in condition. Stats on the jump.

Friday Real Estate Porn: 304-year-old Rhinecliff Cottage, $729,000

While it’s far out of my price range, 6 Long Dock Road seems like a really good deal to me. It’s in the lovely little hamlet of Rhinecliff, a few strokes from the Amtrak station and less than a 10-minute drive to downtown Rhinebeck. Yes, yes, the ceilings are low, which is always the case in these very old stone houses of upstate New York, but those beams are quite amazing. This is a place to take your friends and impress the heck out of them. It’s on five acres, very close to the Hudson River, with lovely landscaped grounds, and — score! — a great little one-bed guest cottage (the kitchen in the guest house is far more appealing to me than the teal-slathered kitchen in the main house) and artist’s studio. I imagine that the upkeep of such a place is rather strenuous. You’ll need some version of a caretaker if you’re not going to live here full time, or if you’re going to live here full time but still have some room in your schedule for, you know, work. (We do plan to do a post on caretakers for second homes soon, btw). Taxes, alas, look to be above $13,000. Save some room in the budget for that.

Here’s one incredible thing about this place: central air! In a 300-year-old house! For some reason, that gives me extra faith in the renovation. Please buy it and let me have the guest house! Slideshow below, and stats on the jump.

Dutchess County Sheep & Wool Festival This Weekend, Oct 15-16

You don’t have to be in the market for a baby lamb to enjoy this one. The Dutchess County Sheep & Wool Festival, in Rhinebeck this weekend, is my idea of heaven, even though I have no plans to add livestock to my pet menagerie any time soon. Wool and yarn for sale, herding dog competitions (just like Babe!), pumpkin carving, cooking demos, a full schedule of activities for kids, and lots and lots of fuzzy animals. Can anything be better than a critical mass of border collies and hand knit mittens set against the backdrop of a pretty Hudson Valley town at the height of fall foliage? I think not.

Rhinebeck Gothic, $385,000

Am I right in calling this place a Gothic cottage? The listing says colonial, but that vertical siding has me confused, although it also has classic Greek revival eyebrow windows, so…a mishmash. I’m doing the best I can considering a decade has passed since my architectural styles class in urban planning school.

Anyway…point is: I like it. It’s in town, a block from Upstate Films and the hubbub of downtown. It has lovely windows on the first floor, and a cute yard, and a nice livable size at 2,200 square feed. Three beds and two baths, and, yeah, vertical siding, which gets me every time. Anybody interested? Stats on the jump.

Rhinebeck Village Cottage, $174,995

Does anyone else think this place is adorable? Okay, so it would be more adorable if it were in a woodsy setting on a private lake, but it’s just a block or so away from the little lake near downtown Rhinebeck (can’t really swim in it, but it’s nice to look at), and it has lots of potential for charm. You’ll probably want to do something about all the wood paneling, but the leaf-green built-ins are sweet. Somehow they’ve packed over 1,400 square feet into this little Rhinebeck cottage (the listing calls the style “split level”–why’s that?). The taxes seem bizarre to me, though–over $5,000? Hm. Stats on the jump.

Rhinebeck Village Fixer-Upper for $249,000

In keeping with this week’s theme of wallet-friendly Rhinebeck, we bring you this 1860 Victorian home, the most spacious we could find at this price point. The realtor describes it as a fixer-upper, and we do see some cosmetic damage on the floors and walls. We’re not sure about what structural work that would need to be done, but its relatively untouched interiors also mean that a lot of original detail remains. 23 Beech St offers some unfortunate linoleum, but check out that porcelain kitchen sink! And that crazy pink and green wallpaper is positively Charlotte Perkins Gilman-esque.

The lot is small, but this is a true village house and you could walk to Market St in Rhinebeck. The house has been on the market for over a year and has gone through several price cuts. Do you think it could go for even lower than the current list price? Stats on the jump.

Town of the Week: Rhinebeck

from Wikipedia

Oh, it’s so obvious, you say. I already know what Rhinebeck is: The Hamptons of Dutchess County. Well, I happen to disagree. I have the taste of a person with a much higher income, it’s true, but I’m not drawn to Rhinebeck because of its high-end restaurants (much as I love Gigi) or its patina of wealth. I like it because it reminds me of my hometown of Saratoga Springs in the right ways. I like the neighborhoods surrounding downtown, many of which have lovely, modest-ish 19th century homes. I LOVE Upstate Films — art movies, downtown — and I like the health food store, and the yoga place, and the old fashioned five and dime. There’s a whole extant layer of Rhinebeck from its pre-rich folk days, and that’s what I cling to.

The town was the discussion of some of our readers last week, chatting about Rhinebeck versus Rosendale after I put up this Rhinebeck house on River Road. (Some readers stopped by to see it and said it was very close to the road, making it less attractive to those of us with cats and children). And, yeah, Rosendale is a lot more chill, less refined, more hippie-dippie than Hamptons. But that’s the case in general when you look East versus West. The East side has always been home to the more affluent. It had the railroad, the grand estates, the land that’s been tamed for centuries. The West side — the Catskills — feels far more rural and isolated, much more in the trees and woods and mountains, which is what many folks are looking for. I’m looking for woods and cappuccino and train stops, which makes me more prone to East side desires.

So, yeah, Rhinebeck real estate can be pricey. The average listing price as of this writing is almost $750,000. But the average sales prices is less than $350,000. You can find something wallet-friendly there. At least, that’s our goal for this week.

I Want This House: Rhinebeck Schoolhouse, $395,000

Lots of folks write to us asking us to list their places (and taking advantage of the fact that we don’t yet have a listings section — we’re still searching for a great WordPress designer/developer, if you know of anyone…). We put them up if they’re something we’d personally be interested in, which is why this one had to be shared.

Although, in some ways, I don’t want any of you to go see this place because I kind of want it. We’re waiting for the owner to tell us a little more about it, including its exact location and what’s going on with the kitchen (I see a sink, but nothing else). And we’re waiting for bigger photos. BUT…like many of you, I’m a sucker for the words “converted schoolhouse,” and I love the size, look and openness of this place. Although it’s only an acre of land, it’s surrounded by an estate, so (at least according to the owner) it feels very secluded. More info and photos on the jump.