1927 Highway 2 East - Sold
The Essentials
An extraordinarily charming year-round home dating to the 1940s. More than 150 feet of St Lawrence River waterfront, and a writing (or daydreaming) cabin down at the shore. It’s like nothing you’ve seen before.
The Bigger Picture
We haven’t met yet, I don’t think, but all the same I imagine the two of you standing before the big picture window, between the armchairs. Your realtor is probably in the background somewhere, rustling papers, looking for a flaw that really isn’t there. Both of you seem barely to be breathing. There are stolen glances, and the sense already that this is a moment that will stand out from life’s fabric. “That’s really the St. Lawrence?” There is disbelief in your voice. You need some reassurance. It is the same instinct that would have you double-checking a winning set of lottery numbers.
“It is, yes. The St. Lawrence.” And then, more lightheartedly: “You paddle away from here and you can keep going until you hit Newfoundland. Or Morocco.” A long pause for effect. “Though you’d need to train a bit for that, probably.”
The weather will have to change as well. Today the steely, hammered channel just east of Treasure Island is just this side of frozen. A day or two and you would begin a march to Africa rather than a swim. Closer to shore there is narrower water, an ice-crusted shoelace, more or less, that pokes between stiff reed beds and pulls up alongside the prettiest of writing cabins and the broken bones of an old boathouse. You are back up the slope between an acre of tempered glass and a fire like something from a Turner painting, a Scottish castle. There is a wall of books that reflects in the window when you lean into it just so, and not one of them, I’d wager, describes a better room.
You buy this property and there will be countless conversations in the same vein, in all seasons. In the summer your visitors will reference Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Your dinner guests will drive home shaking their heads through all the long curves, envious of where you have landed. I felt the same way myself, on the way back to the office. I tried formula after formula, hunting for a way to make 1927 Hwy 2 East my own address.
But that’s not my job, is it? My job is to bring the house to you, to hold it up to the light for you, like it’s a precious stone, some ancient crown prised improbably from the limestone, something Harrison Ford would risk a nest of vipers to retrieve. To point you in the direction of the photographs and a very good virtual tour. To invite you to call me to arrange a visit.
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Here’s the more to-the-point description I’ll post on MLS, which pinches from some of the above:
You stand before the windows of the splendid living room at the back of this 1940s waterfront home, looking over the near-acre of long lawns and old trees and wild perennial gardens that tumble down to the St Lawrence River, and the fireplace roars away at your back in a way that evokes an old castle guarding the international border. There is a wall of books too, though nothing described in their pages would feel any more grand. International treaties should be hammered out in this room. The front of the house is more intimate, a thick-walled cottage, a series of reception rooms with painted wooden floors and lifted from deep forest, a spot you’d expect to find surrounded by dry stone walls and Dartmoor’s wild horses. There are 1 1/2 baths and three bedrooms, though the third bedroom would make a better office, a private corner in which to hide and write your novel (on days you can’t be bothered to make the hike down to the waterfront studio). There is a woodstove next to the country kitchen and a couple of armchairs you’ll want to keep, so perfectly situated are they. There is a shaded deck behind the house on which to reflect, and a laundry room, just so you can begrudge that chores are even a thing. The views from absolutely everywhere are of Treasure island and Howe, and remind you in postcard ways that Kingston’s downtown core is barely a ten-minute drive.
The Virtual Tour
The Gallery
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