Indulge Your Inner Whitman/Thoreau at This Schoolhouse in the Wilderness: $118K

  |  February 17, 2023

It isn’t often that you’ll find an old schoolhouse on the market nowadays. Today, though, we found an 1850 one-room gem that’s just waiting for someone with the vision to polish it into the cutest studio.

Students filled this schoolhouse until 1949. Now, it sits among 3,686 acres of Vernooy Kill State Forest: a veritable wilderness of wildlife, woods, and waterfalls. From the outside—under some grime—it’s just the cutest thing ever, done up in white siding with green trim and a green metal roof. The vestibule entry is a good idea to keep out the winter cold and summer heat.

Inside, it’s literally a one-room schoolhouse. The bed, living area, and dining area all share the 432-square-foot space. The floors look a little worse for wear; still, we’d advise against ripping up everything, in the name of history. The walls and ceiling are classic tongue-and-groove, well worth preserving. And that light pouring in from the windows…well, we can’t help but love that, too.

Our romanticized ideas go down a notch in the kitchen area, to be honest. Hey, at least there IS a kitchen, right?

A vintage sink with old-fashioned double taps, a four-burner gas range, a teeny-tiny water tank alongside a tankless water heater: All the (very) basics are here, albeit in a rustic fashion. Granted, the walls and ceiling on this side of the home need an overhaul, too.

A distressed picnic table under a skinny tree sits near the newer bunkhouse.

This structure is bare-bones but sturdily built. Depending on town regulations, perhaps an addition connecting the two buildings could be in store?

Despite all the work that this house desperately needs, we can’t help but picture ourselves here like Whitman or Thoreau, exploring the woods by day and writing tomes at night.

The house sits on a half-acre, but when you take all of that state forestland into account, the new owners would need a lifetime to hike it all. Provisions can be had just 15 minutes away in Grahamsville or 20-30 minutes away in Napanoch/Ellenville.

If you love nature and don’t mind getting your hands dirty with renovation, check out 498 Yeagerville Road, Napanoch, with Nicholas Cimato of Taft Street Realty, Inc.

Read On, Reader...