Enjoying Home, But Perfectly Situated for a Change of Scenery
By Bill Primavera
As a realtor, I am very aware that many of our city neighbors are traveling north to seek housing that is more distanced from the teeming crowds that make Manhattan one of the most exciting cities in the world.
With the COVID-19 pandemic upon us, those masses are more a threat to be avoided than a welcome opportunity for socialization.
Never have my wife Margaret and I felt so fortunate to call northern Westchester our home, a place with enough open space to meet today’s distancing requirements while offering most of the amenities of city life.
These past few months have been a time of reflection about how much we enjoy our home sweet home and how we could be happy forever living here without wandering either near or far. In fact, we haven’t been anyplace “away” for a while. We both are perfectly content and indeed lucky to enjoy our immediate surroundings that we consider beautiful and comfortable.
But, since the pandemic showed its tortured face, mask-covered at that, we decided last week that maybe we’ve had too much of a good thing. I, more so than my wife, was starting to feel too restricted and complained about it. Margaret suffered my complaining for some weeks before agreeing that we needed to stray from home and go “somewhere,” “anywhere” for a change of scenery.
That “somewhere” needed to be within a day’s time, both ways, because we didn’t want to be concerned with all the safety measures we’d have to take by staying overnight anyplace.
Fortunately, we are strategically located in the lower Hudson Valley, less than an hour from the Big Apple, and only minutes from the most beautiful countryside that God ever created. Rather than visit a congested cityscape, we decided to take the bucolic route to a destination we used to visit years ago – the Town of Hudson, which my wife researched as exactly 77 miles away from Yorktown, or an hour and 17-minute drive. True, Hudson is “somewhere,” but our objective was the drive more than the destination.
However, Hudson is no slouch when it comes to destinations. It’s an old whaling town, which at one time was the leading producer of oil for whale oil lamps in the 19th century. Today its main street, Warren Street, is dotted with sophisticated cafes and charming antiques shops.
Our route was almost entirely on the Taconic Parkway, which travel experts have declared one of the most scenic drives in America. Its winding path offers resplendent natural vistas of forested mountains and open plains. While we had taken this route in the past mainly to enjoy fall foliage, we were venturing out too early to enjoy that but did spy one, and only one, tree turning orange. That was okay, because scenery on the Taconic is great, whether all green or even in the dead of winter.
Our little trip reminded me of how lucky the readers of this newspaper are to live in the area of its circulation. Truly, we have it all – or at least we did have it all until the pandemic greatly restricted our activities. But, that’s okay. Things will eventually return to normal.
In the meantime, our staying close to home is no hardship. Our region is filled with natural beauty, great housing options and employment opportunities, even if they are temporarily remote.
Now all we need is for this pandemic to right itself and, tough New Yorkers that we are, we can get back to the business of enjoying where we are, at home.
Bill Primavera, while a writer and editor, is also a realtor associated with William Raveis Real Estate and founder of Primavera Public Relations, Inc. (www.PrimaveraPR.com). His real estate site is www.PrimaveraRealEstate.com. To engage the talents and services of The Home Guru to market your home for sale, call 914-522-2076.
