When my husband retired, we gained a new kind of freedom.

Endless Options!

For the first time since age 5, we were not controlled by a school year calendar and forced to take vacations when everyone else did.

And, for the first time ever, we were not tethered to a geographic location. Sure, I had a lot of clients in western Mass, but I also had a lot of clients elsewhere, some of which I worked with via Skype or phone. My home office could be moved in a flash. On top of that, neither daughter lived near by. As much as we loved beautiful, rugged Westhampton filled with hiking trails and wildlife, we were getting ready to consider other possibilities.

We began traveling more. Leisure travel together and business trips began to merge.

Meanwhile, our beautiful home in the hills of western Mass was sitting empty increasingly often. Empty and susceptible to power failures. In our area, no power meant no heat and no heat meant a risk of frozen pipes during the cold winters. It was starting to feel like a liability. And also a lot of work.

The question was, where to go next? 

Over the next two years, we raised this question and many others with increasing frequency. Could we live in a “small house,” you know, the ones on the Internet that are tiny, cute, and efficiently laid out? Could we be nimble, move frequently, and try living in lots of different places? Do we even need a home base? Could we do home swaps? Or rent furnished apartments? So many possibilities! What would be the most fun, but still practical and satisfying?

In March of 2015, my husband started talking about townhouses in Vermont. He was sorry to see another ski season coming to an end and clearly wasn’t looking forward to painting the deck, cutting trees to maintain our view, splitting and stacking firewood to feed our wood furnace and wood stove, weeding, and struggling, yet again, to grow grass where grass clearly had no intention of growing.

After one of the last days of spring skiing, we met with a realtor at Mount Snow. The first and only question on that day: Could we live in a town house or condo? Or framed a little differently:
Could we give up our peace and quiet? Our view? Our space? Our many doors that provided direct access to the great outdoors?

I think it was the third property that rocked our boat. It didn’t feel at all the way I expected a townhouse or condo to feel. So, yes, we could live in a townhouse! Maybe even a condo! It was as if a whole new world of possibilities had been created out of nothing!

The next time we went skiing, I went searching for a resort ambassador I’d met previously on the chairlift. She had sold her business and now lived at Mount Snow full time. She had enough in common with me that I really wanted to talk with her. I left my contact info with customer service and hoped for the best.

I was delighted when I got her email and immediately gave her a call. She spoke with great enthusiasm about her current life style. I was practically sold. It was right at the end of the conversation that she said, “You know, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that we also have a condo in Manhattan where we can escape to when we need a little culture.”

That was the second time in less than a week that our apple cart was flipped.

Why not start with that? Why not get the condo in the city first? Not New York, Boston! It would be much better than Vermont for my business. It would be a ton of fun. Why not try it for one year and see what we think? The Urban Experiment! We had lived in the country, small towns, and the suburbs. We’d never lived right in the city. What were we waiting for?!

The next week found us in Boston with one fundamental question: Could we live in the city?

When we bought our house in Westhampton our intention had been to live in the center of a town like Northampton so we could walk to everything. It didn’t happen. The close quarters turned us off. Meanwhile, we happened to drive by a home with a stellar view. So much for intentions!

Ah, but a decade had passed and we were ready for a change. Maybe the city, not a small town, was the way to walk to everything.

We booked a nice room at the Hotel Commonwealth in Kenmore Square and got tickets to a play at the Huntington Theatre Company. We wanted a lovely evening of walking to everything in the city to get us thinking about what it would be like to live there. The next day, we met with apartment brokers in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville.

The Cambridge visits were limited to uninspiring apartment complexes. Nothing came close to capturing our imaginations. The Somerville triple deckers offered more space but I felt like Waldo in a sea of boxes in need of repair. Beacon Hill was lovely, quaint, so appealing – if we didn’t mind feeling like we were attached at the hip. Back Bay was another story. The location was incredibly compelling – tree lined residential streets within spitting distance of the Boston Common, the Charles River, and pretty much anything Boston has to offer. And the flats were bigger than on Beacon Hill. We found an apartment we loved. Our question was answered. Yes, absolutely, we could live in the city!

I was so excited I could hardly stand it. This could be our Urban Experiment!

When I started talking with friends about my ideas, they encouraged me to write about our journey and tell the tale as our decisions and experiences unfold. This is the first chapter of that saga. Stay tuned for updates!

Read Part 2 of The Urban Experiment!