THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Friday, March 13, 2020 |M1
Their first task was to tear out
the carpet. “How hard could that
be?” figured Ms. Barbarello. It
was a nightmare, taking two days
of almost nonstop labor. Never-
theless, she says they are still ea-
ger—it will just go “more slowly
than originally planned.” The cou-
ple believes the work will defi-
nitely pay off financially.
While many young buyers avoid
purchasing fixer-uppers, a brave
few are diving in, lured by the
promise of a great deal. Though
they are often not looking for ren-
ovation projects, they soon realize
that they stand to get a great
house for a lot less money, says
Carolyn Joy, an agent with the
Tishelman Joy Team at Houlihan
Lawrence.
One area with a large supply of
old homes with beautiful details
and large rooms is the New York
suburb of Westchester. Due to
construction of a railway network
in the 1840s, earlier than many
parts of the region, the villages
here became suburbs for wealthy
urban workers who built stately
homes, says Field Horne, a histo-
rian and author of “Westchester
County: A History.” In the past
Please turn to page M14Tales of the Intrepid: Buyers
Who Take on This Old House
While most house hunters avoid renovation work, a few dive in, tempted by
more room and even better prices; watching DIY videos on YouTubeIN DECEMBER,when Amanda
Barbarello and Erik Larson bought
a beautiful, 105-year-old Arts &
Crafts home in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.,
they were thrilled by the deal
they got: $799,000 for the four-
bedroom, 2,400-square-foot
house—almost $100,000 off its
original listing price. The catch—
it needed updating.
The couple felt prepared. Ms.
Barbarello, a 31-year-old social
worker, had watched hundreds of
episodes of PBS’s “This Old
House,” while Mr. Larson, also 31
and in finance, was confident he
could draw on his Eagle Scout
skills.BYNANCYKEATESSeller says
this Colonial in
Hastings-on-
Hudson, N.Y., is
in great
structural
shape except
for its porch.JEANNE NEWMAN (2)
The Hamptons Are Going Cold
Prices are plummeting, tech entrepreneurs are buying second homes elsewhere, and sellers can’t shift their huge estates.
The iconic summer destination for generations of New Yorkers is losing its sizzle.-18%
Change in the
number of
home sales on
the South Fork
between
2018 and 2019-2%
Change in the
number of
home sales on
the South Fork
between
2010 and 2019Source: Douglas
EllimanMANSION
San Francisco
Renovation
A couple gave
this 1906 home a
facelift.M5$6.2 Million
Dwyane Wade
lists Sherman
Oaks home.M12HOMES|MARKETS|PEOPLE|REDOS|SALESDOROTHY HONG FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (BERTY HOME INTERIOR); PHILIP HARVEY (SAN FRANCISCO); JEFFREY ONG/POSTRAIN (WADE)$9.899 MILLION
Current list price
8bed,9,000sq.ft.,
Wainscott, N.Y.The contemporary home of Marie-Eve Berty was completed in 2012.Listed for$849,000
It’s had5 price cuts.F
or 10 years, New Yorker Dennis Crowley
spent summer weekends in the Hamptons,
the string of beachfront villages on Long
Island’s eastern tip. Splitting season-long
“share houses” with friends, he noticed
that the Hamptons “just kept getting more and more
expensive,” even as the crowds increased. “You’d go
to a coffee shop in Amagansett and wait in line 20
minutes,” said Mr. Crowley, now 43, the co-founder
of the tech company Foursquare. Eventually, he and
his now-wife, Chelsa Crowley, “realized that this isn’t
our scene,” he said.
While in the process of looking for a wedding venue
for their 2013 wedding, the engaged couple started
spending their weekends in the rural Hudson Valley
about two hours
north of Manhattan,
and realized they pre-
ferred it to the Hamp-
tons. “It was like ‘wait
a second, why are we
spending our time in
the Hamptons when
we could be spending
our time up here?’ ”
Please turn to page M8BYCANDACETAYLOR
The exterior of
Ms. Berty’s home.$10.9 MILLION
Original List Price
(June 2018)Long Island
SoundAtlantic
Quogue OceanHampton
BaysSouthamptonSagaponackWainscottEast HamptonNorth
Fork
AmagansettMontauk
Sag Harbor
Water
MillGreenportSpringsNYBROWN HARRIS STEVENS; JASON LEE (MAP)