Building a custom home has always been a dream of ours. However, it was a dream that we did not see coming true for at least another ten or fifteen years. When we learned that we would be moving to Rochester, NY (so Wendy could take a job at the University of Rochester) we began looking to buy an existing home. It was only after months of looking and a little luck that we ended up with a piece of undeveloped land and the opportunity to build our own home.
Here is how it unfolded ...
Our main criteria for location was a walkable community with great public schools. (we are big proponents of public schools) Interestingly, those two requirements are often at odds with one another. Walkable neighborhoods are most often in cities and city schools are typically not very good. New Urbanism is slowly trying to change that but for now "white flight" is too often the reality. Those who can afford to move to the suburbs do so, their high property values generate lots of property tax and those taxes go to building great public schools. Those who can't afford the suburbs are left behind, their property values go down, cities lose revenue and the schools systems deteriorate.
While the schools in the suburbs are often very good, they also tend to be spread out and un-walkable. To get anything (coffee, dinner, paper towels) you have to get in the car and drive.
In trying to find a location that mostly met "good schools and walkable" we chose to focus on the Park Ave neighborhood in the City of Rochester and the Village of Pittsford (a suburb of Rochester) Park Ave is a great walkable neighborhood in the city but the public school system was a bit of a risk. There are some very good public schools in the city but you are not guaranteed that your child will attend the right ones. The Village, while a suburb, is also quite walkable. The Village is in fact a subsection of the Town of Pittsford. It is a small historical district in the center of Pittsford with several restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, clothing stores, ice cream shops, etc. Pittsford also happens to have two of the best public high schools in the country.
So, in my mind we would either find a nice house in the city and I would get involved in the school system to help insure that it continued to improve as our one year old grew to be school aged or we would find a house in The Village where the schools are a no brainer and we could still walk to get dinner.
Unfortunately, finding a house in one of those two locations proved to be more difficult than we had hoped. My guess is that Wendy and I had too many expectations and were too unwilling to compromise. Basically we wanted the charm, quality and character of a 100 year old house with out the problems of a 100 year old house.
Then, just when team morale was at an all time low, a piece of land came up for sale in The Village. This was very hard for us to believe because The Village is very well developed at this point and we didn't even think a single empty lot existed there. But it was true. One lot of five was still left undeveloped on a private drive about a quarter mile from the center of The Village. We quickly called our real estate agent to learn more and that weekend I drove out to Rochester by myself to look at it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the lot is mostly wooded, quite private and almost an acre. There was even a rather nice barn (large shed) on the property. I told Wendy that this was the place and at the end of June we closed on the property.
So ... now we have a piece of land ... time to build a house!
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