The Accidental Tourist

It appears we're "magnificent."

Every year, our town's local historical society puts on a walking tour of historic houses and public buildings. It's a fundraiser for the society and a pleasant day out for architecture buffs or snoopy neighbors. Our house was on the tour a few years ago, and we got plenty of visitors. Then we took a few years off because the organizers like to keep things fresh by mixing up the inventory of houses every year.

It looked like we weren't going to be on this year's tour, either. But then the tour posters started appearing around town and they looked... familiar.

"Hey, honey! Are we on the Heritage Home Tour this year? Because it sure looks like they're advertising our house."

We called the number at the bottom of the poster and introduced ourselves. "Hi, we're from the house in all of your advertisements. Would you like to, uh, include it on your tour?"

The short answer was 'yes.' I'm not sure why they didn't invite us to participate in the first place, but once we offered they were happy to add us to the agenda. The only trouble was, they'd already started printing handouts, tickets, and the tour map. Could we please send them a few photos and a quick history right now, while they tried to stop the presses? Uh, sure.

Within a few days, we noticed that the ads had changed slightly to say there were now 14 houses on the tour, up from the 13 listed previously. The picture stayed the same, but now the accompanying text described the "magnificent Hart Mansion" as one of the attractions.

It's funny to think what might have happened if we hadn't been included at the last minute. Would ticket buyers have come up to our door, assuming that we're on the tour? After all, it's the only house shown on the poster. It's hard to miss. Why would you advertise a home tour with an image of a house that's not on the tour?

The other complication was the potential sale of the house. It's listed for sale and there's a big For Sale sign in the front yard. Is that okay? And what happens if the house actually sells before the day of the home tour? Neither turned out to be a problem, so everything is going ahead as planned.

Kathy and I are happy to be included in the tour one last time. We don't know who will eventually buy this house or if they'll want to share it. This may be the last time it's open to the public for a while.

One Door Closes, Another Opens

It's time for us to sell the house.

That's not a bad thing, and we're certainly not doing it for bad reasons. Nobody lost a job; we didn't run out of money; someone wasn't suddenly taken ill. There was no disaster or mishap that triggered our decision to leave, it just felt like good timing. We'd like to be closer to the rest of our family, and, coincidentally, we feel like we've completed 95% of the restoration work that we set out to do. This just seems like the right time.

The house is now for sale through Sotheby's International Realty (it has its own spiffy listing site at www.TheHartMansion.com), and we've already had a number of interested people come through for showings. From the looks of it, we should be moved out before Christmas.

Our real-estate agents arranged for a photographer, a videographer, and a drone pilot to take all sorts of photos and video over several days. They even created a "Matterport" virtual walk-through, which is pretty cool. You can pretend to walk though the house and see every room on all three floors. I imagine it's especially fun with a VR headset, but you can see it with a normal web browser, too.

Now Kathy and I have to keep the house clean all the time in case someone wants to take a tour. That's not a big problem, and it gives us an excuse to go outside and play tourist in our own town. It's also proved to be good business for the new pub down the street.