The Smith Guest House
Stone cottage of 1936, put up as the guest house of the William Smith estate, of cough drop fame, at the top of a wooded ridge in the town of Poughkeepsie. The walls are stone, the style Dutch, and the MLS files it under Cape Cod and cottage. Two storeys, a renovation logged in the county record in 2000, and a later one, comprehensive, with an addition that expanded the house without arguing with it. The historic detail came through the work intact. It last changed hands in 2017.
Oak, Slate and Stone
Three bedrooms and three baths, ten rooms, 2,926 square feet. Original oak and slate floors, exposed beams, period doors and vintage hardware carry the interior, with forced air heat and central air fitted in behind them. The living room takes a large working fireplace and custom built-ins. Exposed stone and a bank of windows frame the open kitchen, dining and office, level with the canopy in summer and open to the mountains once the leaves are down. A great room under cathedral ceilings leads out to a covered porch. The primary suite sits on the main floor, its bath quietly brought up to date. Two more bedrooms, a full bath and generous closet space are upstairs, with a pull-stair attic above them.
The lower level holds the second of the two fireplaces, oversized, in a room of bare stone, with a large open space beside it for a gym, a workshop or a hobby space.
The Ridge
Three and six tenths acres at the end of a cul-de-sac, wooded, with a stone patio laid in local stone, lined in lavender and set with a firepit. Gardens and mature trees hold the slope around it. There is a driveway and a one-car garage, public water and a septic tank, and natural gas available. The house sits in the Arlington school district, under five miles from the high school; Metro-North, the Hudson waterfront, the restaurants and the shops are ten minutes down off the ridge.
