346 Cold Spring Road

Cold Spring Road runs through the Town of Livingston, a stretch of Columbia County that has been farmed more or less continuously since 1686, when the land was granted to Robert Livingston the Elder as part of Livingston Manor. The town that took his name was founded in 1788, one of the county's original towns, and its fields have stayed open ever since. The mailing address says Hudson, and the city's restaurants and Amtrak platform are minutes up the road, but the tax roll puts this house squarely in Livingston.

The house arrived in 2022, a custom build designed by one of its owners rather than a name architecture firm, and it reads like a house drawn by someone who intended to live in it. The listing dates the build to 2022; the county record says 2023.

The envelope does most of the work. COR-TEN steel cladding weathers to a stable rust and asks for nothing, European triple-pane windows hold the heat, and the siting was set so low winter sun reaches deep into the rooms while cedar louvers keep the summer out.

Inside are concrete floors with radiant heat under ten to twelve foot ceilings, a wood burning stove, and 1,312 square feet arranged as two bedrooms and two baths, plus a flexible upper level for an office, studio, or extra sleeping quarters. The well, septic, and mechanicals are all new.

Seven acres, shaped rather than manicured. A woodland garden has been restored with native ground cover, a stone wall planted with ferns traces the edge of the property, an echo of the area's early settlers, and a large pollinator garden runs to butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.

A large steel outbuilding covers storage and parking and could take a studio. Beyond the property line the land is protected farmland in every direction, and quiet country roads run straight from the driveway, the kind cyclists drive an hour to reach.

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