Selling. Looking for Land.

Probably not a good idea to buy land with a "CAUTION Snakes Present" sign on the fence. Correct me if I'm wrong. Luckily, I'm not like my mother, who once called the Gallatin cops to come shoot a snake that was in the backyard, minding its own business. I think it was thin and green. But I'm thinking about resale value here. First snakes, then before you know it, locusts, plague, etc. etc.

Here's our plan, such as anyone can actually make a plan: Step 1. Sell the Haworth house (by the way, where are you, nice young couple with those two-year-old twin boys who seemed so interested? Thought letting you pet Dixie the shih tzu had reeled you in). Step 2. Buy an inexpensive beautiful piece of land with trees, a view of the mountains, view of a lake and sunset and sunrise (FYI, Step 2 is an impossibility in Bergen County, NJ, with about 4000 people/square mile--a tree or two and not staring into a neighbor's window would be nice). Step 3. Build a modular, green, eco-friendly house--your state-of-the-art R-19 insulation, tankless water heater, bamboo floors, fiber cement siding, tilting thermal pane windows, and dual-flush toilets (I didn't know what those were either but think about it--flushing/1, flushing/2...).

How did we get started on this path? I was googling "modular" and "green" and "New Jersey" late one night, and tripped across the "New World Home" company, out of Manhattan and Jersey City (www.newworldhome.com). They make environmentally-friendly houses, but in traditional architectural styles--no cubist mod minimalist designs that really don't work on Main Street. The home designs all have environmentally friendly names-- the Thoreau, Emerson, Henry David, Portland, Ansel, Muir, Whitman, etc. We most like the "Henry David," a cape with dormers and a bath each for David and Kate (you have no idea how important this is to family harmony), and the "Dillard," a Dutch colonial named for the author Annie Dillard, who, unbeknownst to me, has a lot of nature themes in her writing. If we were picking just by name, I'd go for the Henry David, since it includes David's name, and I do think Henry David Thoreau carries more weight than Annie Dillard.

One of the New World Homes was "Country Living" magazine's "House of the Year" in 2010, and the other endorsement of note--I guess--is that former NJ governor Christie Whitman is building one for her daughter and son-in-law down in horse country somewhere.

So, back to steps A, B, and C. While we're waiting for Step A, the sale of our house, we figured might as well look around for a plot of land and make some progress on the design of a house. We talked, via conference call, with New World's architectural team yesterday, and though each house comes with its own designated floor plan, you can play with it, as in making sure teenage boy/teenage girl each have his/her own bathroom. We'd like to have all the design details worked out so we're ready to move quickly, if and when A happens.

In terms of looking for land, fortunately, I believe there will be some local acreage that's not snake-infested. There's the uncleared lot with some nice trees in Closter, too small to hold a McMansion which is why it's undeveloped; there's the .92 of an acre in Park Ridge with a small shacky house on it that I wouldn't feel TOO guilty about knocking down; and there's the more expensive, very narrow 69x200 lot down the street, which could only hold the equally narrow Dillard.

If you're reading this and you live in Bergen County and you have an extra 100x125 lot, or know someone who does, please let us know. No snakes, nor, for that matter, deer, stinkbugs, ladybugs, mice, or any other pesty creature that has visited us from time to time. We have enough of our own.