We Could Never Afford to Live in Stars Hollow
So let’s all stop fantasizing about it right now.
When a lot of us run that fantasy math on leaving our overpriced apartments and moving to a more affordable small town, we don’t really imagine ourselves heading to one of the economically depressed Midwestern towns that have been the topic of discussion over the past few weeks or so.
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We imagine ourselves moving to Stars Hollow.
Our small town would have a local bookstore and film festivals and a diner where everyone would know who you were as soon as you walked in, so it was like you always had friends. Our small town would have jobs for everyone: one person could run the inn, and one person could run the body shop, and one person could run a contracting firm, and one person could run an ice cream shop and a grocery store, and one person could run a music store, and one person could run a dance studio, and one person could sell vegetables, I guess? We could start our own business, too—because, like Elon Musk’s vision of Mars colonization, our small town fantasy always involves us taking a leadership role in the community and making a good salary, not working as a server at Al’s Pancake World.
But, thankfully, Trulia is here to SHUT THAT FANTASY DOWN. We cannot afford to live in Stars Hollow. We never could.
Trulia looks at housing prices in Litchfield County, Connecticut—where Stars Hollow and its real-life inspiration, Washington Depot, are located—and reminds us that we will never be able to afford Lorelai Gilmore’s home. Even though Washington Depot’s population is 3,500 and that makes it seem like a house should cost, what? $100,000, tops?
But Washington Depot, like Stars Hollow, is not your ordinary small town. The Mayflower Grace, the original model for the Independence Inn—wow, Amy Sherman-Palladino, way to change the name on that one—rents rooms at $675 a night. If you want to stay during Christmas week, be ready to pay $925 a night.
Trulia does the math on multiple Stars Hollow properties, including Lane, Zack, and Brian’s terrible rental, which they price at $165,000. I think they’re assuming you want to buy it. If you wanted to rent a one-bedroom house in Washington Depot (yes, it was a one-bedroom, Zack and Brian slept on bunkbeds in the living room, I know way too much about this show), Trulia suggests one available rental might cost $1,500 a month, and there are no other current available one-bedroom home rentals.
Which, $1,500 a month for a one-bedroom house isn’t that bad. If you wouldn’t have to compete with Lane and Zack and Kirk and who knows who else to rent it.
I will end this with a quote from none other than the late Edward Herrmann himself:
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According to The Gilmore Girls Companion book, New England resident, Edward Herrmann (Richard on Gilmore Girls) says: “Washington Depot is nothing like Stars Hollow; it is a weekend haven for New Yorkers.”
WE CAN NEVER LIVE THERE.
EVER.
Let’s cry into our coffee together.
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