Not to be outdone by Mark Twain, E.B. White's old house is for sale as well.

If you're looking to buy a famous writers New England farmhouse, but Mark Twain's humble $1.85 million Connecticut abode doesn't do it for you, drive deeper into the northern reaches of New England and there you can take a gander at E.B. White's $3.7 million property now up for sale in rural, coastal Maine.

Like Twain, E.B. White's former shack is a sprawling farmhouse--although White's has a literary connection beyond the author himself. The property includes the barn that inspired White to write Charlotte's Web.

Located in North Brooklin--or roughly a five hour drive northeast of Boston--the 44 1/2 acre saltwater farm sits beside the Atlantic with 2,000 feet of shore frontage. Included is a boathouse, a pond, meticulous gardens, and the aforementioned barn, which includes the rope swing mentioned in the book.

Never to let an animal-inspired moment pass unnoticed, PETA has reached out to the real estate agent in charge via a press release, asking that "the owners convert the home into an empathy museum for pigs, complete with a vegan café offering veggie sausages, vegan BLTs, and more."

Wait--PETA isn't done yet with ideas. The organization continues:

"E.B. White's portrayal of a pig named Wilbur inspired people all over the world to take a closer look at the animals they consider to be 'food' and go vegan," PETA President Ingrid Newkirk wrote. "A PETA museum in his historic farmhouse would help visitors see that every pig is some pig, an intelligent individual and not a collection of sausages, bacon, and chops."

Okay, well, we know that isn't happening. Forget the vegan angle. PETA must be anticipating literally tens of people to drive five hours from civilization to have a veggie BLT.




photo: Mark Fleming / Yankee Magazine

Mark Twain's old farmhouse is up for sale.

Great news for the two or three people in the world pining to live in rural Connecticut, as Mark Twain's old farmhouse is up for sale for the low-low asking price of $1.85 million.

Lest you think you're getting some shack with some name recognition, the house was gutted in 2013 by its current owners and updated throughout. According to the real estate listing, the property showcases a "[s]tunning new designer kitchen with Cream Marfil marble counters, custom cabinetry" along with "Gaggenau premium appliances."

If you're scratching your head at what "Cream Marfil" is--as I was--it's apparently just the Spanish word for ivory. (Yes, my Spanish needs work.) And if you're wondering what "Gaggenau premium appliances" cost, well, roughly your entire checking account and your personal modesty.

The listing also notes Twain's estate now has "Carlisle hickory signature floors, antiqued ceiling beams, stone bridges, a projection screen, art room, barn, and a "gunite swimming pool."

If you're scratching your head again at what a "gunite swimming pool" is--as I was--it's apparently just a form of concrete. (Yes, my real estate-to-English translation skills need work, too.) And if you're wondering what "Carlisle hickory signature floors" go for, well, roughly two years worth of your retirement savings and all human decency.

The estate was bought by Twain for his daughter Jean back in 1909, in what I assume to be the most lavish way to tell your adult child they're still loved. Jean didn't enjoy the property for long, as she was found dead in a bathtub from a heart attack on Christmas Eve the same year. She was 29-years old.

Shockingly, the real estate listing skips over the info on Jean's death. Mortality doesn't really wow prospective buyers like gunite swimming pools and Marfil countertops apparently.

Hermione Granger’s movie home is up for sale.

The real life home used as the stand-in for Hermione Granger's residence when she left Hogwart's for the summer is up for sale for the low-low price of £2,400,000, or $3,100,000, whichever currency you choose to dabble in. It seems Hermione was swimming in fanciful living despite the bedraggled hairstyle.

Hermione Granger's house for sale in Hampstead Garden Suburb for £2.4m https://t.co/AY4H8H954d pic.twitter.com/NxREGzUwLU

— Hampstead Mums (@Hampstead_Mums) September 26, 2016

Lest you think you're not getting much bang for your buck, the listing notes the house has six bedrooms, two bathrooms, and two reception rooms. Why would you need two reception rooms? I wouldn't know, since my experience with haute bourgeoisie society comprises driving through such neighborhoods on a ten-speed, not a Tesla.

Hermione's movie home comes on the tail of Harry Potter's movie home also going up for sale recently. The boy wizard's humble home--which looks like a cut rate residence on a cul-de-sac in suburban Kansas--can be yours for £475,000, or $616,000.

The Kansas-y part of England.

What does this all mean for Ron Weasley? I assume his family lived in a modified 1974 Winnebago with 215,000 miles on it and it's probably for sale soon in suburban England somewhere.



Photo: Associated Press

Harper Lee had a small NYC apartment no one knew about.

Someone find out if this Solnick fella is a Pulitzer winner, stat.

When she died last week, Harper Lee took with her a number of secrets--not the least of which is that she maintained an apartment in New York City up to her death.

"She's up to date on her rent," said property manager Steven Austern to the New York Post. Indeed, she renewed her lease for another two years just a couple of months before her death. And how much was that rent? $1,000 a month. That's cheaper than most steak dinners in Manhattan.

While it was always known Lee split her time between Alabama and New York, no one expected the reclusive author to own a tiny place in a humble building. Located at  433 E. 82nd St., Lee's apartment had one bedroom and a leaky radiator that ruined her neighbor's ceiling earlier this year. The worn and beaten doorbell list at the apartment complex the Post photographed mentions an obscure "LEE-H"--and that's it. Lest you think she was poverty stricken, the Pulitzer Prize winner reaped millions in royalties from To Kill a Mockingbird and annually received a hefty, comfortable, livable sum from continued sales. She simply chose a modest, quiet life.

Contrast this mindset with Maya Angelou, who's $5 million New York home currently is up for sale, and famously once told the Wall Street Journal about buying a home, "I thought I was going to buy a nice little house. I’d wrap it around me in a poetic way, and I’d live a poetic existence. But then I thought, 'Wait a minute. If I moved from a 10-room house [in California] and into a three-or four-room house, then what am I telling myself? That I’ve been reduced?' I couldn’t do that."

By that logic, Lee wasn't reduced by living in her tiny apartment. She was nonexistent.





photo: Angel Chevrestt, New York Post

You can buy Maya Angelou's Harlem home for $5.095 million.

It looks like a banker's house, circa 1880.

Back in October Maya Angelou's Winston-Salem, NC, home went up for sale. Now, according to the New York Times, her Harlem brownstone has entered the real estate market as well. Asking price? $5.095 million.

Someone with a greater real estate acumen could explain why the extra $95,000 was added on a $5 million price tag. It raises a litany of questions. Is an even $5 million going to set the seller back--but $95,000 really solidifies the financial picture? Was $5.096 million too high? $5.094 million too low? When did Maya Angelou's brownstone become a Goldilocks situation?

Better yet, who knew that Maya Angelou was sitting on so much coin from writing poetry?




photo: LinkNY Realty

You, too, can sleep in John Steinbeck's writing studio for $175 a night and feel like a hopeless, destitute writer.

There are actually two different options for resting your head at the former residence of the Nobel laureate, which are currently rented out via Airbnb.

One is called the Steinbeck Cottage, a humble 900 square feet residence with 1 bedroom, 1 bath, a fireplace, and only a minimal chance of nightmares about the Great Depression. It goes for $195 per night.

The other option is Steinbeck's writing studio, located on the same plot of land as the cottage. 350 square feet of history hold you in the heart of where the famed writer wrote some of his famous works, including The Sea of Cortez. The ceilings are low (visitors are minded to watch their heads), but the fear of Lennie is high. The price? A manageable $175 per night.

The property is located in Monterey, CA, which Steinbeck used as the backdrop to his novel Cannery Row--famous for (yes) the cannery businesses that brought in tens of millions of fish to its shoreline weekly.

Mm-mm-mmm, you can almost smell those sardine sandwiches from here.



photos: Airbnb listing

Gore Vidal's Los Angeles estate is for sale for $5.7 million

Gore Vidal? Of all writers, Gore Vidal was sitting on a $5.7 million home?

Finally, proof that if there is a God, he has horrible taste in literature.

Report: 65% of cities and towns with a 'good' school are unaffordable to average American.

RealtyTrac took a look at zip codes and their median house prices, and then compared to see if a "good" school existed within that zip codes confines.

Of course, "good" is a vague term. RealtyTrac only required that the given zip code's school performed better than average on tests compared to the rest of their given state. In essence, if the bar is pretty low in your state, you stand a better chance at hopping over said bar.

Then they ranked the zip codes for affordability for home prices. The result? 65% of "good" schools fall into expensive neighborhoods.

California wins out for being least affordable, with a seemingly endless array of zip codes in the unaffordability range. Atherton, CA, 94027, in San Mateo county has the least affordable houses with a "good" school. You only need to pay roughly $6 million per house to live there. Buy two or three while you're at it!

The most affordable? Some place called Harvey, IL, which sounds cozy and quaint until you find out it apparently has high levels of crime. But it has a "good" school! The median price for a house there is only $21,000. Hell, dinner costs more at Applebee's.

So strap a bullet-proof vest onto little Johnny and realize he's at least going to get a "good" education. Dodging bullets will teach him some nimble, cat-like reflexes.

Maya Angelou's house is for sale. You better like yellow and/or painting.

Maya Angelou died a year and a half ago, and after an estate sale of many of belongings the place she called home for the last twenty years of her life is for sale.

Located in Winston-Salem, NC, the property boasts six bedrooms and nine (!!) bathrooms--potentially making up 85% of all the bathrooms existing in the metro area.

Do you like yellow? No? How handy are you with a paint brush? Angelou's favorite color was yellow, a hue she wasn't afraid to plaster on nearly every exterior space throughout the property. The main house, the multi-car garage, and guesthouse come coated in a puss-colored shade of yellow that only someone with diseased lungs could appreciate.

She bought the house in 1994 for roughly $600,000, and despite drastically expanding the house to over 7,300sq. feet, the property is for sale for $805,000, regardless of her name recognition.

Angelou's expansion wasn't technically out of necessity. Before moving to North Carolina, she lived in California, but was offered a lifetime professor position at Wake Forest University. Upon making the move from a ten room home in California, her view of house-living changed. As she told the Wall St. Journal in 2012, "I thought I was going to buy a nice little house. I’d wrap it around me in a poetic way, and I’d live a poetic existence. But then I thought, 'Wait a minute. If I moved from a 10-room house [in California] and into a three-or four-room house, then what am I telling myself? That I’ve been reduced?' I couldn’t do that."

Soooooooo, she didn't channel her inner Henry David Thoreau I take it.



photo: from the real estate listing page

Retired teacher doesn't realize for 26-years that her house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Linda McQuillen, a 69-year old retired teacher from Madison, Wisconsin, bought a house with her family for $100,000. It was 1989, a simpler time of huge recessions, job losses, Eastern European countries on the verge of collapse, and house prices on the cheap.

Little did McQuillen know her house wasn't just any house. It was one of 16 experimental house designs that the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright created for middle class homeowners who couldn't afford his own individualized attention and rates.

Eventually, two Wright scholars and historians, who thought something looked familiar about the house, approached McQuillen about her humble abode and asked to poke around. Clues were everywhere, but there was nothing concrete to rely on. That is until one Wright scholar, Mary Jane Hamilton, found an advertisement from a 1917 newspaper promoting the unique Wright designs--which included the design for McQuillen's home.

Not many homes from the Wright experiment remain today, as only 14 are known to exist, all in the midwest. Considering that Wright-designed homes can sell for millions, McQuillen's home is valued only at $480,000 today.

But that might be a good thing. Imagine trying to pay the property taxes on a multi-million dollar home on a retired teacher's income.

$1.2 million house for sale for the cost of a 300 word essay and $285 entrance fee.

Do you love Mickey Mouse enough that you want him to be your neighbor? Do you feel like you need more Donald Duck in your life? Good news then! Dreams really can come true! Mickey hasn't been lying to us all these years!

Celebration, Florida, is a planned community that originally was the lovechild idea of the Walt Disney Corporation in the 1990s. Most of the town straddles Interstate 4, connected directly to Disney World via a street called World Drive, and tries to be an idealized version of what an American neighborhood should look like. Some have described it as a wannabe Utopia or Xanadu. Some have described is as straight out of The Stepford Wives.

Now, a $1.2 million home located in Celebration can be yours for a crafty essay under 300 words and a $285 entrance fee.

Says Mark Rutecki, the administrator of the sale:

"How often do you get a chance to buy a beautiful Celebration Florida home for only $285 and a few well-chosen words? This is one of those opportunities that rarely knocks, so fire up your imagination."

Well, Mark, I imagine there's a comma between Celebration and Florida (c'mon, man), but I digress. This opportunity actually does knock occasionally, more than Mark might admit. Just recently, a bed and breakfast in Maine was sold using the same method, albeit for a cheaper entrance fee of $125 and the burden of knowing you'd have to live in Maine.

The Celebration home has five bedrooms, five full bathrooms and two half bathrooms (so you're never more than 10ft away from relief!) spread out over 6,700sq. ft.

Celebration no longer has any official relationship with the Walt Disney Corporation, as Mickey and friends divested nearly all their controlling interest in the planned community.

But that doesn't mean you can't be BFFs with Mickey. He's just down the road after all.

Vacation like a Hobbit

All those geeky dreams you've had since childhood to live like Bilbo Baggins can finally come to fruition.

Located at Deadwood in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Chateau De Soleil is a 4,100sq. ft. vacation spot available for rent. While a lovely property on its own (4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, 3 decks, a hot tub, etc.), the vacation rental also includes a Hobbit-inspired tree house.

The Hobbit house is 16ft off the ground, with rounded windows and doors, Elvish-language signs, a gauntlet with a gold ring, a mask worn by Sauron--and Hobbit-inspired slippers custom tailored for every guest.

The price to stay varies from $595-$675 per night, Gandalf not included.




photos: vrbo.com

Keep it pithy: A 200 word essay could win you a bed and breakfast.

It sounds like a Stephen King novel come to life.

It overlooks the White Mountains in rural southwestern Maine. Seven guest units, two dining rooms, a guest house, a barn, and 12+ acres of land--and it's all yours for an amazing 200 word essay and a $125 entrance fee.

Innkeeper Janice Sage is running a contest to see who will be the new owner of her bed and breakfast, a property built in 1805 that she's owned since 1993 after she, too, won a similar contest. Now she's ready to retire.

Located roughly three and a half hours north of Boston and an hour from Portland, ME, the Center Lovell Inn is valued at an estimated $905,000. Sage won't give the property away unless she receives 7,500 short essays, which will raise an estimated $938,000. Out of that, Sage will donate $20,000 to the new innkeeper so they have a head start.

Before you associate a Maine B&B with a Stephen King novel, remember that The Shining took place in Colorado. Rabid dogs and pets rising from the dead is Maine. Blood flowing from the walls is totally a Colorado phenomenon. Your Maine B&B will be fine.

William Blake's cottage home, not saved by Britain's National Trust, is still on the market to be sold.

Following in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway's (not quite-)apartment on the real estate block comes news of William Blake's old cottage home up for sale in Felpham, Sussex, England, one of only two remaining Blake properties still standing.

Initially, the house went on the market last July for £650,000 ($1,107,000, roughly), the first time it was sold since 1929, when the current owner's family purchased it. Yet, despite being where Blake wrote such famous works as the poem for 'Jerusalem,' the English Heritage and National Trust of Britain both refused to step in and purchase the property for the nation. After all, William Blake is no William Shakespeare, and at least 90% of everyone reading this just asked, "Wait, I thought 'Jerusalem' was a town, no?"

The current owner, Heather Howell, 89, has since lowered the price to £520,000 and given the Blake Society until late October, 2014, to scrounge up the money or she'll sell the property on the open market again.

Time being of the essence, the Blake Society has decided to start a crowd sourcing campaign, tapping into those dozens of college students who vaguely remember "Tyger, tyger, burning bright."

Blake Society chairman, Tim Heath, tells London's The Independent, "The cottage needs to be saved to give people across the world the opportunity to celebrate his work and this place of inspiration," while also stating the house won't be made into a museum, but instead "a centre of the imagination."

Like imagining how you once received an A- for that shaky William Blake paper you wrote in sophomore year.



photo: Nyogalleristny.files.wordpress.com

Apartment in Ernest Hemingway's old NYC building can be yours if you have $27,500/mo.

Ernest Hemingway lived for a spell in a 900-square foot New York East Side apartment in 1959. Nothing much of literary note came of that period, but that doesn't stop realtors from pumping up the fact that Papa once lived nearby.

The building, located at 1 East 62nd Street, is listing an 1,865-square foot, 2-bedroom/2-bath duplex apartment for a tidy rental sum of $27,500/mo, and casually drops in among the details that Hemingway was once a resident in the building.

The listed apartment wasn't Hemingway's of course, and the building has undoubtedly been vastly updated since his time there 55-years ago. But, as the folks at Curbed mention, passing mentions about Hemingway are quite modest compared to what Sotheby's pulled in 2012 when listing a similar apartment in the same building.

Then, Sotheby's claimed, Hemingway wrote The Snows of Kilimanjaro while living there, despite the fact that he published the story over two decades earlier.

Pssh. I heard he wrote The Grapes of Wrath and half of Maya Angelou's poetry while living there, too.

Sex and the City gave Candace Bushnell a comfy life.

In case you've been horribly confused all this time, Sarah Jessica Parker is not a sassy, chic New Yorker writing about the travails of her sex life. Matthew Broderick is just not that interesting.

The whole scope of Sex and the City was based off the New York Observer column of Candace Bushnell, who anthologized all those columns into a book, which then became the television show.

And the domino effect turned her into a very wealthy woman. Wealthy enough to afford a $2.8 million co-op in Greenwich Village, which she's now selling.

Sex and the City plot lines are less stiff and impractical than this co-op.

Barely though. Just barely.

Speaking of real estate, Hogwarts is for sale.

I don't know what this is. It's either Realtor.com keeping up the amateur night Chuckle Hut routine, or there's actually some really dedicated Harry Potter fan who built a Hogwarts in rural Michigan.

The listing claims 542 bedrooms, five bathrooms, and a four car garage on over 20,000 acres of land in Alcona, MI.

Asking price? $99.9 million.

Everyone arrives by flying on brooms, so that explains the small garage. I get that. But I can only assume everyone at this house has a strong bladder and/or failing kidneys.

Realtor.com wants you to know that they're taking the inevitable zombie apocalypse very seriously.

When buying a house, a good realtor is going to make sure you know about the quality of schools nearby, how safe the neighborhood is, and if you're going to die during a zombie attack because of inadequate housing.

Which is why Realtor.com published an article detailing sixteen houses/castles/private islands currently for sale that have enough built-in defense mechanisms to stave off the drooling, shuffling zombie hoards.

My personal favorite? The $14 million private island in the Bahamas that comes equipped with a yacht, three whalers, and a fleet of wave runners included in the purchase price.

Zombies can't swim, man. Best they can do is trudge methodically underwater. Those wave runners are gold, baby. Gold!




Why a kitten photo? Because.

CNBC says Boston is in the Top 10 for new graduates.

But the list also includes Washington, DC, Raleigh, NC, and three cities from Texas, which is like saying you're the smartest Kardashian sister.

Daisy Buchanan's home is going to make for some lovely firewood soon.

Remember reading The Great Gatsby in high school? No? You read it, I'm sure of it. Somewhere between Death of a Salesman and Macbeth. But knowing your lack of self-motivation in life, you never read it probably. You never even read the SparkNotes version.

Annnyway, remember Daisy Buchanan? No, of course not, why would you? She was a character in Gatsby, and we've established that you never read it. But I did, because I'm a worldly man of leisure who not only reads classic literature, but also looks dashing in Italian business suits.

Well, it seems Daisy Buchanan's real life home--or, rather, the home that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald to make it Daisy's in the book--is going to be demolished soon. Disrepair and neglect means the house isn't worth the land it sits on. I sense a condo complex on the horizon.

I'm not saying you're to blame. I'm just saying look at what never reading that book in high school has lead to.