Like most New Yorkers I’m obsessed with real estate. It’s part of the DNA of this city. In Aspen they talk about ski reports. In L.A., it’s traffic and weather. In New York it’s real estate. We talk about the rulings on increases for rent-stabilized apartments. We drop into open houses in our co-op buildings “just to check out” our neighbor’s apartments. We pour over the articles that predict the rise, or fall, in apartment values they way suburbanites lust over yard and garden plans. And we follow the controversies surround gentrification of neighborhoods like reports from war fronts.
But we are but mere mortals. What if immortality were part of the math? What if real estate decision-making took account of extreme longevity? What if a 30-year mortgage were a fly spec in the overall scheme? Immortality puts another face on the real estate market.
A while back I wrote a vampire romance. I’m not sure if the book was any good, but the real estate choices were definitely top notch. The vampire at the center of the story lived in a renovated 19th century industrial loft building in Brooklyn. Each floor of the building was a distinct, purposeful and dimly lit vampire-centric environment.
Far into the story, the mortal lover discovers that the vampire is a famous and long dead composer. (I wont reveal his identity here, because I may rework that novel.) But right from the start, she’s impressed with his design choices in the renovations that transform what was once an industrial building into a magical kingdom, fit for supernatural creatures.
The spooky castles, lonely houses on the hill and desolate mansions on the moors that fill the landscape of paranormal and magical fiction, boil down to fabulous real estate choices.
What’s your favorite supernatural address? Is it Dracula’s castle? Griffin’s make shift boarding house laboratory in H.G. Wells’ ‘The Invisible Man’? What about Manderley in the truly inspiring mystery ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne Du Maurier? (One of my childhood favorites) Or is it the isolated country estate in ‘The Turn of the Screw’? There are so many wonderful, magical locations in paranormal and mystery literature. Share the one(s) that make you want to invest in real estate.
My favorite supernatural address is most definitely New Orleans. I lived on Anne Rice books in high school, and the first real trip I took as one to New Orleans. Not that I saw Lestat prowling around or any Mayfair witches out and about, but I really wanted to 😉 I watch House Hunters on HGTV all the time, and there was one on not long about someone looking for a one-bedroom in Manhattan for 400k. What buys a shoe box in NYC would buy a 3000 or more square foot house here in Idaho.
I haven’t gotten to New Orleans — yet. But it has definitely contributed to the real estate of literature!
As for the prices in NYC versus just about anywhere else (except London) the joke always goes… “I could sell my tiny studio for half a million (or even $750,000.00) and move to a gigantic place in (fill in the blank) but the commute to NYC would kill me.” LOL… Variations on that theme keep New Yorkers in the city — until they really want to leave.
I would like to more know about Idaho. The landscape, the scale… those two elements alone could create the real estate backdrop for some pretty wild stories and, I think I’ve read a few (in Such is Life)…
I think my prime location would have to be Hogwarts. Not only is it a castle and full of all the necessary parts to give it a Gothic feel but the interior moves about according to it’s own whim so you could ever get bored.
xxx Humungus Hugs Candy xxx
Great idea — the real estate itself is magical!
Last summer I read a book with a library that contorted itself and portals into magical worlds (through mirrors and other reflective surfaces) an environment with the capacity to morph on its own is a serious piece of real estate.
Oh so easy – the setting of The Turn of the Screw! But if I owned such a fantastic building I’d have to install automatic shutters on the windows. Those shutters would close at sunset and not open again until dawn. 😉
I saw the movie with [a very young] Deborah Kerr before I hunted down the book, so I’m forever haunted by that window scene!
LOL… I think I’d go with Manderley from “Rebecca.”
I honestly don’t remember if I read the book before I saw the 1940 Hitchcock film, with Joan Fountaine & Laurence Olivier, or after, but I’ve seen the movie many, many times. The house is like a character — half the domain of the horrifying housekeeper (Mrs. Danvers) and half the ghost of the first Mrs. de Winter.
The opening line is a killer —— “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”
Daphne du Maurier knew how to write!