Last Sunday I looked at a house that now appears to have taken over my life, or at least my brain. I've been house hunting in Portland, Maine for several months on the web, and now for a few weeks in person. The good news, and the bad, is I know exactly what I want. I know where I want to live -- the West End, the little downtown section of mostly 19th century homes "on the peninsula" (a term I never heard until I started house hunting), where the ship's captains homes of yore are now either owned by the same out-of-towners who keep their yachts in Portland Harbor or Prout's Neck, or else they have been chopped into 1000 square foot condos with granite kitchen countertops and restored moldings that we upper middle class professionals are supposed to die for.
But, I can't afford the houses still in one piece and I don't want them once divided -- I don't want to live in a condo, without a piece of patio to myself where I can sit and sip my glass of Pinot Grigio, with neighbors downstairs who complain about the bumpety-bump of my daughter, Kanha's living room cartwheels and neighbors upstairs who can't afford to pay their share of fixing the roof.
So I've been on the search for the unusual, the nearly impossible, for months now. I've made myself ready to pounce when the rare single family house of about 1700 square feet shows up in my email inbox courtesy of NewEnglandMoves.com; I've expanded my horizons to consider a multi-family, to become a landlord in order to live in a place I could love. I've found few single families to look at, and too many multi-families in my price range all in various states of disrepair.
Until I found the house, this house -- gigantic, multi-family, multi-office, surrounded by gardens, home to an elderly artist couple and perhaps Harry Potter's ghosts, ordained with the kinds of water views you know you will never possess. Could I?
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