Best Ever House

We’ve owned eight different houses in five different states. Which house was our favorite?

Tough call for me as I love our current house at Talking Rock in Prescott AZ. But I am going to choose Etll Farm in Princeton NJ as our best ever house for several reasons.

First, we waited patiently for the lot in Ettl Farm to be opened up by the developer Toll Brothers. It was the last section they developed. While waiting, we lived in not one but two different rental homes in Princeton.

Second, I got a chance to work with a talented local designer / architect, and together we developed plans to build the outside deck and finish the walkout basement. I also hired a landscape architect who built the stone walls and designed and planted the initial landscape. This is where the designer side of me came to life.

I had a huge office on the second floor which gave me tons of space for all my files, books and office equipment. I loved working in that room. And that’s where I began to learn to be a trader in addition to running the local Babe Ruth League.

My first purchase for the house was the beautiful, wooden pool table and the spa for the deck. They were both purchased from the same company in PA that I stumbled into one day.

I distinctly remember the night we moved into Ettl Farm in May 1998. I went out to the woods by myself with a glass of wine and just sat there for an hour or so admiring the beauty of the house and thanking God for blessing our lives so richly after Liz gambled on her career to take the job with Fashion Bug, leaving behind the safety net of a career at Sears.

We sold the home in Nov 2002 after Liz stopped working at Fashion Bug, and I think we made over $250,000 on the sale of the house. Our timing was good and it was time for the next chapter of our lives at Cherry Valley.