9 CHERRY ST - SOLD

The Essentials

A very pretty and very nicely done three-bedroom semi-detached home in the Fruit Belt section of downtown Kingston. A private garden and parking.

The Bigger Picture

It’s just not true that by the time we’d finished our first tour of this so-sweet family home we’d forgotten why we were there. We are trained professionals, after all, laser-focused at all times on the task at hand. Even as I write this I am ignoring my son’s breakfast requests, and the way the lawn has grown taller than the cat. It is the nature of the beast, and I knew what I was getting myself into, sure I did.

But what I mean, and I mean this seriously, is once you’ve experienced for yourselves this very pretty and well-renovated semi-detached home in downtown’s Fruit Belt, we think you’ll appreciate how transporting the experience is, and how much the house feels like a getaway, an escape from the daily grind. A permanent holiday of a home, with the heavy work all done. Too many people in the last couple of years have bought houses that need all sorts of renovations, usually because the perfect house just wasn’t out there, or it was but it sold for twenty-eight million dollars, and still needed a new roof.

Nine Cherry St is not like that. It is the finished article, a true top-shelf bonbon, even at your very favourite Parisian confectionery.

There is a modern, chocolate kitchen at the back, with a butcher block island and - opened up nicely beside it to keep things sociable - a bright-as-the-sun dining room. There are hardwood floors and modern lighting everywhere you look, as well as fresh designer paint. There is a living room and a family room, so that you’re not tripping over each other.

The third bedroom is up on the third floor. It’s a dreamland, you bet, but also part eagle’s nest, part writer’s garret. You could hide away up there for months.

We suppose that if you do ever tire of the interior (we really don’t see that happening; did you check out the photos?) you can retire to the private fenced yard with its glammy elevated decking. The expectation out there, we swear, is that someone will be along any second to take your drink order (a mojito, please, if that’s happening today), offer you a fresh towel, or show you around to the tennis court just a block away, where you can work on your backhand.

There is even parking beyond the back fence, although we doubt you’ll see much of the car, given how close you are to the downtown core, and the university, the waterfront. It’s pretty much perfect, is what it is.

(The tour and photographs have been removed now that the house has sold.)