A Lot to Think About

Big news: We are landowners! Ed and I closed on a lot a little less than a week ago. (Please forgive me for a terrible pun in the title.)

Here is the site of our future home:

I am still sort of in shock that it is ours. A bit of background: Ed and I had been looking at houses for a while. We'd even had a bid accepted on a house in a neighborhood called Gunbarrel, which is north of Boulder. We knew that the house was going to need a fair amount of aesthetic work (mostly just updating things to make it a bit more modern), but inspections revealed that it needed structural work, too. When the owners wouldn't reduce the price given the results of the inspections, we backed out of the deal. We kept looking but nothing really caught our eye. The Boulder market is hot right now, and houses were very expensive. Houses we liked tended to have no yards, and houses with great yards were going to need tons of work, which would just add more to the already-stratospheric cost of buying around here.

One thing that's great about Boulder is also what makes it so difficult to buy around here: there are a lot of laws that restrict building. There are lots and lots of parcels of land that will never be built on because they have been designated "open space" so that the town will never feel too congested. Lots have to be huge (something like 36 acres) before they can be subdivided. And there are height limitations on all construction so that tall structures won't block anyone's view of our beautiful mountains. All of this means Boulder will continue to be surrounded by natural beauty, but it also explains why houses are so expensive and why there are hardly any lots on the market. Just about everything that can be built on already has been.

Our lot (it still feels odd to say that it is ours) is in a community called Pine Brook Hills, which is about two miles away from Broadway, a major street in Boulder. We will still have a Boulder mailing address, and although the area has its own water supply and fire department, other aspects of it are within Boulder's jurisdiction. It's in the foothills west of the town. The lot was originally bought by the former owner in the '70s or early '80s. He is a contractor in Pine Brook Hills and has built dozens of homes in the area, and he said he always imagined he'd build a house for himself here. Meanwhile, he built something else to live in for the moment down the hill a little ways. Over the years, be roughed in a driveway, installed a five-bedroom septic tank, and installed a water line and paid for the permit. Now, he is in his late 70s and has decided he and his wife don't want to leave their house, so he put the lot on the market. It is, he says, one of the very best lots that was available in the area back when everything was for sale. Now, there are houses on just about every lot in Pine Brook Hills, so we were lucky that this gem came on the market right when we were looking.

We got our hands on it in a rather strange way. Ed and I were in Hawaii for his race. We had seen the lot several times and were still thinking about it, which we had the luxury to do since it seemed that no one else was really all that interested. We weren't sure whether taking on such a huge project sounded appealing and were still considering when our realtor emailed to say that someone else was sniffing around. Uh oh. I was the one who had really been dragging my feet, but I told Ed I thought it would be stupid to miss the opportunity to buy the lot just because we hadn't made up our minds. I suggested that we put in an offer written in such a way that we could back out of it for just about any reason, just to buy us a little more time. So we did, some long-distance price negotiations took place, and before we knew it the owner had accepted our offer! Suddenly, there was no question of whether we'd made the right choice; we just felt that we had.

Ed and I went to visit the lot today for the first time since closing on it. This time of year, it is covered with wildflowers. Even the low-growing cacti that seem to be all over it (yes, there are cacti in the mountains around here) have pretty flowers on them. For the sake of our future dog, I was planning to make removal of the cacti one of my first projects once we were moved in, but the flowers are awfully nice... Maybe I'll let a few of them stay. I look forward to scattering wildflower seeds around the other areas, too. The lot is 2.6 acres, and so while we'll do some landscaping in the area immediately around the house, I think we'll probably leave much of the land to do what it wants. Part of the charm of the area is the natural flora, and water in Pine Brook Hills is much more expensive that down here in the more "urban" area. I'm interested in looking into water reclamation systems so we'll be able to reuse gray water for our yard. I do look forward to putting in some aspen trees, though. Once they're established, they won't need much watering. Plus I'm crazy about deciduous trees (every tree on the lot is pine) and they're beautiful in fall.

 Closer look at a cactus flower. 

There are granite boulders of various sizes scattered around the lot. This pile is just about where the house will probably be. We look forward to putting in a large deck so we can sit outside and enjoy the spectacular view, which is one of the lot's biggest selling points. It's possible (thought not in this picture) to see all the way to the Denver airport, a 45-minute drive away! It would be fun to invest in a telescope.

Surveying his domain

A very exciting picture of the top of our septic tank, and the roof of our downhill neighbor (which will not be visible from our house further up the hill). We are thrilled that the former owner put this in, as it will save us a lot of trouble. An even bigger bonus, though, is having the water permit accepted and paid for. Boulder is notoriously difficult about that sort of thing, and his foresight has saved us weeks of headaches, to say nothing of expense. For heating and cooking, it will be easy to tap into the gas line which is under the road.

Looking upward at where the house will be. Ed's car, which you can just see over the rocks, is parked on what will be the driveway.

These dandelions are everywhere and are bigger than my fist!

This is the road that forms the downhill border of the lot. There's a pretty steep little slope at the edge of the property that runs into it. The driveway will come off the road that forms the uphill border.

Looking uphill from just about the downhill border. The place where the house will be is over the crest of the small hill, so it's not visible. We will leave all this space open for the most part, though we may put in a little path leading to a bench or a table and chairs.

This is the driveway, taken with the uphill border of the lot behind me. If you look very carefully you can see the Jeep in the center of the picture; look for the red taillights. The grass has grown a lot since we were last here; it came nearly to my waist in places!

Here is our road, Wild Horse Circle, and the spot where our driveway will be. The notch in the grass to the right of the road is one of the gaps our tire left when we drove in. I was a tad worried about the hilly, winding roads in winter, but the house is on a school bus route and so the city has to plow it. Weekends may be another story, however...

No setting is perfect, of course. Some of the downsides to this area are also what will make it an exciting place to live. I can't have bird feeders anymore because they will attract bears. And I'll have to either choose plants deer don't like or put up very high fencing around any kind of garden I try to have. I'm hoping that the dog will be helpful there, and my friend Candice told me about sprinklers that are triggered by a motion sensor! That sounds like a great security measure and a source of entertainment rolled into one. And, of course, we'll be a little off the beaten path, though not so far as it feels. It takes about seven minutes to get to the nearest grocery store. More difficult will be running and cycling - if I don't feel like finishing my workout with two miles of climbing, I'm going to have to drive down the hill to where it is flatter to run or bike there.

We've been told that we should expect to move into our new house in about two years from the day that we start planning in earnest (and it always takes longer than you think it will!). As we don't even have an architect or contractor picked out, I'm not holding my breath. It will be a long time, but luckily I like the house we are renting now and don't mind staying a while. Meanwhile, although I find the prospect of building a house from nothing a little intimidating, it is exciting, too. I can't wait to see what we'll end up with!