Philadelphia Noir - Carlin Romano [68]
Most buyers in Spruce Hill fell into two categories. First came the mid-thirtyish academic couples new to junior teaching posts at Penn, eager to get into the catchment area so their not-yet or barely bred kids could go to Penn’s appealing new community school. For them 401 looked like a major fixerupper, the expense of which might be funded by converting 401’s unusual side garden—one of the largest in University City—into the site for another house.
The second category of buyers was the older Wharton or med-school types, often full professors or moneyed professionals who’d settle for nothing less than Architectural Digest perfection and were willing to pay for contractors to accomplish it. One couple of the sort had purchased the first Queen Anne west of 42nd Street a few years back for about $700,000, torn it up inside, created a huge atrium perfect for a glossy-magazine shoot, then put it back on the market for $950,000.
Both types seemed perfect for 401 St. Irenaeus. But Irina, to Christy’s surprise, couldn’t unload it that first year. According to Irina, Christy told Isaac, something had gone wrong every time it looked as if she had a buyer—financing that fell through, cold feet, fear of crime, whatever.
Christy, of course, knew it had to be more complicated than that—it always is when selling houses. One couple that had bid on 401, before Isaac came into the picture, told Christy that Irina grew belligerent when they asked about the legality of building a second house on the side yard, which was wider than 401 itself. “You buy sixteen fantastic trees to kill sixteen fantastic trees?” Irina had said to them. “Believe me, for you I can find house without trees! Not this house!”
That’s the story that first made Christy think of Isaac, who she knew was house-hunting. True, he’d been house-hunting for more than twenty years, since he’d come to Philly from New York. And Isaac had long since admitted to Christy that while he was, in principle, looking for a house, house-hunting was also one of his tried and true methods for picking up new lovers. Isaac knew how to charm real-estate agents, even the crusty cynics, and, Christy had to admit, his stratagem had worked with her.
From Isaac’s point of view, visiting open houses always beat Internet dating or bar-hopping (though it came a distant second to chatting up women at academic conferences). First, all real-estate agents had their photos and first and last names right there in the Sunday ads. You could research them, narrow the field to the most appealing, then go to their open houses and see how they stacked up in the harsh setting of real life. You couldn’t do that with the Internet unless you had a spare decade to spend on coffee dates.
Nothing beat an open house for inviting friendly conversation, self-revelatory or inquisitive, free of all activity clumsily designed to bring boys and girls together. When Isaac felt he’d clicked with an agent, he followed up by making some excuse about the house itself, while dangling an overture about a meal or coffee sometime. And so something would or wouldn’t begin. And every affair that did begin, he explained to Christy, far outweighed—on the scale of pure pleasure—any number that didn’t.
Had Christy known Isaac’s MO the day he came to see a trinity she was handling on Waverly Street years ago, their seven-month thing would never have happened. She’d thought he liked the house, not her headshot in the Sunday Inquirer real-estate section. But he let on only years later, long after they’d climbed back from the breakup to be solid if irregular pals, able to talk about his or her latest romantic disasters.
Because Isaac couldn’t commit to anything beyond his next piece or foreign trip, Christy knew he’d never commit to building on 401’s side yard. He fit Irina’s oddly proprietary criteria for 401. Irina wanted someone who wouldn’t endanger the overgrown yard. She quickly discouraged would-be buyers who eyed the property as a twofer—one unique detached house, one