GOOD ENOUGH Homes and Destinations: What You Get For $750,000

The Grey Lady is feeling, like, Iggy Azalea-level fancy this week. Her latest “Great Homes and Destinations” looks at “What You Get For … $1,750,000” and comes up with “a Richardsonian Romanesque mansion with six bedrooms, six full bathrooms and two half-baths.” I don’t know what “Richardsonian” means: not like Terry Richardson, I hope? But when the NYT actually calls something a mansion, you know they’re for serious.

The fireplace in the dining room is almost large enough to walk into. Off the kitchen is an octagonal sunroom with five large arched windows overlooking a pond. Bedrooms are upstairs. The master has a dressing room and French doors that open to a private deck. Two bedrooms have walk-in closets; one has a fireplace. Also on the second floor is an office. The third floor, reached from the original spiral staircase in the dining room, has four more bedrooms, with original wide-plank floors and built-in desks and storage. Downstairs in the walkout basement is a den with heated floors and another enclosed porch, with a fireplace.

OUTDOOR SPACE: The spring-fed pond is suitable for swimming and skating. There is a nine-stall barn with an apartment upstairs.

Skating on ponds always makes me think of Amy falling through the ice and Jo hesitating for a second about whether or not to save the brat who will one day go to Europe without her and marry Laurie. Here are some GOOD ENOUGH Homes and Destinations for $750,000: real estate suitable for the March family rather than Aunt Josephine.

Three bedroom, three-and-a-half bath, 2,000-square-foot townhouse in Alexandria, VA, for $749,000, via Movoto. Breakfast room! Convenient to transportation and a Trader Joe’s! Alexandria is super cute, though yes, it’s a bit snooty. My high school friends and I used to take the metro out and hang out in Old Town, eating ice cream on the water, or watching artists work in the Torpedo Factory, or browsing thrift stores. I picked up a great ’80s prom dress there once and a hat my mom wouldn’t let me wear because LICE.

Four bedroom, four-a-half-bath (!), 4,000-square-foot (!!) pueblo adobe house AND FARM on four-and-a-half acres of land (!!!) just outside Santa Fe, NM, for $735,000 via Realtor.com. Comes with water rights, which are valued beyond rubies in the Southwest, as well as a guesthouse for your guests, chicken coops for your chickens, and horse sheds for your horses. Also fruit trees. I guess there’s a reason so many musicals include dreamy odes to Santa Fe.

Four bedroom, three-and-a-half bath, 4,200-square-foot log home on five acres with its own pond near Kalispell, MT, for $699,000, via Trulia. Also built for horses, with stables, trails, corrals, and pasture. Decks galore, insane views, guest quarters. “Multiple garages.” Not too far from the gorgeous Glacier National Park which you should see before you die / it melts.

Funny thing is, to my eye, these all look like mansions too.

Support The Billfold

The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.