149 James St - $389,900
The Essentials
A spacious detached two-bed, one-and-a-half bath Inner Harbour home with loads of character, parking, and a sweet fenced yard.
The Bigger Picture
I once lived opposite this house. Back then I was writing pretty lousy, unfocused stories and pulling my hair out. Real estate hadn’t yet come for me on its snorting horse. I had no idea the significance of this 19th century two-storey home next to the old limestone row housing that I was convinced for the longest time were once stables. I regarded the house only in passing. I was self-absorbed, concerned more than anything with what my future might hold - what sparkling literary success - and I missed altogether that my days might be filled very differently. I imagined my name writ large. I just didn’t see that it might appear on a sign plunged into the neighbour’s lawn rather than on a bestseller’s dust jacket.
I eventually finished a first book while living on James St. The world lay at my feet, I thought. But when I passed the manuscript to a well-known author living up on Patrick, she declined to blurb it. And fair enough. But the world froze up in that instant, all the safe harbours felt choked with blue and hull-crushing ice. The infinite hope and the casual cruelty of the writing life had shown its stone face in the space of one afternoon. And even as I began, I suppose I saw the end.
I’m much happier now, than I was then. Every house we offer up pleases me to no end. I relish the intense narratives being written for the people moving out and the people moving in. The sale of a house is often a hinge around which a life turns, a pivot point, and the opportunity to help in some small way to make that change a smooth one, is a rare delight. Being able to do it a few dozen times a year makes most weeks worthy of celebration.
149 James Street was built in 1890, say the good people at MPAC. It appears in yellow (for wood frame) on the 1908 Fire Insurance map, next to the blue of the limestone, and across from the red of the brick near-twins of 142 and 148. Just to the north was the mysterious House of Industry, and beyond that it thinned out appreciably - lots of open ground still, and pasture for horses and cattle. Charlesville was more or less a bedroom community, a 19th century Bayridge.
Things have changed. You walk up the hill to McBurney Park, the centre of all good things, in about six minutes. The Cataraqui River is just east of you, along with Doug Fluhrer Park. The Elm Cafe is your local. The old site of Pat’s Grocery at John and Patrick will soon become a neighbourhood hub again, serving food to our families and offering yet another place to gather. It’s an exciting neighbourhood. Kingston’s best, in my opinion.
The house has the old floors, all scratched up and looking the better for that. The ceilings are high and the windows are big. This is not your dark victorian. The kitchen is bright with an island and there are sliding doors out to the deck. The seller is growing a dozen different sorts of peppers out there on a wooden stand and the fact that you can’t write them into the offer might be the only sad thing about this story.
There is a main-floor laundry and that room is big enough for you to establish a pantry fit for these End Times. There is a half bath tucked under the stairs. There are good stainless appliances that will stay with the house. All you’ll really need is the key.
Someone asked last night whether a third bedroom was possible, and I don’t think so. This is where you live with your first child, not your second and third. But you live here happily, surrounded by good neighbours. You make your own history. And as far as I know, you don’t have a miserable wannabe poet living across the street. Things are clearly looking up.
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The plan is to review any offers on Thursday August 13th at 4 pm. The full iGuide experience is behind this door right here.
