Story Behind The Country House
We are always on the hunt for real estate and a project. One year, it can be a casual conversation and the next year it can be a full on obsessive hunt. When we stumbled upon the Country House, we were casually entertaining the idea of owning another property. We were coming out of the pandemic era and the market was still quite hot so we weren’t super interested in buying anything at that time. Still, we put our feelers out and kept our eyes open for any opportunities. The funny thing is, we had actually stopped searching in the Willamette Valley, everything was a little too out of reach for us out there. We even began to look elsewhere…the South, East Coast, who knew maybe we would find something in the far away places we had grown to love.
We had actually just returned from Savannah (yes we casually looked while we were there) when saw this sad, dilapidated shack of a house pop into our search feeds. The photos were terrible, it had been on and off the market for YEARS and the price had dropped…again. No harm in looking. We headed out there the next day and immediately fell in love. The drive in, climbing up into of the hills of Dundee, surrounded by vineyards and epic views, yeah okay, you have our interest. We then descended into the valley within the hills, a gorgeous winding road surrounded by woodlands of oak and evergreen trees…the foggy mist on that day made it even more magical. Location. Check.
We pulled up to the property and it was…sad. Over grown and in severe need of TLC. I am telling you, I don’t think this house would have survived another winter without some serious consequences. Both front doors had been kicked in, glass broken everywhere, the house had apparently been sitting vacant for decades. Things looked just as bleak inside, leaks, gutted rooms and crap just strewn about. We liked it. Ha! In all seriousness, there was potential there. The exterior, though neglected had beautiful cedar siding and a bunch of original character that called to us…famous last words (I’ll get to that later). Inside, the home lived larger than its stated square footage. The layout was smart and inviting and not a lot of major changes needed to be made to make it flow. Upstairs, clad in charming tongue and groove was charming but needed some vision and cleaning up. It was a cute house and definitely not out of line with what we have tackled in the past.
The surrounding property is what sealed the deal. Right out front a naturally flowing spring being used at the main water source for the house and neighboring property. Crazy. No well, this was it. Beyond the spring, an old red barn also in a state of disrepair but we found the building and it’s time worn age to be charming and quite the anchor for such a property. Beyond the barn revealed a unique and rare landscape when compared to the surrounding vineyards and farmland…hilly terrain, dappled with evergreen and deciduous trees, ferns and native flora, most of which had been untouched. We were able to traverse to the peak of the property and catch glimpses of the surrounding and neighboring vineyards. It was a dream of ours to own a something such as this. About a month later, the real work started. To be continued…