Enough with the “peccadillo” stuff. I’m sick of the “political peccadillo” stuff. Good grief.

A few days ago I got just good old fashion nosy, and I went up and snooped around 87 High Street. The house/mansion across from Fruit Street and the Newbury Historical Society, where they seem to have been doing all kinds of stuff, like it seems for a gazillion years. It’s real hard to miss.

The folks that bought it paid a good chunk of change (I’ve learned my lesson on the Newburyport Blog, no names, and if anyone wants to know the actual selling price they could go look it up themselves on salemdeeds.com). According to the Planning Board minutes, May 2, 2007 these folks are from California, and this “dwelling” is going to be their second residence.

Wow. Are we talking major moola here or what?

From what I can make out they want to make the carriage house into a “guest house,” which presents a bunch of zoning issue stuff. I can’t tell if the zoning issue stuff has been resolved, but the carriage house appears to be literally hanging around the place, unanchored, so the zoning stuff hasn’t been sufficiently addressed yet, or they just haven’t gotten around to gussying the guesthouse up.

There is new pool way back behind, so you could barely see it, if at all, from the house, I was told. And no darn it, they wouldn’t let me back there for a peek. Nuts.

It looks like they kept the front of the historic High Street house intact, but who knows, they wouldn’t let me in there either. I had no hard hat, and who the heck knew who I was, except some snoopy person.

And from the outside, the long addition in the back, looked new, but awesome to me.

And what can I say, the place was slightly, dare I say it, “flashy.” Not New England Yankee we really don’t have money, but actually we do have money, but, no, we don’t have money. This is, we’ve got bucks and we are proud.

So California, so not New England.

Let me tell you, I had High Street envy, which almost never happens. I’m telling you the truth here.

But, if these folks live in California and are using it as a place to visit, I’m raising my hand here to volunteer to house-sit during those long, cold New England winters, when any California person would want to be in California.

And, no, if the guesthouse gets done, I don’t want to house-sit in the guest house, I want to house-sit in the BIG place.

And these folks have to pay real estate tax, right, which has got to be huge. Has to help our coffers a whole lot.

I’m probably pissing off all sorts of preservationists, and acquiring yet more peccadilloes. And maybe when I learn the “back story,” I’ll be New England horrified.

But this looks like a whole new level of real estate purchasing for Newburyport, MA to moi. And if they let me house-sit, I wonder if I’d get to stay in the master suite.

Mary Eaton
Newburyport