Palimpsest, could add the link to the listing, please? Thank you.

Sure. Here you go

Here is a link that might be useful: Berkshire Hathaway Fox Roach.

I love this house! Not everything in it, but the house and all that glass, yes!

I'd want to redo the bathroom, update the kitchen and replace the green carpet -- and I'm sure there would be project creep, but I like the house. Upstairs at least. I wonder if there are any windows downstairs. That could be a problem. The "as is" makes me wonder if the windows are failing, they are single pane glass that makes it impossible to heat and cool inside.

Lovely to look at, but would seem a structural nightmare, not to mention the energy costs!

I like it. Makes me miss my glass house.

I love it! Good point about energy efficiency. To replace all of those windows could be spendy!

This room is downstairs, I think, and the other bedrooms downstairs have windows like this too. The upstairs is all vaulted. It's built into a hill.

I have a feeling you could spend an amount equal to the purchase price on the renovations.

Wow, whatever happened to that ceiling looks $$$. Maybe even $ $$$,$$$.$$

The deck reminds me of a modern house we went to see when buying. It had a huge cantilevered deck...and major hills/dips in the floor where the deck was tied into the house. Nightmare!

Somehow, visually, if not in actuality, the support for this peaked roof just seems inadequate.

I think whatever is going on with the ceiling is more related to the ductwork and incomplete combustion of the furnace rather than water. It mostly looks like dirt or soot built up around the vents. But I would be concerned about that roof from both a leak and insulation standpoint.

If this house is anything like mine, HVAC-wise, it's probably inadequate with an undersized air-conditioner and oversized furnace. There probably isn't a good cold air return system either, and it may be sucking air out of the basement, and out of filthy ducts.

In terms of visual support, I think we are looking at this ceiling from a different stylistic perspective. We are currently in an era of heavily detailed, heavily "beamed" ceilings, with all sorts of coffers and other "structural" looking details, most of which are unnecessary--except as design interest. Technically I think we would be able to make this ceiling look even *less supported, more like it floats over the house than they could 50 years ago. Ironically, we can do it, but most people aren't interested in it looking that way at this time, and they struggled to get that unsupported look, then.

I love this house. It is not at all the style that I am usually drawn to but it looks like it totally fits into it's surroundings and I think it's gorgeous. Thanks for sharing Pal.

Yes indeed.

I love it -- with some changes to the flooring -- and kitchens and bathrooms .... hope someone can really have the funds to make it all work! :)

........ but I just might keep that bathroom sink ...... octagonal ..... coooooolllllll .....:)

Absolutely awesome! Wish we had nice things like that in Charleston.

Thanks for adding the link. I like this house a lot, but I agree that it will need at least $200,000 - $300,000 to fix and that's assuming there isn't some structural issue with the foundation settling. Clearly the skylight in the kitchen has leaked, but you can't see if there is mold. The listing says it has central air, but doesn't define the type of heating system. Would it normally be a gas furnace in that area for that age of house?

I would say this is natural gas forced hot air. I don't see any baseboard heating which I would associate with electric baseboard, or oil-fired hot water which are the other typical applications of the place/time.

I don't know that there are any small expenses in this house. New HVAC is going to be five figures, new kitchen and baths are going to be five figures--six for three baths and the kitchen-- the windows are going to be very expensive even if they are not high end, low profile units.

Again, comparing this to my house, which has several floor to ceiling windows and an entire wall of glass, this house looks like it has some windows that are nothing more than a single pane held in with a piece of quarter round or stop. (The original non-opening windows in my house are 2x4 wood with sheet glass and quarter round, cobbled with ventilating units).

The thing about these sorts of windows is that they look great because they almost disappear. The frames are super thin, and it almost appears as if the glass is attached to the wall or sill rather than being a "window". The replaced windows in my house have thick, ungainly frames and really ruin the line of the opening. I don't even want to think about how expensive it would be to put in the right sort of high/efficiency, super low profile sort of windows houses like this need.

Depending upon the philosophy of the buyer of this house, they really could consider tearing it down, and of course to build something that Looks like this but has the proper infrastructure and all for today would be extremely expensive, so it would probably be replaced with the typical neo-eclectic 2000s house.

The listing isn't calling it a teardown, but they aren't really saying you could live in it as it is either. Sometimes when someone has been there a long time the owner and the house accommodate to each other and a sort of symbiosis is reached. But my experience (somewhat limited) is that once something changes--like a new owner--the house, which has been deteriorating for years, starts to undergo an accelerated downhill course.

Technically, my house is livable, but that is if you don't mind a twenty degree difference in temperature between floors 1 and 3, plumbing that springs leaks, and questionable electric, a rotting deck, rotting window and door sills, and a roof that will leak in certain sorts of situations. I would imagine this house is similar.

I know what you mean about living with flaws. My house is "only" 25 years old and the original owner maintained it very well, but it still has a long list of maintenance chores that my contractor has slowly been completing. It's quite an eye opener for me because this is the first house I've lived in where I've been responsible for the exterior maintenance.

I keep praying that the 25-year-old built-in refrigerator/freezer doesn't give up the ghost. I put a new compressor in shortly after I bought the house 10 years ago which turned out to be a good decision considering how much a new unit would cost.

The listing sheet under features mentioned oil forced hot air for heat. Also that the cooking is electric. If there is gas on the street you could bring it in...otherwise you would have to go the propane route.

Palimpsest I hear you about a "livable" home...My pre-revolutionary home has lead paint on some of the paneling, the same difference in heat between floors that you have, sump pumps in the basement, drafts everywhere, a septic that will need to be replaced someday, some copper and lead pipes that have had some leaks,....and the beat goes on!

He who live in glass house, dress in basement.

(Cool home!)

Great house, lots of potential if it can be restored. Love that deck.

Miz_M - unless you have a big lot! This is my concern with the vacation house/cottage we are building. How long will it take us to accept the fact that there is no one to see us through the big windows?

And you just know there's no insulation in that roof...or much anywhere.

Flat/low slope shingle roof + lots of trees and moisture = not good for long term survival of house.

We tore down a house with a similar design aesthetic, it was nice to look at, but the flat tar and gravel roof over the years had turned into an unintentional "green roof" and the structure basically had rotted from the top down. I suspect as the previous owners had aged they were no longer able to make the frequent trips up there to do the necessary work to maintain the roof.

Even if it doesn't make sense to fix up this particular house, the site is lovely and one could still build something with lots of windows. (Preferably with a metal roof and a maintenance service.)

I believe you can find out what the utilities were just by calling the utility companies. PA is COLD, I live in OHIO and it's COLD! I can't imagine all that glass in a house that's located in PA! It's a beautiful home though. Being sold as is doesn't really mean that it's a bad house, just means that they don't plan on fixing it's problems "do you want it or not, buy it like it is and don't expect ME to pay for repairs!". When you buy a house (normally) repairs are used as negotiations when bidding on a property, being sold as is just means not to try and make offers based on repairs that are needed. Just have the home inspected by a reputable inspector. Repairs are costly! We recently had a hand full of repairs done and at $55 an hour for an electrician and a plumber, it didn't take long to spend $1000 for pretty much NOTHING!

Glass homes for sale. Apparently, one man's trash is another man's treasure and look at those prices...holy smokes!

Here is a link that might be useful: glass homes for sale for lots of money

Reminds me of a lot of the houses here in the PNW. Forested, with a lot of emphasis on views. Of course, we've a completely different climate. I think I could live in a house like that-I'd actually prefer no WT!

No thanks! We have a high maintenance house because of the site placement, the two creeks, busy beavers building dams, conservation management of about 10 acres, a half mile driveway with seven huge culverts that still don't stop all the erosion, that has to be regraded every other year, on and on, ad infinitum, now and forever, amen. DH loves this place......but it would fall down around him for lack of maintenance if he was responsible for it. :-(