Emily Laura Blog's

Wednesday, 2 September 2020

Built Into the Red Rock, This Moab Masterpiece Is a Must-See

Many homes claim to bring the outdoors in, but this home in Moab, UT, really delivers on the promise.

Several walls, benches, and bedframes inside the 7,363-square-foot home on South Navajo Heights are built into the surrounding rock. The 6.5-acre spread, full of rock accents, is on the market for $3.25 million.

“On the first level of the home, one side at least is rock. When you walk into the living room and behind the piano, that is rock from the outdoors,” says the homeowner, Roxanne Whitbeck.

“You can see the vertical lines going down, and that is the drilling from years ago, when they built it out.”

The home was built in 1995, with an indoor pool and what Whitbeck dubbed a “strange” layout. She and her husband, Peter, bought the home in 2014, when they moved from San Francisco to be closer to their grandchildren.

“We came up here and said: ‘This home and lot have the most gorgeous view in all of Moab,’” she says.

However, work was in order to make the home complement its beautiful surroundings.

“We completely gutted the home in order to create a more contemporary-type home,” Whitbeck says. “We opened up rooms, we took out the swimming pool, we raised the roofline, we added bedrooms and bathrooms, and an additional family room.”

Exterior of the home in Moab, UT
Les Vierra

The result of their project is simply spectacular.

“When we remodeled upstairs in the family room, that’s actually sitting on top of rock face. The same goes for the bedrooms,” Whitbeck says.

“We raised the roofline, and the rock was already there, but it was very hard to see in there, because the roofline came down severely. When we raised it, we said: ‘Oh my gosh, there’s rock back in there.’ So, we decided to make use of that.”

The result are beds that sit on top of rock formations in two bedrooms on that side of the house.

“Sleeping on top of red rock is pretty cool,” Whitbeck says, adding that the rock holds heat in the winter and cools things down in the summer.

The family room has banquette-type seating that is actually rock.

The house has a total of five bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, including an in-law suite with a separate entrance and its own sandstone wall.

In the in-law suite, a lofted bedroom overlooks the living space.

The master bedroom sits in its own wing and has a large bath, closet, and private deck.

When remodeling the house, the Whitbecks added plenty of deck space where you can sit outside and admire the views.

“The house had no deck other than about 6 feet on this gorgeous property, so we added deck space, we added the infinity spa, and an outdoor room,” Whitbeck says.

A gazebo, putting green, and plenty of seating finish off the space.

In the kitchen, even the pantry has its own rock wall. The granite countertops are a striking green, and all of the appliances are stainless steel from Dacor, Miele, Bosch, and Sub-Zero.

“When you stand at the sink or are preparing a meal, you’re looking out on that vast landscape of red rock formations. Talk about relaxing cooking!” Whitbeck notes.

She adds that their friends often argue about where to sit at the dining room table, so they can have the best view.

While the home has undergone a fabulous renovation, the views remain constant.

“[The land] used to be part of Arches National Park, and somehow a deal was struck, but it is open space and it cannot be built on,” Whitbeck explains. “Our backyard extends for miles, looking out on to red rock formations.”

A walnut staircase connects the two floors and draws attention but does not steal the scene.

Visitors are flabbergasted, she says: “The first reaction is always, ’Oh my gosh, this view!’”

The home is private and sits about 15 minutes from the town of Moab. It is part of the Navajo Heights private and gated community, with 11 home sites near the Moab Golf Club.

A three-car garage with a lofted storage area can hold all the cars and toys you choose.

“The perfect buyer is someone who does enjoy the outdoors. Whether it’s someone who comes just because they love the beauty of the outdoors, or they are a sports enthusiast,” Whitbeck says.

Moab is known for mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing, river rafting, and the National Parks nearby.

The Whitbecks love the home, but are selling it for a good reason.

“The grandkids are the reason we moved to Utah in the first place. We thought we would be close enough to them,” she says.

However, they’re three hours away, and it turns out that that’s not close enough.

“It took a lot of soul-searching, I can tell you. We built our dream house and absolutely love it, but there’s nothing better than three little boys throwing their arms around your neck.”

The post Built Into the Red Rock, This Moab Masterpiece Is a Must-See appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

source https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/built-into-red-rock-moab-masterpiece/

Staten Island Home From 1970 Is a Pink Explosion

A spacious Staten Island, NY, house is a pink time capsule ready for a new owner to crack open its blush-colored charms.

“Everything is in very good condition,” says listing agent Richard Nichilo. “It may not be updated, but it’s in very good condition.”

Built in 1970, the home on Fingerboard Road is on the market for $829,000. It’s had only one owner—a person who is partial to the color pink.

“You have pink carpet throughout. The open steps are painted pink,” Nichilo explains. “It’s chic. The pink colors and all of that stuff, that was what was going on back then.”

Mirrors were also popular in the early ’70s, and there are plenty of them in this house.

“You’ve got to be real confident with all those mirrors,” Nichilo says with a laugh.

Even the vanity in one of the bathrooms is mirrored.

The house is plenty spacious with more than 2,600 square feet of living space, including four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Three bedrooms are upstairs, and one is downstairs. All have a retro style, especially the sunken tub and carpet in the master bathroom. There is also an orange toilet and lots of stonework.

“Somebody I know called me up when they saw the photos, and called it the ‘GoodFellas’ house,” Nichilo says. We can see it—the home does rock the decor vibes of Henry Hill’s mistress’ pad in the movie.

Another quirk has more to do with the home’s locale and history. The home comes with two kitchens on two different floors, which Nichilo says is typical of homes Italian immigrant families built in the area.

The owners primarily used the downstairs kitchen, which means the other kitchen is in pristine shape, Nichilo says.

“The upstairs kitchen is like new even though it’s from when the house was built,” he continues. “When it was built, it was a custom kitchen with a built-in refrigerator. … I would say it was the high end of Staten Island at that time.”

The main living area is sunken, which was also de rigueur five decades ago.

The home is located close to public transportation and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge connecting Brooklyn to Staten Island.

“It’s convenient to travel to Brooklyn or Manhattan. Within 3 minutes by car, you could be on the Staten Island Expressway,” Nichilo explains.

The home’s size is large for the area, and the furnace and tankless water heater were replaced within the past few years.

“The bones are solid, I mean really solid,” he says. “If someone wants to go in and update the home, they’d have a beautiful home when they’re done if they wanted to update and renovate to their taste.”

Or they can keep things as they are.

“I’ve had a few people who have actually liked the retro look,” Nichilo says. “The house is really well-maintained, and if somebody went for that vibe, they could move right in. Nothing surprises me anymore. There’s somebody for every house.”

The post Staten Island Home From 1970 Is a Pink Explosion appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

source https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/staten-island-time-capsule-home-from-1970-is-a-pink-explosion/

Renters in U.S. Cannot Be Evicted Through the End of the Year Due to Coronavirus, CDC Order States

Family being evicted — John Moore/Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention implemented a temporary eviction moratorium through the end of the year, protecting U.S. renters from losing their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration announced Tuesday.

The CDC’s moratorium will apply to all rental units nationwide until Dec. 31 and goes into effect immediately, senior administration officials said of an unpublished CDC agency order. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told a U.S. House of Representatives panel Tuesday that the moratorium would cover around 40 million renters.

A previous federal eviction moratorium created by the CARES Act ended in late July and only applied to federally-funded housing, including rental units with mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The moratorium will apply to any state in which there is not already a more protective ban in effect, according to the order. Multiple states have eviction moratoriums in place, including California, which established new rules in a late-night vote Monday.

Renters will be eligible for the moratorium’s protection if they received an economic impact payment, or stimulus check, as provided for by the CARES Act. Therefore, single renters must earn no more than $99,000 a year, while couples filing jointly can earn up to $198,000 annually.

The order, which was shared ahead of being published in the Federal Register on Sept. 4, includes a declaration for renters to sign and give their landlord. Senior Trump administration officials said the form would be made available on the CDC’s website.

Renters must indicate on the declaration that they cannot afford to pay their rent in full and that if evicted they would become homeless or force to move into congregate housing. Renters also must be able to prove that they made an effort to receive government assistance and that they could not afford rent.

The moratorium does not absolve renters of paying the rent. That money is still due to landlords, and senior administration officials said that renters should still attempt to make partial payments when they cannot afford to pay in full.

Landlords will still be permitted to evict tenants in certain cases, such as instances in which the tenant has destroyed property or poses a threat to the health or safety of neighbors.

The moratorium builds on a previous executive order from President Donald Trump that directed the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC to determine whether halting evictions was necessary to contain the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.

“In the context of a pandemic, eviction moratoria — like quarantine, isolation, and social distancing — can be an effective public health measure utilized to prevent the spread of communicable disease,” the CDC’s unpublished order said.

“President Trump is committed to helping hardworking Americans stay in their homes and combating the spread of the coronavirus,” White House deputy press secretary Brian Morgenstern said during a briefing Tuesday.

Housing advocates said the move was “long overdue,” but called for more help to be provided to renters facing financial difficulties amid historically high levels of unemployment caused by the pandemic.

“As we have said for five months, the very least the federal government ought to do is assure each of us that we won’t lose our homes in the middle of a global pandemic: The administration’s action would do so and will provide relief from the growing threat of eviction for millions of anxious families,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

“But while an eviction moratorium is an essential step, it is a half-measure that extends a financial cliff for renters to fall off of when the moratorium expires and back rent is owed,” Yentel added, while calling on Congress to pass another COVID-19 relief bill with at least $100 billion in emergency rental assistance. Previously, some lawmakers and activists called for a cancellation of rent during the pandemic.

Trump administration officials during Tuesday’s briefing said that renters and landlords would have access to emergency funds already in place, including billions of dollars in grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the $142 billion coronavirus relief fund from the Treasury Department.

Administration officials could not clarify whether the CDC moratorium would prevent eviction filings from occurring. Housing and legal advocates have raised concerns that landlords filed evictions against many people nationwide who should have been protected by the CARES Act moratorium.

The post Renters in U.S. Cannot Be Evicted Through the End of the Year Due to Coronavirus, CDC Order States appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

source https://www.realtor.com/news/real-estate-news/renters-in-u-s-cannot-be-evicted-through-the-end-of-the-year-due-to-coronavirus-cdc-order-states/

Aaron Lewis of Staind Lists His $3.5M Massachusetts Mansion

Aaron Lewis MA Mansion — realtor.com, Steve Jennings/WireImage

Staind frontman Aaron Lewis is selling his 14,240-square-foot mansion in Massachusetts so he can move to Nashville, TN, to be closer to the country music scene.

His 12-acre estate in Worthington, MA, is now on the market for $3.5 million.

Lewis bought the home in 2001 from Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

Both owners made use of a private fireproof vault area in a barn on the property.

“It has a bank vault door on it that is probably 4 inches thick,” says the listing agent, George Cain. “[Eastman] kept all the Ninja Turtle documents and videos down there. When Aaron bought it, he started storing some of his guitars in the vault.”

Besides the private vault, the barn also has a three-bedroom apartment in it.

Exterior of home in Worthington, MA
realtor.com

But the main house also serves as the main attraction. It features four bedrooms, five bathrooms, and three half-bathrooms.

“It’s got a huge master bedroom suite with an outstanding master bath with a slate steam shower and an overflow tub,” says Cain. An exercise room completes the suite.

Three more large bedrooms are located downstairs. There’s also an in-law suite.

The kitchen is high-end, with Viking appliances.

“It’s got a real feeling of quality,” Cain says. The space has a large island for food preparation and a bar with seating for several people.

Down a few stairs is a large great room with huge windows and an open feel.

“It is the true meaning of a great room. It’s absolutely stunning,” Cain explains. “You have these huge beams going across the ceilings, and it is carried throughout the house.”

Wood floors are a theme throughout the estate.

“It’s very impressive. The house is so big, if you put all of the wide-plank floorboards together, it would go well over a mile. It’s got a really rich look to it.” Cain says.

A separate but connected building houses an indoor Olympic-sized saltwater pool with the same post-and-beam feel of the rest of the house.

Lewis added an eight-car garage with radiant heat to the property. That storage spot serves in addition to a three-car garage, which was in place when Lewis bought the home.

“Aaron is a car collector, so he had vintage cars that he kept in there,” Cain explains. “Above the garage is a huge game room for the kids, and off the game room is an office.”

Most of the grounds are landscaped, and the property includes a fishing pond. The large barn features horse stalls, and trees surround the entire property.

“You can’t see the house from the street, so [the buyer] will be someone who wants privacy and space,” Cain says.

The location may be private, but it’s close to the restaurants and shops of Pittsfield, MA, and the cultural events of the Berkshires.

“It’s a rural setting, but you can be to culture in 35 minutes,” Cain says. “It’s not so far you can’t go out to dinner.”

Lewis, 48, co-founded Staind in Massachusetts in 1995. The metal band released seven albums and had its biggest hit in 2001, with the song “It’s Been Awhile.”

The post Aaron Lewis of Staind Lists His $3.5M Massachusetts Mansion appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

source https://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/aaron-lewis-staind-selling-massachusetts-mansion/

College Town Crisis: As Schools Go Online, Students Are Stuck in Ironclad Leases

In January, Rita Slavin‘s daughter signed an ironclad lease on an apartment near the University of California, Davis, to secure housing for her senior year of college. There was no way Slavin could have known that just a few months later her daughter Nicole‘s college classes would be held entirely online. She also had no clue that she would be suffering financially, or that Nicole and her roommate would have lost their jobs as the coronavirus pandemic plunged the nation into a recession.

Now the young women are trapped for the next year in a $2,020-a-month lease, which began in September. And they can’t get out of the contract unless they can find new tenants to take their place.

“I’m definitely losing sleep over this one,” says Slavin, 54, a paralegal who lives in Los Angeles. “It’s really rough because so many kids are stuck with these leases they desperately can’t get out of. It’s nearly impossible to find someone to take over a lease when everyone’s trying to get out of a lease. We’re even offering incentives such as free furniture, we will pay the first month’s rent—anything we can think of to make it more appealing.”

The students moved out of the apartment in April when the school first moved classes online in response to the COVID-19 crisis. That means they’ll be paying nearly a year-and-a-half’s rent on housing they’re not occupying.

Slavin’s plight isn’t unique. Across the country, many college students signed leases months in advance of the fall semester, expecting to return to school for in-person classes. Unfortunately, things often haven’t played out that way.

Some schools, including Harvard and Rutgers, along with the entire University of California system, announced this summer they would be predominantly online for the fall semester. Other schools, like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Michigan State University, changed course and announced they would go online for the rest of the semester only after students began returning and a surge of positive COVID-19 cases followed.

That’s left many students scrambling to get out of pricey leases. In some some cities, roommates can be charged $750 to $2,000 a bedroom. In some areas, a four-bedroom house could go for $6,000 or $7,000 a month, says San Francisco–based tenants rights attorney Joseph Tobener.

“We’re talking about significant sums of money,” says Tobener, who receives about 20 calls a week now from students and their families.

Typically, a single renter or group of roommates sign the lease, which can be co-signed by one or more of the students’ families to guarantee it. So if other students decide not to move in or pay their share for the apartment, the student and the family on the lease can be on the hook for the full monthly rent—unless new renters are found. While some students kicked off campus prefer to stay with their friends near their schools, many others are heading home to their families.

Getting out of these contracts can be nearly impossible without a force majeure clause—basically an act of God clause—written into the original lease. Few contracts contain such a clause, and going to court is expensive, especially if the lease requires the tenants to pay their landlord’s attorney fees.

But Tobener doesn’t blame the building owners, who are faced with losing money on vacant units if they let tenants out of their contracts.

“The landlords often save up for years to buy units in these college towns, thinking it’s going to be a stable source of income, and then the bottom falls out,” says Tobener. “Nobody could have predicted this.”

In busy college towns like Davis, signing a lease in January or February is the only way most students can guarantee housing for the fall semester. Before the pandemic there was typically only a 0.5% to 1% rental vacancy, says Davis-area real estate broker Eugene Chang of College Town Realty. He specializes in rentals and property management.

However, with classes being held online there are now plenty of apartments and rental houses to choose from. He expects the vacancy rate to hit 10% by October. As a result of the lower demand, prices are falling. Tenants desperate to sublease their units are offering to pay $500 to $700 of the monthly rent to attract folks to take their spots.

“Because of the pandemic, fewer people want to live with strangers,” says Chang. “And fewer people are looking.”

In Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina senior Philecia Klein, 21, doesn’t know if she’ll be able to get out of her lease for her two-bedroom apartment in a subdivided house near the university. The public relations major had lined up a few roommates who all later fell through because they were nervous about committing to housing during the pandemic.

She signed the lease solo this spring and moved into the apartment in July. Last month, the school announced that in-person classes would be moved online after a COVID-19 outbreak.

Her father is liable for the full $1,040 a month, although Klein plans to pay him back. However, she doesn’t want to owe her father a year’s worth of rent when she can’t physically go to class and she can live at home for free. She also doesn’t want to be “stuck in the craziness of coronavirus” in the college town.

“There’s no hope in finding someone to fill that second bedroom now, so I might as well move home,” says Klein.

She’s not optimistic her father will be able to get out of the lease, but she still has mixed feelings about moving: “It hurts my soul to think I could leave this apartment.”

The post College Town Crisis: As Schools Go Online, Students Are Stuck in Ironclad Leases appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

source https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/college-students-stuck-in-leases/