214 NICHOLSON POINT ROAD - $775,000
The Essentials
A brilliant bungalow on the shores of Lake Ontario just west of Kingston. Over 2000 s.f of finished living space with astonishing views wherever you look. The renovated kitchen and bathroom are just the start of a comprehensive list of upgrades.
The Bigger Picture
Just beyond Amherstview’s western limit, and tucked away like a whispered secret behind a modest but pretty bit of forest and some gentle trails, is a loop of homes nailed tight to the shore of Lake Ontario.
In this suddenly frigid weather, each dwelling, when seen from above, is like a square-headed tack pushed in to hold down separate panels of an enormous quilt, the seam where a thousand trees’ rough black stubble meets water’s ruffled green lace. It is (to understate matters by a lot) a ridiculously pretty part of the world.
Late one night, when I had just arrived in Kingston as a teenager, I visited a girl who lived across the highway, next to Millhaven Creek. The immense waters of Lake Ontario confused the heck out of a kid raised to fish the tiny, willow-lined streams south of Oxford, and when the whole thing froze solid by New Year’s Eve, I thought my heart might as well stop. I knew only that I was in over my head. I was an uncomprehending stranger in this land.
My feelings have changed. I love where I live, and derive real solace from the landscape, the long scars and alluvial deposits of glaciation. I might well choose this place over any other. This stretch of water and land just west of Kingston holds particularly acute attraction.
I first visited 214 Nicholson Point Road back in 2017. The sellers were just moving in. It was a family house, being passed on. Suzanne and Thane had a plan to stay forever. And all the recent renovations attest eloquently to that fact. But plans change. (Hell, the whole world has changed since that time. It’s been a year, for instance, since I even left town, or slept in a tall hotel, walked aimlessly along busy, unfamiliar streets, swam away from any shore, really, without worrying about whether it might disappear faster than I could return.)
And so here we are again (where none of us have ever been before).
Cheri and I went out earlier this week to deal with the paperwork, and for a final look before the sign gets prised somehow into the permafrost, and the work of selling the property really begins. We sent a small drone into the air from the end of the driveway. It felt like we were releasing a dove. It was cold, too cold, and I wondered whether the machine might simply plummet immediately into the water, or drop into the snow out front of the house like an egg being cracked into a bowl of white flour. But no, it hung there like a mildly asthmatic hawk, hovering long enough for us to grab a few of the photos that surround this middling write-up.
We’d left the house by this point, we’d already done our walkthrough, and had our conversations. We’d paused silently before the windows to simply gaze out at the unfathomable depths of nearly gelid water. I wondered whether there were shipwrecks between me and the far-off and muted shore of Amherst Island. How well-preserved they might be and whether it was too late to take up scuba diving. I wondered also just how poorly I would capture the history of this place when the moment came (which it now has), the forever waxing and waning of the seasons, the myriad fossils pressed into the limestone shelves at the water’s edge. It was one of those moments (and they are not infrequent moments) when I can feel a fraud, to be honest, and when I realise how little I really know about the workings of the world, and how ridiculous it is to try to make a photograph out of words, to evoke more than the foggiest set of impressions.
But I try anyway. And bring in experts to fill in some of the gaps. Videographers and floor plan drafters. I stand with Cheri in the cold and we bat ideas back and forth, notions of how best we might go about things. It is easier in the summer to do this, of course, without all all the paraphernalias of goose down and merino wool, but there was the sense that morning that it might go well anyway with 214 Nicholson Point Road. The house and the lake and the woods opposite were going to do so much of the heavy lifting for us. Mostly it was about getting out of the way and letting the elements tell their own story. Which I’ll do again now.
The realtor.ca listing is right here. You’ll find a more grounded sort of appraisal there. Taxes and maps too. And the full iGuide tour is here. You can show yourself around. You’ll like that, is my guess.
The Seller’s plan is to review any offers on Friday February 5 at 2 pm. Please call us with any questions that occur to you. We’re around all week (and then we’re around some more).
The Gallery:
