My parents once sent me into NYC for “aptitude evaluation” by the Johnson O’Conner Research Foundation (still very much in business, although the upper East Side brownstone where I went to be tested was recently unloaded for around $20M).
For one of the tests, they sat me at a table with a small pile of multi-sized pieces of wood. I was told to assemble them into the shape of a cube. After about ten minutes, the administrator came back in the room. I said, “Wait, I’ve almost got this!”. She shook her head sadly, as though regarding a dog trying to get a tennis ball from under a couch. “If you had structural vision, you’d have finished in under a minute.”
Ok, so I don’t have structural #@%&-ing vision, but you know who does? Engineers, for one, but also architects! That’s why an architect can walk into a house and immediately tell you how to fix a problem. A broker might suggest you “remove that wall”, but a good architect develops a plan to not just remove the offending wall, but to make a dozen other small or large changes that dramatically transform/re-vitalize an existing house.
314 North Maple Avenue, listed by Shore & Country’s Jennifer O’Brien, needs just such a transformation, but it will be worth it! This house, a few doors down from Greenwich Academy, is ideally located close to Town, and is loaded with charm, elegance, and character. You don’t get any of that with a newer house. Just reduced to $1,775,000. At least go look.
Note: click “slide show” on the Houlihan Lawrence link to see the beautiful interior.